On 8/6/19 4:33 PM, Bob Kuykendall wrote:
On Tuesday, August 6, 2019 at 2:28:30 PM UTC-7, kinsell wrote:

Tried to start his electric low over a high-density urban area, got
nothing but grinding sounds. Too low even to fire the ballistic chute.

Better check your facts on that. As I understand it, it was absolutely not a case of FES not starting. Rather, he'd been running the FES motor for some time before it quit, likely because he ran out of juice.

From the original discussion on this, the pilot who had been flying
with him that day said he had run his motor previously, but tried to
restart with the computer showing 18 minutes left. He got nothing but
grinding sounds. So maybe "as you understand it" isn't correct.




Apparently the gauge said there was 20% capacity remaining. We all know how reliable aircraft fuel capacity gauges are...


Actually, on electric systems they're quite good. You do understand the
difference between electricity and gasoline?




But, yeah, beyond that the whole thing reflects very poorly on the pilot's planning and execution.

Startup interval is an important metric because it determines how soon you know which contingencies remain available. If it takes half a minute to deploy the engine and see if it's going to produce power, and you're coming down at 1000 fpm, your options are dwindling about as rapidly as your pulse rate is excalating. When you can flick one switch and twist a knob and know within a couple seconds that you can drive away from the hole you dug, it's a pretty strong motivator.


--Bob K.


Are you serious about this? You're going down at 1000 fpm and you
really think an FES is going to save you? Wow.