The Swearingen-TEB incident: control issues with twins

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:I4une.4992$Sl5.2242@trndny08...

snippage

"My father worked on the Martin assembly line in Baltimore."

Hence the B26's other nickname: "The Baltimore Wh*re"

;O)

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:16:51 -0700, "Jay Beckman"
wrote:

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:I4une.4992$Sl5.2242@trndny08...

snippage

"My father worked on the Martin assembly line in Baltimore."

Hence the B26's other nickname: "The Baltimore Wh*re"

;O)

The various nicknames such as the above "Baltimore Whore" and"The
Flying Prostitute", referred to the airplanes ability to seemingly
"fly without any visible means of support", due to it's
extraordinarily short pair of wings. :-D

Corky Scott

Corky,

Well put.

The B-26 was the first high wing loading airplane the Army used and it
demonstrated that the training procedures in use were way out of date
and dangerous (as I recall, the wing loading is today considered no big
deal - about the same as a Cessna 310 - but then it was completely
new). Once the training got figured out, the airplane did extremely
well, its speed made it valuable in combat. Naturally, having a nasty
(and undeserved) initial reputation, it never really got over it and
the Army dumped it, but after flying the kiddy car B-25, which is so
very easy to fly, it's understandable why it was kept and the -26
dumped once peace rolled around.

The horror stories of single engine handling ran around the block
pretty fast, and were naturally exaggerated by pilots who weren't so
hot in the first place and had to blame their own shortcomings on the
airplane. With appropriate training, the airplane flew as well as
anything else on one engine, however, Vmc was so high that there were
circumstances (as with the B-25) where power on the good engine had to
be reduced to maintain control of the airplane.

A major part of the problems with the B-26 were due to the Curtiss
Electric props, Prop malfunctions killed a lot of people and now the
FAA will not approve the electrics on the remaining airplanes that had
them, they have to use hydraulic props.

Another challenge was that the generator switches were located behind
the pilot's head (who designed switch positions back then?). If you
forgot to turn on the generators (and many did because of the switch
position and macho-posturing pilots who didn't use checklists), you had
enough juice in the batteries to start, taxi out and takeoff. At that
point the batteries went flat and the props ran away (went flat), which
was nearly unrecoverable.

All the best,
Rick

On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 15:03:52 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:


wrote in message
roups.com...
An engine loss in a Garrett powered aircraft such as the Swearingen or
MU-2 would be quite noticeable at any power setting.

The Negative Torque Sensor (NTS) on the Garrett TPE331's will dump oil
pressure from the prop dome when the engine flames out. The spring load
on the prop will drive the prop to a high pitch, lower drag
configuration, but does not feather the prop. The pilot must manually
perform this task.

I have been told that in a MU-2 with a four bladed prop, should an
engine quit and the NTS fail, a minimun turn of 90 degress will occur
before the pilot gets the prop feathered. The NTS should be checked
every engine start and is a no go item should it not test properly.

The Searingen Metro, like th MU-2, is a handful of airplane with 2
pilots and 2 engines. One pilot and one engine? ew.......


G. Lee


It is not quite as bad as all that. NTS failures on takeoff are saveable at
least in the simulator but immediate feathering is required. The airplane
will not yaw or roll 90 deg.

I have experienced (in the simulator) NTS failures on takeoff in the
Turbo Commander (TPE-331 powered) and agree that it was saveable in
this airplane. I have also experienced uncommanded thrust reverser
deployments in Citation Bravo Simulator and found this to be at least
as much a handful as the NTS failure. Both simulators were at Flight
Safety International and were full motion machines.

Klein