I've been running the flight in my mind. The crew knew they
were over the LOM as they turned outbound [established in
the hold] and if they had been thinking about the navigation
problem, known that they needed to fly 2-4 minutes outbound
for position. Then they would have been able to descend to
2600 when intercepting the LOC inbound. But they obviously
were flying some avionics and not thinking about their
position and timing. As a result they just did a 360 over
the LOM and then also ignored the RMI indications of the
ADF.

This points out my worry that modern avionics removes the
"thinking" process from piloting. When all we had was a VOR
and an ADF, pilots learned to make a moving map in their own
head. When that "map" worked, they were able to pass a
checkride. Now that the map is on the panel, if you lose
your place, there is a real problem detecting the error.

Also, the missed approach, particularly when a turn is
required, must be done anytime you have the slightest
uncertainty.


"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...
| Jim Macklin wrote:
| I will apologize if I offended you or some other
commuter
| pilot. But in my experience with commuter operations,
and
| pilots, the aircraft are usually only equipped with
basic
| avionics. Further, the operating profile doesn't
| necessarily apply to corporate 1,000 mile trips in a
King
| Air.
|
| But based on what you have said, it is even more of a
puzzle
| as to why and how did this accident happen.
|
| One possibility is that the ship's DME was inoperative,
thus confusion
| ensued about how to get that particular GPS installation
to pinch-hit as
| a DME.
|
| This is pure speculation on my part.
|
| What is not speculation on my part is how poorly equipped
this
| particular King Air was considering the high-value use to
which it was
| put. The owners simply cannot escape some moral
responsibility for the
| accident by not having added perhaps a Garmin 530 (or 500
if their
| conventional avionics were in good shape). And, with that
kind of money
| why not a TAWS?
|
| Shortly after the NTSB released the flight track I ran the
flight in
| both MFSF 2004 with the Reality XP Sandel TAWS and then
with my Garmin
| 296 in the simulator mode.
|
| With any type of readily available terrain warning system,
even "just" a
| Garmin 296/396/496, these pilots would have received ample
terrain warning.
|
| When flight operations get to the sophisticated level of
operating a
| twin-engine turboprop, things are bound to fall through
the cracks
| without some competent form of flight operations
management.