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

Mxsmanic wrote:
Doug writes:

Before everyone jumps all over Garmin keep in mind that what caused
this was the auxilary fuel tank!

No. What caused it was a design flaw in the G1000.

It created a condition that the Garmin unit could not handle.

Because of defective design in the Garmin unit.

There are LOTS of these Garmin units out there working
very well, very few complaints at all. ALL of the new Cessnas have them
and they are WORKING!

They are not working if they reboot, and apparently Garmin knows of
anomalies.

How such a mess got certified for anything is a mystery to me.

It would appear that applies to all aviation for you, it's a mystery,

but it pumped gas into an overfull
tank causing the fuel to go overboard and read "more than full".
While the wing tank did lose fuel through its drain system, I believe
it stopped "reading" all together. Where did Mr. Rhine indicate in
his narrative, that it was "reading" more than full?

He didn't - that was speculation as to the cause later on. With the
fuel "more than full", the sensors would be reading "more than full" and
sending that info to the Garmin.

The Garmin went nuts.

OF course, cause and effect has not been determined, but it's a
reasonable starting point for Usenet quarterbacking.

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" wrote:
Judah wrote:
"Montblack" wrote:
"Judah" wrote:

Are you aware that the Jews have the monopoly on answering a
question with a question?

You don't say?

Did you think that making a statement and putting a question mark at
the end counts as a question?

Are we really playing the question game here on r.a.p.?

What kind of rhetorical question is that?

What right do you have to question my question?

Who do you think you are that you can question my question of your
question? (Did I get that right?)

(Does the question game come from Roar of the
Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd? Or am I
misremembering it entirely?)

How would I know?

Didn't the TV show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" have a game called "Questions
Only" where the participants could only act out a scene using questions?

Recently, Jose posted:

but it pumped gas into an overfull
tank causing the fuel to go overboard and read "more than full".
While the wing tank did lose fuel through its drain system, I believe
it stopped "reading" all together. Where did Mr. Rhine indicate in
his narrative, that it was "reading" more than full?

He didn't - that was speculation as to the cause later on. With the
fuel "more than full", the sensors would be reading "more than full"
and sending that info to the Garmin.

The Garmin went nuts.

OF course, cause and effect has not been determined, but it's a
reasonable starting point for Usenet quarterbacking.

What I find interesting in all this Usenet quartebacking is ignoring the
shoddy installation job of other panel-mounted devices:

NW_Pilot
"The chances of myself refering or using this company for tanking is slim
I
did not pick this company the customer did and the customer was not happy
with their services anyway they did a **** poor job at cutting the panel
when they installed the ADF and PS eng. entertainment system. (I could
have
done a better job with a hack saw and a drill) and the painting on the
Horton kit they installed looked like orange peal!"

I think its reasonable to think that some of the G1000's wiring or the
unit itself was damaged during this hack. Even attaching the power to the
ADF or entertainment system in a way that caused the power to the G1000 to
be flaky or intermittent could account for the drastic failure modes he
experienced.

Neil

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
"Doug" wrote:
Before everyone jumps all over Garmin keep in mind that what caused
this was the auxilary fuel tank! It created a condition that the Garmin
unit could not handle.

I do write software for a living. From what (little) information is
available to us, it sounds like the G1000 got an unexpected sensor reading
and that caused a total system crash. That should never happen. No
external input to a program (especially one where human lives depend on
it)
should ever crash because of bad input.

I agree!

"Stefan" wrote in message
...
Matt Whiting schrieb:

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

It was a *ferry flight* in an airplane which was not supposed to ever fly
over water again. You want full redundancy installed for one ferry flight?
Ok, just don't ferry fly then.

Stefan


Look where the plane went! I assure you that it is going to over fly water
again in IMC conditions!

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On 5 Oct 2006 03:09:48 -0700, "Doug"
wrote in .com:

Before everyone jumps all over Garmin keep in mind that what caused
this was the auxilary fuel tank!

First, let me say, that I am a fan of Garmin products; I'm
particularly impressed with their logical user interface.

I would characterize the aux tanks role as only _precipitating_ the
Garmin equipment failure.

It created a condition that the Garmin unit could not handle.

Lacking evidence to the contrary at this time, there is little doubt
in my mind, that the Garmin design, with it's lack of redundancy and
over integration of systems, when faced with an out of range sensor
input took out all navigation, communications, and other systems
functionality. Such design strategy is gravely flawed, and borders on
criminal negligence.

But the stock Cessna setup would never create this condition!

How did you reach that questionable conclusion?

I think the real blame here has to be on the auxilary fuel design.

While the aux fuel tank system design has its shortcomings, for a
one-time use mission, it is acceptable, IMO. The true culprits are
the flawed instructions for its use, and the incompetence of the staff
who were responsible for its installation, as well as the FAA
personnel who certified it.

There are LOTS of these Garmin units out there working
very well, very few complaints at all. ALL of the new Cessnas have them
and they are WORKING!

Be that as it may, they are a ticking time bomb, IMO.

Also keep in mind that the backup systems did work here. He was able to
fly the aircraft on the instruments he had.

That was a result of Mr. Rhine's foresight in equipping his flight
with portable devices to supplement the Garmin equipment, and the helo
that guided him through the instrument approach. Without that help
and equipment, it is very unlikely the outcome would have been the
same.

If you disagree, please explain how you'd have navigate 200 miles in
IMC, and execute an instrument approach with only compass, airspeed,
altimeter and attitude indicator.


The, Airport was not IMC just a thin layer About 2,000' thick around 10,000'
If you read it Was a spiraling decent to land the helo just kept me away
form the rather large mountains and gave me a visual fix to spiral around!
If it would have been bad weather an instrument conditions an instrument
approach would have been almost impossible.

Stefan wrote:

Matt Whiting schrieb:

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


It was a *ferry flight* in an airplane which was not supposed to ever
fly over water again. You want full redundancy installed for one ferry
flight? Ok, just don't ferry fly then.

I'd prefer it for all flights given the importance of fuel supply in an
airplane and given the fairly high rate of fuel exhaustion incidents. I
especially want redundancy with a system as fragile as the G1000 appears
to be.

Matt

Doug wrote:

Before everyone jumps all over Garmin keep in mind that what caused
this was the auxilary fuel tank! It created a condition that the Garmin
unit could not handle. But the stock Cessna setup would never create
this condition! I think the real blame here has to be on the auxilary
fuel design. There are LOTS of these Garmin units out there working
very well, very few complaints at all. ALL of the new Cessnas have them
and they are WORKING!

If an out of range sensor reading can cause the system to fail, that is
a design flaw pure and simple. The fact that it is never supposed to
happen is no excuse. Same thing happened to the Ariane rocket (Ariane 5
if memory serves) although the outcome was a little more severe.


Matt

Yeah, and I'll bet that handheld was a Garmin....

houstondan wrote:
well, actually, the way i understand it the only reason he got out of
this alive was that he had a back-up handheld gps that pointed him to
an airport. it really looks like if he would have only had what garmin
and cessna put in that plane he very well may not have made it.

dan


Doug wrote:

(((( SNIP)))


There are LOTS of these Garmin units out there working
very well, very few complaints at all. ALL of the new Cessnas have them
and they are WORKING!

Also keep in mind that the backup systems did work here. He was able to
fly the aircraft on the instruments he had.