Listen to Stan. He is being gentle :D

Sic dixit Stan M.

Please listen.
Don’t powerdrive this, please.
If a very experienced PC 12 driver can make bad decisions, so can you.
Get your instrument rating.
Get your ME.
Fly trips where you have to make routing, weather and go/no go decisions.
Very often these are East/West trips of some length. That’s when you cross weather systems.
Fly a bunch of approaches to minimums, with an instructor.
Buy the plane you want and find/retain the best instructor you can find. Hopefully a harda##.
There is no shortcut to this. I understand your desire and urgency, but this simply takes t I m e, literally.
I would guess about 250 hrs to whatever you have in your logbook now.

Jonathan, others here like Stan have been very nice in trying to explain reality to you. I'm going to be blunt because sometimes blunt is required (and you haven't responded to anyone else on here in their responses to you, just continuing to post your opinions).

As I suspected (and posted a few days ago), you are uninsurable.

They're not doing this as a personal vendetta or because they're "unreasonable"; they're saying that because the statistics show you to be more risk than they are willing to take on, i.e. there's a very good chance even in the situation you mention of having an instructor there that you will bend the airplane and hurt or kill yourself.

You may very well be the next Chuck Yeager, but more likely the disconnect is that you haven't had the opportunity in your VERY limited flight experience to scare yourself yet, thus you don't know your own limitations, as aptly as Clint Eastwood put it many decades ago.

Almost every person here with >500 hours and a M.E. Instrument ticket has scared themselves, either backing themselves into a corner with weather, pushing a bad approach, etc, and realized the words of a smarter man than myself are true when he said "Aviation is not, in and of itself, dangerous, but it is exceptionally intolerant of carelessness, hubris, and mistakes", and the result of that is often injury or death.

Having an instructor in the plane means you will still be doing the flying, and as the true story I posted a couple pages back shows, it takes only an instant of the instructor not paying attention and the student doing something wrong and it can kill you both in an airplane moving this fast.

An MU-2 is essentially a 20 series Lear when under 10,000 feet. I was PIC in 20-series Lears Part 135 for many years with 350-400 hour pilots in the right seat and often I'd rather have been single pilot because THEY were the most dangerous facet of flying the plane - you couldn't stop paying attention to both the plane and their actions for a second.

That's why the insurance won't bite off on what you think is "reasonable". They and the rest of us know it's not. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. That's why so few here are agreeing with your approach.

If you said P-Baron or even a Duke, you might be in a different position, but you're choosing one of the highest performance Turboprops ever made for the Civilian world and it's just not a reasonable request.

In 2001 I was hired as a street captain on the CRJ years ago because their experienced Saab Captains couldn't pass the training and they couldn't fill the seat. It was just moving too damn fast and they didn't have the stick skills, but that's essentially what you're trying to do but times 10 in experience jump. It doesn't work.


This is why I said what I did above. Your disdain is clear. Your lack of understanding of the risk is clear. You don't yet realize that it's not "useless time", it's a fundamental building block of experience.

If you were my student I'd take you up in a Baron or other fast twin and overload you and scare the %#$@ out of you. Multiple times.

I'm dead serious.

Because one of the most dangerous pilots that exists is one that is a good stick and rudder pilot just past their PPL but thinks they're good enough to bypass decades of experience of how to build a good instrument multiengine pilot and often they put themselves (and others) in a corner they can't get out of and kill people.



That's because you think you're better than most other pilots, and you might be, but the insurance isn't going to take that risk and neither would I. They write risk BASED ON DECADES OF EXPERIENCE AND ACTUARIAL TABLES and you're a risk they won't take.

You want to gamble with your own life and those of others (your family) who will ride with you. I feel badly for them because they don't know that almost everyone else is telling you it's a very bad idea and you're not listening.

As to the above,

1. You have to do that anyway, who cares what plane it's in? Would take you 10x longer in an MU-2 anyway because you won't be able to keep up with it for many hours. I guarandamntee it.

2. Same same, so who cares, just go do it. The engine out training WILL carry over to the MU-2. The procedures and steps will be different, but the stick and rudder part won't be, they're the same no matter what you're flying. Rudder control, speed control, aviate-navigage-communicate.

3. This seems to be the step you want to skip, but this is the one you NEED to do most of all, and not just flying in circles. You need to plan and fly hard instrument cross-countries with the autopilot off in high-density airspace during that time. THAT is what will teach you the lessons you need to learn.

