First of all, here's a pic of Nolan being philosophical while wearing a monkey hat. I'm absolutely in love, even though he's currently living life on Australian time :)
Now this is kind of a total bait n' switch on my part because this next Youtube video is one of the most tense and disturbing things I have ever listened to. *SPOILER* The guys live. I'm saying this ahead of time because otherwise it would be pretty unbearable listening. I found this video posted on AvCanada.
This is a Mitsubishi MU-2 in severe icing, over the mountains, trying to make it to Kelowna BC. Kelowna is in a valley, with high mountains all around.
The MU-2 has gotten a pretty bad reputation in icing, in fact it was subject to a full icing recertification review after some high-profile accidents. The review found that the MU-2 was properly certified for flight into icing, and that it's perfectly safe to fly in light-to-moderate icing as long as you follow the proper procedures. If you disrespect the airplane in icing, you will hear the angels singing sooner rather than later. I'm absolutely NOT saying that's what happened in this situation, it sounds to me like they were doing everything right but got caught in severe icing, which by definition will even overwhelm icing equipment that's working properly.
If you check the first part of this video, you'll hear the the guys picked up a lot of icing, and it caused a propellor imbalance. That can cause some serious vibration, to the point of the prop departing the aircraft. The only solution is to reduce power (and descend), or keep the power up and hope the plane doesn't shake apart. A hell of a choice.
I flew the MU-2 for just over a thousand hours, and my older blog entries are full of stories about it. A beautiful machine, but particularly unforgiving.
5 comments:
My daughter was born at 2200 and we joke that she came out with a champagne glass and cigar and wanted to party all night. It took her about a month to get her nights and days straightened out, but in the meantime I had an active 19 month old who wondered why Momma was always so tired.
It'll get better. I promise.
Congrats on the family, it will be a while before you stop staring at him for sure.
Listened to the audio, my g/f came to check on me in response to my apparently "girlish" gasp upon hearing "4000ft/min"
Dear God, even though you "spoiled" the video I nearly crapped my pants at the 4000 ft/min and "lost both engines". I pray for this to never happen.
I cried.That was the most intense 5 minutes of the week!
Congrats. In Australia the MU2 is banned for charter pax due icing issues.
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