On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 13:51:22 -0800, "Bob Gardner"
wrote:

Afterthought...he told Seattle Center that he was having problems. We don't
know what those problems were, and he may not have given Center much info on
them.

He could have hired an instrument-rated commercial pilot to accompany him (I
logged more than a few hours doing this), or could have simply paid someone
to fly the trip while he relaxed...I've flown some rated pilots under those
conditions.

Bottom line: Sophisticated airplane, VFR pilot, bad weather....deadly
combination if anything goes wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I always like to have someone else sitting in the
right seat, if not just to talk on the radio and to be an extra set of
eyes but to keep me company. Its just that the 421 is set up for
single pilot and in my personal experience, the right seat guy just
cant do a whole lot even when the S*%$ gets bad. I have had two such
occurrences both dealing with IFR conditions and Icing in the 421. On
one occasion, I actually had the tail stall on me due to ice on the
tail, There was barely a trace of it on the leading edges, but it got
my attention real fast. Once I figured out what the heck was going
on, I blew the boots and we returned to normal flight, it lasted about
a whole 5-10 seconds, of course it seemed like an eternity but I don't
think that having a second person in there would have changed the
occurrence one bit. The other time was coming out of FL220 descending
into the clouds where the tops were at 19 and the bottoms were at 16.
Once I entered, I was in the worst ride of my life. We started
picking up a trace of ice then and you better believe I started
blowing the boots early this time. I did have a right seat guy with
me then, but there was nothing he could do, All I could do was bring
the engines back to 17" on the manifold and try to keep a somewhat
normal attitude and descent through. The right seat pilot was just
along for the ride, sure, he was keeping an eye on the engine gauges
for me, but at that time, If something were to have happened, it was
going to and there was nothing either of us could have done. I felt
sorry for the passenger in the back who had a little dog with him. He
was white as a ghost when we landed and he made the comment about
never having seen luggage hit the ceiling before.

I just love living and flying in the Rockies


Personally, I don't think any plane is a scud running plane and no VFR
only on non-current IFR pilot should be flying in the soup period. I
don't care if its a 421 or a 172 they can all get away from you.
Besides, a 421 should be able to hold altitude on one engine. This is
just speculation on my part, but I got to wonder if he didn't pop up
into the clouds and maybe encounter some ice?


Scott D.

take out the obvious to email me