I wish you luck, but ignoring the advice from experienced pilots here is exceptionally unwise.

I now return you to nicer, gentler people than myself.

Rich is correct.

Will history repeat itself? Sounds like the Thurman Munson experience is on the verge of happening again. Maybe not exactly but in a similar way. Someone quickly works their way into an aircraft which is too much for their limited experience. Wishing you lots of luck in your future flying.

https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Repor ... l&IType=FA

Jonathon. I am 2.5 years into our MU-2. Transitioned from a36TN (some flight level flying) to 58P (majority FL) to MU-2 (always FL). Those 250+ hours in the P Baron were important. PM if you would like to discuss.

Matt

What do a fully loaded up F-4 Phantom and an MU-2 have in common? The same wing loading. If you offered me twice what I paid for mine, I wouldn't sell it to you because essentially I'd be murdering you.

Get a Citation 501 man, it will be much easier to fly if you truly are intent on skipping all the intermediate steps.

Mike

If the OP wants an airplane that can take him places and be useful for business while he's gaining experience and polishing his skills, I would recommend a 58P. It ticks off all the boxes except turbine - FLs, pressurization, ME, FIKI, radar, with lots of systems to keep him busy.

I agree that (to use his words) a POS twin flying in circles isn't much value. But with a 58P he can do cross country trips, get up into the flight levels, get in some icing, deal with faster speeds, dodge weather, gain experience and perfect his skills. It is a practical step on the way to his MU2 or jet or whatever he ends up in.

Others here have followed the same path. 58P is a great stepping stone. In my case, it's my last plane. It does everything I need it to do.

Insurance will be the least of your problems if you are not up to speed. Do as MT says, he knows what he is talking about.After that, good luck......

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I would kindly ask Mr. Musick, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Murphy, and others to carefully read my previous post. If you perceive ego, arrogance, hubris, or an overwhelming sense of trying to skip steps along the way to a bigger/faster airplane... please try again. I fear you may have misunderstood, or more appropriately I have failed to communicate my position.

Again, read carefully my post. I am not disagreeing with you, Stan or Rick.


I absolutely was given a path to insurance that I humbly felt was bypassing many steps. It checked the required boxes with minimal time. Perhaps I was not BLUNT enough in my previous post that I felt that was insufficient. I had every intention of going Cirrus to MU2 with as much training or time as it would take... not that it seemed to matter. They told me how to check the boxes cheap and fast and be on my merry way. Just to be clear... there exists a direct path to be an MU2 pilot while bypassing much of the real world experience needed or discussed here.

I stated, "The insurance company seems to be cool with the idea... I'm not."

It appears a few individuals failed to read that sentence in my previous post. But do go back and look... its there for all to see.

To Greg Scheideman, my schedule is like an opening in the clouds between two fast moving thunderstorms... that hole in my schedule wasn't much of a hole. I have spent the time going a different direction looking for an instructor that can do IFR and ME training locally. Also, looking into an alternate twin to build time, contemplating 340A.

This strategy is directly in response to insurance. Liability is only available for a direct training approach and I don't want to skimp in a slow POS flying circles to nowhere ticking off time to check boxes. If I have to modify the approach by spending meaningful time in different twin, so be it.

I'd post a WTB, but...

FWIW, I owned a 340A for 7 or 8 years before my MU2. I liked the 340 a lot. Good traveling plane, and insurance requirement will get you into the swing of ongoing recurrent training. You will learn a lot!

I think you can make arguments for both scenarios. The military has taken 19-year olds who've never seen an airplane before straight into supersonic jets for decades without that much trouble. And we can argue its because their training is so superior, but I think it's not only that.

It's the human brain.

Take a hypothetical scenario. Two brand new PPL students. One trains from scratch in C152 and the other trains from scratch in PC-12. I would argue it would take them just about the same time to reach proficiency levels enough to ACS standards for a checkride. Humans don't learn at a fixed level, we learn at an adapted level. Just like Parkinson's old "any task will either expand or contract to fill the allotted time", we also learn in a way that could be described as "any learning will either expand or contract with the demands". We have a lot of capacity to learn if we're just tasked with it.

I know this wasn't the point of this thread, it was rather to have enough moments of where we scare ourself silly before moving up, but I just thought it needed to be said.

I promise I'll stop.......but this statement really gets my attention.


I recently had a student....AVP at a large company based in Atlanta. Really, really wants to fly. Managed to get through the private...but has scheduling issues. This person simply doesn't have the time, or mental bandwidth, to progress in flying.


