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 FAA has issued an airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Robinson Helicopter models: R22, R22 Alpha, R22 Beta, R22 Mariner, R44, R44 II, and R66 because of problems in the field involving the tip cap of the tail rotor blade.

According to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the AD (FAA-2023-2232) was developed after three field reports about TRB tip caps coming loose due to corrosion at the bond on Robinson Helicopter Co. (RHC) Model R44. The incidents occurred during a run-up check, after landing, and during landing on different helicopters.

The similarity of the TRB caps on other Robinson Helicopter models resulted in the expansion of the AD beyond the R44 as a precaution.

According to RHC, there have also been reports of TRBs that have “corroded to an unserviceable condition, including severe leading-edge pitting and degradation of the bond at the tip cap.”

Affected TRBs were factory-installed or shipped as spares before November 2022. 

Compliance with the AD requires visually checking and inspecting certain part-numbered and serial-numbered TRB tip caps for evidence of corrosion and, depending on the result, removing the corrosion. The AD necessitates removing all affected TRBs from service and prohibits the installation of them on any helicopter.

The FAA estimates the cost of compliance with the AD will be $85 per hour. Visual checks of the TRBs will take approximately 0.25 work hours for an estimated cost of up to $22 per helicopter cycle.

The FAA also estimates the AD will affect about 2,701 helicopters in the United States.

The post Airworthiness Directive Issued for Robinson Helicopters appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Smith succeeds Kurt Robinson, who has served in the position since 2010. Smith is only the third to serve as president and CEO of Robinson, which was founded in 1973 by Kurt’s father, Frank. Kurt will be moving to an advisory role with the company and remain on its board of directors. The leadership transition is effective immediately.

“Watching and helping our company grow from our living room to become a global leader in the helicopter industry is a fantastic lifetime achievement, and I am incredibly proud of my 40-year career with the company,” said Kurt Robinson. “Moving forward, RHC requires a committed, strong leader who shares our company values, and we’ve found that leader in David Smith, who will be taking over the day-to-day leadership of the business as president and CEO.”

Smith joined RHC in early 2023 as its vice president of operations. He previously worked at Bell Flight in engineering and leadership positions, including as chief engineer then program director for the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X and vice president of operations modernization. Smith also served as chief executive of Textron subsidiary TRU Simulation + Training Inc. He holds a bachelor’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.  

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When it comes to Robinson’s future, Smith noted that the company has made significant investments in engineering talent, particularly over the last year. He emphasized that its foundation won’t change as RHC moves forward on expanding the performance and capabilities of its current products and developing new ones. Smith said Robinson will continue to focus on safety from its factory technology to its helicopters as well as partnering with companies using company aircraft to explore technologies such as electric and autonomous flight.

“Leading Robinson Helicopter Company is an extraordinary privilege,” said Smith. “With a 50-year legacy of success, I am honored to lead the company into the next 50 years of vertical flight. I look forward to working with the more than 400 service centers and dealers and the more than 1,100 employees of RHC as we pursue new products, markets, partnerships, and technologies.” 

The post Robinson Helicopter Co. Names New CEO appeared first on FLYING Magazine.