Mu schrieb:

Hmm sounds sensible in a Cold War environment with buckets of canned
sunshine being thrown around.

Well, the PA200 is a aircraft from the cold war aera...

But now a question to pilots or folks in the know:
Do they train flying "mech mode" and if so how?
Just in the sims or sometimes for real as in.
"IP to student: I flipped the switch to mech mode. Show me how you
smooth you can land this baby"?

No real training in mech mode (mech mode is an emergency system and not
selectable by a switch, and having it activated once means that after
the aircraft is back on the ground it has to go to service for having
the honeycomb package replaced). You can train that in the simulator,
but usually there is no special training for flying in mech mode...

And if a pilot can apparently fly safe in "mech mode" does that mean
that the Tornado is not inherent unstable like the F16? Or at least
not very inherent unstable?

No, it's not. The PA200 is a very stable aircraft, there are no real
surprises for the pilot when in mech mode. There is a little yaw
tendency that gets suppressed by the yaw damper in CSAS and that shows
up in mech mode, and you loose functions like auto rudder or SPILS (spin
preventer/AOA limiter), stick feel simulation and such. Nothing which is
really a problem for emergency operation...

Benjamin