According to the agency, a power lever sheared recently as a pilot advanced to full throttle. 

“The pilot quickly cut fuel to the aircraft and aborted the takeoff,” FAA said in an Airworthiness Concern Sheet (ACS) released Friday.

Images provided by the FAA show the lever broke off at the base.

The FAA and Cirrus Aircraft are investigating the issue together, specifically targeting the power levers in Cirrus SR20/SR22/SR22T airplanes. 

The owner of the SR20 initiated a fleet-wide inspection and found cracks in numerous levers. The aircraft, which are used in the training environment, have between 2,900 to 3,900 hours, including approximately 12,500-15,000 takeoffs and landings. 

“The failure and cracks were noted to occur at the region of the lever that has the smallest cross section,” the ACS said.

The FAA recommended operators inspect this area and, if damage is found, “provide information including description of damage, available photos, airplane serial number, time in service, and any prior replacement of the throttle assembly or power lever.” 

The ACS is a means for FAA aviation safety engineers to coordinate airworthiness concerns with aircraft owners/operators, and the resolution of this issue could involve airworthiness directive (AD) action or a special airworthiness information bulletin (SAIB). The FAA could also determine that no action is needed at this time. 

The FAA’s final determination will depend in part on the information received in response to the ACS.

Cirrus SR aircraft have been part of the single-engine piston market since 1998. The SR20 quickly became a favorite due in part to the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), which is standard equipment on every aircraft.

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After taking off from North Las Vegas Airport (KVGT) and flying 60 miles, they landed at Mesquite, Nevada (67L), where they added 10 gallons of fuel. The pilot with the airplane rating, who had flown the first leg, now ceded the left front seat to one of his companions, evidently with the idea of giving him some flight instruction. He moved to the right seat, and they performed several touch-and-gos before continuing toward Bryce Canyon, 105 miles distant.

The terrain rises from around 4,000 feet msl near Mesquite to around 7,800 feet at Bryce. Between them is a pass at 8,500 feet. Shortly before reaching that pass, and still below 8,000 feet, the Cirrus stalled, flipped inverted, and crashed into a mountainside, killing all four men. The Cirrus was equipped with an Avidyne solid-state primary flight display that stored an array of flight and engine data. The memory module was undamaged, and investigators were able to reconstruct the flight in detail. The story it told was surprising.

To start, the airplane was about 225 pounds over gross weight when it left Mesquite. The air temperature on the ground near the accident site was 80 degrees, and the density altitude over 9,000 feet. At the time of the accident, the airplane was just a few hundred feet above the surface, barely climbing, and only 4 miles away from the 8,500-foot pass. Its indicated airspeed was around 70 knots, and for the three minutes before the loss of control, the stall warning had been sounding almost continuously. All the while, its 210 hp Continental engine was turning at a leisurely 2,300 rpm.

• READ MORE: Only Assumptions Can Be Made About What Took Down a Curtiss C-46 in Alaska

So many things are wrong with this picture that I hardly know where to begin. But let’s start with general mountain flying principles. The wind was from the southwest, so the airplane would not expect to encounter downdrafts in the pass. Nevertheless, because in mountainous areas winds close to the surface are unpredictable, it’s chancy to fly toward rising terrain with the idea that you will just make it over the next ridge. Better to circle and climb, and not approach the ridge until you have the altitude to safely clear it, and approach it at a 45-degree angle, in order to have room to turn away if you don’t have enough altitude. The Cirrus, which had reached as high as 7,847 feet, had actually begun to lose altitude, probably because of its very low airspeed, before the stall occurred.

Even overloaded, and despite the high density altitude, the Cirrus had sufficient power to climb at 375 fpm. But to do so would have required increasing the rpm to 2,700, the rated maximum. It would also have required maintaining the best rate-of-climb speed, which was 93 kias. At 2,300 rpm, the calculated rate of climb at 93 knots would have been 22 fpm. At the stall speed, it was zero or less.

