NW_Pilot's Trans-Atlantic Flight -- All the scary details...

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/nwpilot's_tranatlantic_flight.htm

Man, if the new details of his story doesn't chill ya, nothing will!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 1 Oct 2006 06:47:05 -0700, "Jay Honeck" wrote
in om:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/nwpilot's_tranatlantic_flight.htm

Man, if the new details of his story doesn't chill ya, nothing will!

A more experienced pilot who had studied the aux tank system may have
been able to mentally diagnose the cause of the fuel venting. But
Garmin's role in this incident is unforgivable.

Jay Honeck wrote:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/nwpilot's_tranatlantic_flight.htm

Man, if the new details of his story doesn't chill ya, nothing will!

I've got a few hours in a 172 with G1000, but I think that's turned me
off...at least until they get the bugs worked out.

From NW_Pilot's adventu
Apparently the added pressure in the fuel
tanks pushed the floats in the fuel tank
up, which got the Garmin confused, causing
an error that made it reboot.

Steam gauges don't get confused like that. While they do sometimes go
bad or give an incorrect indication, the fault is isolated to that one
gauge; it doesn't cause the entire airplane to have an apoplectic fit.
That is left to the pilot. One of the real dangers of glass is that it
usurps the pilot's perogative to panic (or not) by doing so itself.

If there's ever an argument against glass (or "advanced integrated
flight instrumentations and controls"), this is it!

ibid:
Day 5: Shut down in Iceland with 55 knot headwinds. I make the call "No Go"!!!

NW-Pilot, would you have gone with 55 knot tailwinds?

ibid: (spelling note, day 11)
After everything else that has happened, this makes me not want to every own a newer model Cessna, or anything with a G1000.

....not want to ever own...
(public service, not nitpicking)

(same day)
Everything else was uneventful, as I went direct KAD and had a small dialogue with the tower about my permission to land.

Anything interesting in that "dialog"?

Anyway, that's quite an adventure! Would you do it again?

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

i posted a link at a couple of cessna "type" clubs (c.p.a. and c.p.s.).
i noticed someone did that on an earlier edition so i guessed it was ok
to do that.

someone said "a more experienced pilot would have......", well, i think
he did just great. turned around, got it back on the ground, figured it
out, flew on and made the contract. i think he needs to be
congratulated for doing something really big and doing it well. i'm
about finished reading "the flying north" and i expect any of those
guys would have bought steven a beer and listened to his story.

my airplane budget looks at getting a good harness system, fuel and
engine monitors and enough gas to do some real traveling so i don't
have to worry about a G-1000 any time soon. clearly it is a cautionary
tale about putting too many avionics eggs in one glass basket.

again, jay, thanks for being the conduit on this. great stuff.


dan


Jay Honeck wrote:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/nwpilot's_tranatlantic_flight.htm

Man, if the new details of his story doesn't chill ya, nothing will!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

A more experienced pilot who had studied the aux tank system may have
been able to mentally diagnose the cause of the fuel venting. But
Garmin's role in this incident is unforgivable.

Garmin needs to wake up! To have out-of-bounds sensor inputs reboot the
system continuously, especially something as unreliable as fuel sensors, is
horrible system design.

Even Microsoft has awakened to this. They now have fewer browser bugs per
year than Firefox.
What do you want to bet that there is a bunch of other safety critical,
software driven devices that are prone to this?

Think about this for a second. What if there was some unexpected
transmission from a GPS satellite due to an incorrect software load to the
satellite that caused the G1000 to reboot continuously. Now extend that.
Take your Garmin portable GPS out to save your butt and it ALSO includes the
deficient algorithm and continuously reboots. Scary. I would bet the
portables share quite a bit of logic and decision trees with the panel
mounts.

again, jay, thanks for being the conduit on this. great stuff.

It's been quite an adventure for Steven. His experiences could fill a
book already, and he's only 30!

Steven, I'm curious to know what your thought processes were in that
dire situation. Stuck in IMC over the North Atlantic, in the dark, no
primary displays, a possible carbon-monoxide leak, a known fuel leak --
I simply can't imagine it getting any worse.

You did a great job keeping everything right-side up, and your head on
straight.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In a previous article, Jose said:
Day 5: Shut down in Iceland with 55 knot headwinds. I make the call
"No Go"!!!

NW-Pilot, would you have gone with 55 knot tailwinds?

Why not? 55 knot headwinds cut into your fuel reserve, 55 knot tail winds
help it. I've flown with a 70 knot tail wind, it was great. Except when
I had to descend to land, then it was bumpy as hell.

At one point my GPS was showing a 210 knot ground speed, and I felt like
asking Buffalo Approach what they were showing as my ground speed, just to
brag at what a Cherokee can do. But then I remembered the story about
people doing that just as an SR-71 checked in on the frequency.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Windows, another fine product from the folks who gave us edlin.

Funny - these things never happen to the writers in the aviation
rags...........

On 1 Oct 2006 08:33:39 -0700, "houstondan"
wrote in . com:

someone said "a more experienced pilot would have......", well, i think
he did just great.

There's no question Mr. Rhine did the right thing in his case.