And it isn't just actual weather, it is the potential for bad weather causing an airport to be unavailable. In other words, this affects the go, no go decision made early in the morning of the day trip.

For example, the forecast is 30% chance of rain starting in the afternoon at the remote airport.

Or there was the potential for overnight light snow and you have no airport report yet.

Do you go in the CJ? Hmm.

Even if there is backup turboprop, that doesn't protect you from unexpected runway conditions such as finding there is unreported light snow on the runway and you took the jet.

BTW, the early CJ predates FADEC engine controls, so they have "thrust attenuators", a set of black paddles will stick into the engine exhaust stream. They are not nearly as effective as TRs, but are mechanical none the less.

Mike C.

You can see the CJ thrust attenuators in action here: https://youtu.be/QMjgKLvqsIg&t=1m55s

I wonder how much shorter the landing distance is on the CJ's with thrust attenuators compared to the CJ+'s with FADEC engines?

Also wonder if there has ever been an incident where an attenuator stuck closed?

The attenuators don't really give you any credit, they help control taxi speed mainly. FADEC kicks idle down with weight on wheels to limit thrust after landing, seems more effective from my experience. From memory, I believe you're supposed to factor in a 10% penalty is attenuators are stowed on landing. There is also a requirement for a 5000ft runway if they are stowed or inop on takeoff.

If an attenuator "unlocks" during flight, they just get blown in the jet stream. There are no memory items for this.

We had some hydraulic fluid leaking on our RH attenuator, the actuator needed to be replaced ($13k) as well as the bracket ($12k). We are told there is an SB to deactivate/remove them.

Yep, there have been some failures with the paddles. Couple of years back I had to go rescue stranded pax in Florida after the left paddle failed in the extended (not stowed) position after start up on an early 525.

I have also had to cancel 2 trips due to TR faults on testing during taxi out for departure. Both times a TR deployed, but would not stow and was stuck deployed. Both times ended up shutting down that engine and taxiing back on one, so in my experience both systems have gotchas and have caused an equal amount of pain.

You can certainly feel when the paddles inadvertently stow during the landing roll and there is a distance penalty you have to account for if they are inop. I’ll pull the book at the airport later this morning and see what it says. I don’t remember it off the top of my head either.

Right? When I want landscaping rocks in my yard the quotes come back in the tens of thousands and when Mike wants them in his jet it costs $8. Conclusion: skip the landscaping and buy a jet.

I am reminded at the fuel pump.

But otherwise, I have been able to control my costs substantially by being involved and researching issues to find the right solutions. The main tactics are finding the actual vendors who do the real work and not buying stuff through multiple middlemen, finding used parts, and debugging systems rather than random part replacements. I'm certain I have already saved $100K over having a factory service center fix everything hands off. The pane is in far better shape than when I got it having fix a fairly large number of latent and subtle problems.

I may be able to maintain the V for about what the MU2 cost primarily due to the vastly longer inspection intervals (3 years phase 1-4, 6 years phase 5) and the fact my maintenance is at home base now. I'm starting to get that feeling of trustworthy reliability from it now that I had with my MU2.


I'm soon back to Jet Pilot School. Jet Owner School is never out of session.

Mike C.

Right? When I want landscaping rocks in my yard the quotes come back in the tens of thousands and when Mike wants them in his jet it costs $8. Conclusion: skip the landscaping and buy a jet.

No joke, you could start an airplane management company, have them pay you $50k/year and they still save $50k.

Yep, there have been some failures with the paddles. Couple of years back I had to go rescue stranded pax in Florida after the left paddle failed in the extended (not stowed) position after start up on an early 525.

I have also had to cancel 2 trips due to TR faults on testing during taxi out for departure. Both times a TR deployed, but would not stow and was stuck deployed. Both times ended up shutting down that engine and taxiing back on one, so in my experience both systems have gotchas and have caused an equal amount of pain.

You can certainly feel when the paddles inadvertently stow during the landing roll and there is a distance penalty you have to account for if they are inop. I’ll pull the book at the airport later this morning and see what it says. I don’t remember it off the top of my head either.

When was this Bill?

Andrew

Very curious to learn more about this.

NTSB search reveals nothing I can find that matches.

I also can't figure out how to pull breakers such the buckets would deploy at rotation. The best I can think is that the buckets were not locked after some manual manipulation, but looked closed, and the breakers were pulled that prevented the "six lights" status from being displayed to alert the crew of this (which would prevent a good rotary check, too?).

That's poor maintenance practice and poor preflight checklist and poor pre takeoff checking. Took a lot of mistakes to make this happen.

Mike C.

This one?

https://aviation-safety.net/database/re ... 19830426-0

When was this Bill?

Andrew

That must have been it, my memory is fuzzy about the date, I was thinking later.