As a helicopter professional, the airplane-rated pilot—he was legally the pilot in command, and we assume he was the pilot flying—may have felt comfortable flying from the right seat. But the instrument cluster was on the left, making it difficult for him to see the airspeed indicator. Still, the stall warning should have been airspeed indicator enough.

He was a very experienced pilot, with more than 5,600 hours. Only 160 of them, however, were in fixed-wing airplanes, and only 17 in the SR20. He had originally gained his airplane rating in an SR20 but then began renting an SR22, which has the same airframe but 100 more horsepower. He had not flown an SR20 for 18 months before this trip and used it only because the SR22 he usually rented was not available.

Two major errors, which are immediately obvious to a fixed-wing pilot, are the failure to fly at the best rate-of-climb speed and the failure to increase rpm to make use of all the power available. The low speed may possibly be explained by the pilot wanting to use the best angle-of-climb speed, or by the fact that the best rate-of-climb speeds of helicopters are generally lower than those of fixed-wing airplanes, usually around 60 or 70 knots. As for the rpm, main rotor rpm is not normally used in setting power in a helicopter. Rotor rpm is set at a customary value and remains there, while power is controlled by throttle and, in both turbine and most modern reciprocating-engine helicopters, some type of automatic correlation or linkage with the collective, which controls the average pitch of the main rotor blades. It’s not hard to imagine that fixed-wing power-setting practices might be eclipsed by the ingrained habits of a helicopter pilot with limited fixed-wing experience who flies helicopters daily but airplanes only seldom.

• READ MORE: A Night Flight Leads a Pilot to a Tragic End

That the stall warning could have been allowed to sound for several minutes also seems incredible, but helicopters do not stall. Perhaps the pilot imagined that he could safely fly at what he believed to be the best angle-of-climb speed and that the stall warning was a mere unavoidable nuisance.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) blamed the accident on the “pilot’s failure to maintain sufficient airspeed and airplane control,” to which his assumed lack of experience operating heavily loaded airplanes in a high-density-altitude environment contributed. The NTSB made no effort to explain the egregious failure to use an appropriate speed and all available power, to circle to climb, or to stay well clear of the terrain. The agency did, however, report that the pilot had previously been admonished for overloading an airplane, gone out of his way to conceal his overloading of this one, and was prone to “try to circumvent things” with employees of the rental firm. The NTSB may think that imperfect morals predispose pilots to accidents, but in this case the cause was not overloading by a few percent nor the intent to deceive the renters about it. It was the blatantly faulty management of the airplane.

I used to visit Robinson Helicopter Co. in Torrance, California, from time to time, and founder Frank Robinson, always very cordial and hospitable, would send up one of his pilots with me for a little jaunt to administer CPR to my four-decade-old, but seldom used, helicopter rating. Once he flew with me himself and cautioned me against a too-abrupt forward push on the cyclic. He said this was an error to which fixed-wing pilots were prone when startled, for instance, by the sudden appearance of conflicting traffic. It was harmless in a fixed-wing airplane but dangerous in a helicopter, because the main rotor blades could strike the tail boom. He preferred that helicopter pilots learn to fly in helicopters and not come to them polluted by fixed-wing habits.

It works both ways.

Note: This article is based on the National Transportation Safety Board’s report of the accident and is intended to bring the issues raised to our readers’ attention. It is not intended to judge or reach any definitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory.

This column first appeared in the January-February 2024/Issue 945 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Fatal Cirrus Accident Shows That Some Knowledge Doesn’t Translate appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The university previously announced it purchased five Cirrus TRAC-series SR20s, which feature electronic stability and protection, along with the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System, or CAPS.

The first aircraft was delivered on December 20, while the four remaining airplanes will arrive in the second quarter of 2022.  

In a statement, vice president of Cirrus fleet and special mission sales David Moser said, “Our TRAC Series aircraft provide K-State Salina with an advanced platform that is ideal for training aspiring professional aviators.”

The TRAC series—a purpose-built configuration of the SR line of aircraft—was developed specifically for flight training institutions. The TRAC series was launched in 2019 with enhanced reliability and durability—including features such as an all-weather floor and rugged seat coverings—to meet the rigors of high-volume flight operations.

