HondaJet: Not A Steam Gage In Sight

Recently, Larry Dighera posted:

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:21:49 GMT, "Neil Gould"
wrote in
:

Recently, Larry Dighera posted:

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:10:18 GMT, "Neil Gould"
wrote in

After all, why would it be reasonable to suspect that fuel would be
venting from tanks that were shut off, supposedly taking them out
of the system,

If the prudent pilot of a transatlantic flight has invested the time
required to familiarize himself with the design and operation of the
aircraft's fuel system upon which his safety depends for the over
water portion of his course, prior to departure, he would know, that
the wing tanks remain in the system regardless of the position of
the fuel selector and fuel shutoff valves.

and that the "fix" would be to disregard the specific
instructions on the use of the aux tank?

If the prudent pilot of a transatlantic flight has invested the time
required to familiarize himself with the design and operation of the
aircraft's fuel system upon which his safety depends for the over
water portion of his course, he would have a good chance of figuring
out what was occurring, IMO. I know I would have thoroughly
scrutinized the POH, and mentally analyzed the function of the fuel
system and its modifications, before departing.

So, in essence, you are saying that Mr. Rhine's main problem was
that he didn't reverse-engineer the installations of the aux tank
and electronics, because had he done that, he would have known that
the instructions for the use of the aux tank were eroneous and that
there were problems with the electronics.

I'm not saying anything about Mr. Rhine being wrong.

I didn't say that you said anything about Mr. Rhine being wrong.

Frankly, I think that would be beyond many (if not most)
pilots' capabilities.

If a pilot is incapable of understanding his aircraft's fuel system,
he should not be certified to fly it.

It isn't a matter of being capable of understanding the aircraft's fuel
system, One can be clearly capable of understanding it without being able
to verify the correctness of the information that lead to the
understanding. In Mr. Rhine's case, I'm sure he could understand the
misinformation that he was given, as it was not all that complex. But, it
was quite wrong, and that was the root of the problem.

Given your own predisposition towards thinking that
the G1000's failure was in a problem of its design (e.g. calling Mr.
Rhine's failure experience a "mode") rather than a side-effect of a
botched installation of unrelated panel components, I think it may be
unreasonable to think that the average pilot could analyze such a
situation any better than Mr. Rhine did.

I fail to understand how the Garmin G1000's continuous re-boot mode
can be seen as anything other than a failure mode. If Garmin had
conceived of a modular, fault tolerant design, such a failure mode may
not have occurred.

There is no such thing, and that exact reboot experience (it's not a MODE)
could be expected if the problem was a munged power source by virtue of
either an intermittent ground or overtaxed supply that drops the available
current below the required amount.

The average pilot doesn't fly solo across the Atlantic, so I'm not
sure your opinion is relevant.

You are the one who repeatedly brings it up. In

The most recent C172 that I've flown was our club's C172SP. I would
not call its construction as being conducive to such an analysis by
anyone other than an A&P.

Does not the POH contain a fuel system schematic diagram and theory of
operation information? It shouldn't be beyond the average pilot's
ability to comprehend that information.

As above, if that information is wrong, then the value of that
understanding is nil. The information provided to Mr. Rhine regarding the
aux tank was wrong, according to his report, so the problem was not one of
comprehension.

Since the instructions included by the installer of the
aux tanks were clearly wrong, the only way to understand the actual
installation of the aux tank and its impact on the C172's fuel system
would be to take the plane apart.

The ONLY way? Please. Why couldn't one request a similar aux fuel
system schematic diagram and theory of operation information as
contained in the POH from the aux tank STC holder.

You are proposing exactly what Mr. Rhine did; trusted the accuracy of the
information he was given. That doesn't verify the installation or impact
on the existing fuel system.

I did not have the impression that this was one of Mr. Rhine's
options.

A pilot always has the option of requesting more information, no?

A volume of misinformation is useless. I don't see why this is such a
difficult concept to grasp.

Neil