NW_Pilot's Trans-Atlantic Flight -- All the scary details...

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:01:55 -0400, Andrew Gideon
wrote in :

The Garmin audio panel in our planes has a nifty feature. If the panel is
powered down, the pilot's headset is connected to COM1. Thus,
communication survives the failure of the audio panel.

It would be interesting to know how VHF communications were affected
in Mr. Rhine's mishap.

Andrew Gideon wrote:

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 01:16:08 +0000, Matt Whiting wrote:


I believe that there are many reasons for redundancy and the potential for
a poorly designed system is one of them.


If we assume a bug that causes a G1000 to fail due to bad data coming from
a sensor, for example, then it doesn't matter if we've a dozen G1000s in
the airplane. Dealing with bad design requires diversity as well as
redundancy.

I'd prefer redundancy at both the sensor and instrument level if I was
flying IFR across the pond.

Matt

Jay Honeck wrote:

Personally, I think you'd have to be dumber than a box of rocks to pay
that much for a Baron -- hell, you can get a nice biz-jet for less --
but there were apparently 17 people in 2005 that possessed the unique
dual-qualities of "dumb enough to do it, and rich enough to afford
it"...

Yes....but, He has to get training and a check flight in that
biz-jet every year....to fly the Baron, just a Flight Review
in a Cessna 172 every two years. I've done Flight Reviews for
a couple of guys who traded in their biz-jets for high performance
twins just because of age, the jet training/check at Flight Safety
became more than they could handle.


Good point -- but my comment was more aimed at the price of a new Baron
than at the quality of the pilots. I mean, my God -- $1.7 MILLION for
a piston twin? Given what that would buy on the slightly-used
market, it's just insane to give Raytheon that much money...

It's all relative. A lot of folks think that about any airplane
compared to a car. You can buy a ratty old airplane for $80,000 or a
brand new Lexus that is 10 times more comfortably and have money left
over for several nice vacations.

Matt

Jay Honeck wrote:

Personally, I think you'd have to be dumber than a box of rocks to pay
that much for a Baron -- hell, you can get a nice biz-jet for less --
but there were apparently 17 people in 2005 that possessed the unique
dual-qualities of "dumb enough to do it, and rich enough to afford
it"...

Is that a typical price range for a plane in the Baron's category? If
not, why is the Baron special?


The Baron (and all Raytheon/Beech products) is considered to be the
"Cadillac" airplane, meaning extremely durable, well-engineered, and
pricey.

Or, to those of us who think it's crazy, they're heavy,
over-engineered, and over-priced.

It's all in the eye of the beholder, of course, but spending $1.7
million for a light piston twin is just stupid, IMHO.

No, stupid is going into the hotel business. :-)

Matt

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 17:04:27 -0500, Emily wrote:

Eh, as a CFI, I really don't care where I sit.

Well...you've a solution, then. You can be in a relationship with a
pilot as long as he is not a CFI. You get right, he gets left, nothing
remains open for discussion.

I know several single male non-CFI pilots, if you're interested in an
introduction. However, I can provide no guarantees that any would never
achieve a CFI (which is a flaw in my little scheme, I admit).

rec.aviation.piloting.matches anyone?

Laugh

- Andrew

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 22:22:21 +0000, Matt Whiting wrote:

If we assume a bug that causes a G1000 to fail due to bad data coming
from a sensor, for example, then it doesn't matter if we've a dozen
G1000s in the airplane. Dealing with bad design requires diversity as
well as redundancy.

I'd prefer redundancy at both the sensor and instrument level if I was
flying IFR across the pond.

Good point. But diversity still helps, lest a design flaw in the one
sensor design triggers a design flaw in the one instrument design.

- Andrew

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 22:24:39 GMT, Matt Whiting
wrote in :

You can buy a ratty old airplane for $80,000 or a
brand new Lexus that is 10 times more comfortably and have money left
over for several nice vacations.

But, you're confined to two dimensions.

Andrew Gideon writes:

Good point. But diversity still helps, lest a design flaw in the one
sensor design triggers a design flaw in the one instrument design.

Software requires diversity rather than redundancy. In practice this
means having two or three or more software packages that perform
exactly the same functions, but are written in different ways by
different development teams. It's unlikely that they will all fail in
the same way at the same time, because they are completely different
internally. This helps make the system more robust.

Something tells me that this concept never even crossed anyone's mind
at Garmin for the G1000.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:01:55 -0400, Andrew Gideon
wrote in :

The Garmin audio panel in our planes has a nifty feature. If the panel is
powered down, the pilot's headset is connected to COM1. Thus,
communication survives the failure of the audio panel.

It would be interesting to know how VHF communications were affected
in Mr. Rhine's mishap.


Ever time the system rebooted I had VHF comms for a few min + I had the Ham
Radio!

Larry Dighera wrote:

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 22:24:39 GMT, Matt Whiting
wrote in :


You can buy a ratty old airplane for $80,000 or a
brand new Lexus that is 10 times more comfortably and have money left
over for several nice vacations.


But, you're confined to two dimensions.

Ok, so you mentioned the other advantage people often mention!

Matt