IME, it takes time...time to assess, time to think, time to ponder. In essence, you have to be able to "eat, breathe, sleep" aviation. It's the way that the military gets young people through the pipeline....nothing else on their mind, very close supervision, highly directed flying. The flying becomes the big piece in the schedule, with everything else filling in.


Maybe what some of us are sensing (perhaps incorrectly), is that you are a highly motivated, intelligent, successful individual who wants to fit in flying a demanding plane in the middle of an already tight schedule. If only you were a doctor....we could really give out some advice.....



I switch back and forth from flying professionally, to doing other things. It's a very significant "switch". The "pilot mindset" has to be different from the "I'm on a schedule and have to get things done" mindset.


Bottom line...we appreciate you coming here, discussing things, and interacting. We collectively wish you nothing but success. Some of our cautions come from our own scars.



(I promise, I'll let you be, now)

Before we all get too attached to the military format of training, I just want to remind everybody that Uncle Sam has the luxury of pre-screening applicants to ensure only the most gifted participate, and heartlessly washing out significant portions of the class as it goes along...

Best

Tim

You never communicated that you are OK with about 500 hours of dual received in the MU-2 while completing those ratings and training. Perhaps that is the disconnect.


Respectfully... No, there is not. That's what we are communicating.

While there certainly is a path to obtain your ratings in the MU-2, from schools like Reece Howell, etc, who will gladly charge you $200 an hour plus the cost of your plane to fly it 4 hours a day doing training for 200 hours or so to get your ratings, to the tune of about $40,000 of training, PLUS the cost of operating the plane, you will then only have a piece of paper saying you have a Multiengine Instrument license.

It is unlikely they would sign you off at that point per 91.17xx until they are satisfied you're not going to kill yourself, and that means that "real world" experience. Probably another 100 hours or more.

You can't bypass it.

You need a lot of time flying with ZERO assistance in hard IMC, congested airspace, at night, much of it with the autopilot not allowed so you can build the skills you will need when the autopilot quits and you're in Boston's airspace in a blowing snowstorm like we were a few nights ago. It was sporty as well as busy and that's with two 20,000 hour pilots up front with lots of glass and automation when ATC is talking as fast as they can, compression vectoring people, dealing with ice, changing runways, etc, and you can't afford to miss a transmission.

In an MU-2 you will be treated like a commercial jet operator due to your speed and capability. You have to perform to that level and it's not as easy as you think. I've watched a lot of pilots try and fail with <500 hours total time and <200 make and model. I'd estimate about 1 in 10 of my F/O's in the Lear or the CRJ with those times from ab-initio schools were up to the task before the end of their first year closing in on 500 make and model.


I think it's your wording.

The way you stated it combined with your clear disdain for the "POS piston twin" came across (I think to many of us) that you don't like what the insurance company is telling you and you think you don't have to do those steps.

It wasn't clear that you believed those steps were LESS than what you should do to be proficient in the airplane.

Thank you for clarifying that you think those steps are insufficient to safely fly the MU-2 by yourself; that does make me feel better that you aren't going to become a statistic and honestly, we just don't want to see someone hurt themselves.


At least the 340a is relatively docile and on par in speed with a Baron in the lower altitude regimes. Probably a good choice for you at this stage of the game if you are intent on bypassing the Instrument rating in a single and smaller, more docile twins.

Again, NO ONE is saying you should be flying circles to nowhere. The insurance is likely trying to tell you the same thing we are, that they expect you to use that time flying the plane places, flight planning cross countries then executing on them, and the experience that comes with it.

Whether you do that in a "POS twin" or a 340 is solely up to you. There are quite a few 340's out there for sale. One very nice example is the one that's been popping up on and off on eBay that was a hail damage salvage write off with very small pings on the upper wing surfaces but signed off and in-annual with a very nice avionics stack, good P&I, Ram VII, etc out in California. I think he wanted $140k for it last time we spoke before I bought Laz.

It would be a good plane at a good price, get some experience (and ratings) then step up and probably sell it close to what you have in it.

edit: For that matter, there are two Dukes on here that are currently flying regularly by people that are regular posters, one of which runs the Duke Flyers forum, that could be had even more inexpensively and, while having a slightly higher fuel burn, are great buys, although would be harder to move when done and ready to move on.

I did not intend to be rude, but rather firm in the safety aspect of what you are proposing. In this instance, I am glad the insurance is guiding you down a safer path. Best of luck to you, sir.