Kansas State University Salina Aerospace and Technology Campus has positioned itself to advance in the aviation-training market in part by steadily increasing its fleet.

K-State’s Unique Fleet

Aside from the Cirrus deal, K-State Salina also purchased 10 new Cessna 172 Skyhawks with Garmin G1000 avionics from Textron Aviation (NYSE: TXT), which will be delivered during the first quarter of 2022, bringing that number of this model in its fleet to 20. For multiengine training, the campus uses Beechcraft Baron G58s.

Department administrators at K-State are keen on offering a range of training options to students, which is why the overall fleet offers a mix of airplanes.

The addition of the new aircraft allows for diverse training options with high-performance, complex, low-wing, and high-wing airplanes, said Clinton Strong, head of the aviation department on the Aerospace and Technology Campus, in a statement in October.

According to Strong, students will begin training in the Cessna 172, then move to the Cirrus SR20, before culminating their training in the Baron.

The post Cirrus Aircraft Delivers First Training Aircraft to K-State Salina appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The latest hardware release from Avidyne brings the company back to an innovative platform through which it changed the game two decades ago: the Cirrus SR20 and SR22 equipped with the first large-format primary and multifunction flight displays for light aircraft. The first Avidyne Entegra PFDs introduced pilots to the wide horizon line, granting them intuitive attitude assessment—and the multifunction displays offered the ability to see GPS-driven moving maps in grand scale, along with digital engine indications and checklists.

On July 21, Avidyne announced its new avionics suite, the Vantage flight deck. With certification expected by 2022, Avidyne is aiming at the aftermarket, with the first round of certification poised for Cirrus aircraft, as owners of those Entegra-equipped SR20s and SR22s delivered in 2002 to 2008 have been asking for the ability to update their panels. Eventually, Avidyne expects to expand the product line into more airplane models, and helicopters as well. Following the aftermarket, the company plans to work with OEMs on factory installation, and also with advanced air mobility manufacturers.

“This is our marquee product announcement,” said Dan Schwinn, in an interview with Flying. “This is based on a brand-new hardware platform that’s the third generation of our display system. We decided that the generation of Cirruses that had our original Entegras was a good place to start. The oldest of those displays is 20 years old. We actually have no end in sight for our support for them, so it’s not like people can’t keep using them—but some people want to upgrade to the newest, latest, greatest.”

The Cirrus single-engine piston line is unique in that its instrument panel is unimpeded by a panel-mounted control yoke or wheel—the sidestick helps free up a lot of real estate on the panel itself. Combined with the placement of the Avidyne IFD series GPS nav/coms in the central pedestal, the new Vantage’s 12-inch screens fit neatly into the models targeted by the first release of the hardware. With roughly 4,000 aircraft that are candidates for the Vantage initially, the new flight deck is likely to gain good traction.

The XGA displays themselves are a distinct level up from legacy systems, with much improved brightness and clarity, as well as processor speeds. On the PFD installation, 3D synthetic vision comes standard and can be viewed on the MFD installation in a full reversionary mode. A hybrid touch user interface—which means you can use the touchscreen for given functions, or physical knobs and buttons on the display bezel. The page-and-tab interface keeps the menu structure shallow, so a pilot is less likely to drown in a cascading feature well. An AHRS in each display unit offers redundancy, and the system can use the existing aircraft magnetometer.

According to the press release, “The Vantage MFD will provide full and split screen displays of maps and flight plans, Jeppesen approach charts and airport diagrams, multiple user configurations, editable datablocks, checklists, and will share much of the same operational user interface as the popular IFD550/540/440 FMS/ GPS/ NAV/ COM systems. Avidyne Vantage will interface with existing engine instruments and SIU for engine instruments displayed on the Vantage MFD, or with newer DAUs that add primary engine instruments displayed on the Vantage PFD.” The system also integrates “tightly” with the DFC90 autopilot, according to Schwinn.

The introductory price per display is $12,500 with an Entegra core trade-in, and Avidyne anticipates a dual-display installation in those aircraft. Those wishing to be at the head of the list can make a reservation now.

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