Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Any DA62 related topics

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ememic99
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by ememic99 »

Lou wrote:High time commercial pilots have proper process baked into their instinctive reactions. When the problem happens they react at a subconscious level. It is much more difficult for private pilots to achieve that level of competence, no matter how much they study. But in high stress situations, conscious thinking becomes difficult and sub-conscious reaction is all you got.
I don't understand where you pulled this conclusion from. I'm sorry but to me it sounds like childish talk about pilots as kind of super-heroes. Commercial pilots have better tools available and that's their primary advantage: (usually) better aircraft, (usually) well-defined procedures and (usually) additional crew member. Person's reaction is conditioned with multiple factors (training being one of them) and in that there's no difference between commercial and private pilots. I know a lot of airline pilots and while some of them are aces, majority are average pilots and some are bed, as in any occupation.
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by carym »

Antoine wrote:A bit of a thread drift... my instructor on the Extra400 transition training (he really was my first mentor) just died in a horrifying twin engine accident.
It was a brand new Beach Baron.
He was conducting a flight review with the owner and they were doing a one-engine-inop go around.
The plane flipped over (yikes!) probably due to speed below Vmc and they fell off the sky inverted form 10 meters. Nasty...
Antoine,
I am really sorry for your instructor and I know that must have hit you hard. However, I just don't understand this training scenario. I was taught from the beginning of my twin training that a single engine go-around is a no-no. Though out my training (both initial and recurrent) if one engine was feathered (or simulated feathered) we were landing, no matter what. No go around on single engine. I have never had an instructor, nor an examiner, ask me to do a single engine go-around.

I am sorry for repeating this again and again, but there are now more DA42/62 pilots that read this (or perhaps other twin pilots as well) and I don't want to read about another unnecessary death. I, too, lost an instructor in a twin engine training scenario. It was about 1 year after I received my twin rating and it was in the same plane that I did my twin rating, a Beech Duchess (BE-76). It happened while they were doing a single engine approach into KRNH.
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Antoine
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by Antoine »

Thanks Cary. Actually I am not 100% sure that they were going around. I was told so.
There is a video but it's not public and I have not seen it yet. All I am certain of is that they definitely were too slow and flipped over. Can this happen at all (flipping over) without applying significant power to the remaining engine?

May Michael rest in peace. He was truly passionate about aviation and this is my only consolation - he died doing what he loved to do... and I will miss him.
I used to call him every time my Extra did something stupid to ask if he'd seen it before. He would spend an hour on the phone with me, answer my question and share one or two nice stories...
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by CFIDave »

carym wrote:I was taught from the beginning of my twin training that a single engine go-around is a no-no. Though out my training (both initial and recurrent) if one engine was feathered (or simulated feathered) we were landing, no matter what. No go around on single engine. I have never had an instructor, nor an examiner, ask me to do a single engine go-around.
I don't entirely agree with this.

During my last IPC, I hand-flew a simulated OEI approach in our DA62 under the hood with an instructor/safety pilot in the right seat -- where we simulated a single engine failure and feathered prop during the approach by reducing power on one engine to 11%, followed by flying a missed approach right at minimums (200 feet AGL). I had never tried this before, but figured the other instructor in the right seat could quickly add back full power on the "failed" engine if it looked like I was having difficulties achieving a good rate of climb after going missed.

It was a lot easier than expected. All you have to do is hit the go-around switch (on a GFC700-equipped aircraft) when throttling up the "good" engine" for the missed, and the G1000 NXi flight director automatically sequences through the missed approach waypoints. Raising the gear and approach (half) flaps occurs very rapidly in a DA62. Because there were only two of us onboard, I was easily able to obtain a 400-500 fpm rate of climb on a single engine as we pulled away from the runway. Synthetic vision with its ability to see the runway in 3D on the PFD provided lots of confidence when operating under the hood.

Would I try this in a steam-gauge, non-FADEC twin? Maybe not. But I felt comfortable doing this in a modern Diamond twin.
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by carym »

Dave,
You clearly know your plane extremely well and know how it will react. You must have done this at altitude before trying it down low. Even in my DA42 i never tried this. My mindset has been trained that in a OEI approach I am landing, no matter what. In part, this is due to my partner in our C310. He previously owned a Baron and commented several times that near Vmc it is very twitchy when power applied to good engine. We practiced many OEI approaches, but always to a landing, deer on the runway be damned.
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by Colin »

I remember seeing a YouTube video of a DA42 where they did a single engine go around and nearly flipped the plane.

With synthetic vision and everything else if I have shut down and engine I am putting the plane on the ground the first time. Even if it is off the runway somewhere, it is stopping the first time.

But it seems with the DA42 you have a lot of choices. The fellow that sold me my DA40 (Robert Stewart) was talking to me about the DA42 when I got it. He said they have a 1.7 at the beginning that had all these fuel sprayer issues. The engine shut down on him when he was flying it from Long Beach to the Bay area. He was over Santa Barbara. I said that must have been a pain to get fixed, since the shop and mechanics would have to fly up or drive two hours. He said, "Nah, I just turned around and flew back to Long Beach on one engine."

The way I fly, I'd probably be able to fly to a VFR field without too much trouble so I can't really see the need for a go-around.
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by okent »

Colin, can you post a link to that video?
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Colin
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by Colin »

I couldn't find it. I feel like it was originally posted here, though.
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Re: Please advise on a da62 purchase.

Post by jprhode »

Back to the original question:

If the purchase price matters, I’d go with a used Meridian for about the same $. 900 miles in a DA62 is doable, but damn that’s a long time in the air. You’re exposed to more WX, and for longer. Different story if that’s a once in awhile mission, but if that’s the main game, I’d want to be faster with an option on higher. The statistics on one PT6 vs two of any piston engine is for sure better.
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