I owned the airplane and knew the pilot like a brother. Your article is somewhat tainted. Should Peter Garrison or anybody from FLYING want to know what truly happened that night, please contact me. I feel Peter's position taken is so the wrong way, on many, not all issues sited. I can only hope the wife and children of this pilot will never have the knowledge of this article written. Practicing a flight on a pc is also used as a preparation tool. Just like checking weather days in advance and filling all the fuel tanks with fuel before you leave on a long trip...which this pilot did, and if you checked a little deeper, you would have found these issues to be true. Call me, email me.....lets talk about the truth that night. I feel you will be surprised and saddened by what I have to say. I was the last person to successfully fly the airplane.albert dyer
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I am a second generation pilot, I grew up at an airport. Counting sleep hours I have somewhere between 10 and 12 thousand UNLOGGED hours in GA aircraft starting when I was 8 months old. I, sadly, am grounded due to lack of funding, however....... I am a high time simmer, thousands of hours. I have owned countless FS platforms, currently I sim on both FS9 and FSX. I sim the most advanced aircraft software money can buy from PMDG, Level D, Wilco, Capt. Sim and Deamfleet, many have FMC/FMS's photo real cockpits, EFIS and full functioning autopilots. FS passanger provides my "people" and they "grade" my take-off, flight, and landing. Satisfied "passangers" allows my "airline" to turn a "profit". I sim with real world weather from Jeppessen, and real world traffic from FSNAV, using real world airports and routes. When simming on-line I use ATC hobbist as controllers throught an orginizaition called VATSIM, we then must use real world procedures and charts. Yes, I can fly both a SID and a STAR and I can fly a CAT IIIa ILS approach with 0/0 IFR conditions in an "aircraft" with autoland, flare, and rollout. Folks.......I would have sawdust in the windmills of my mind if I thought for one minute I could fly a 747-400 from KJFK to KLAX, or a 767-300 from KLAX to KMIA although I sim those routes on a weekly basis. Albert my heart truly goes out to you, I know what you went and are going through, I have lost family and friends of the family when aircraft went down. I hope that the passing of your friend does not go in vain. In closin it is a simulator, a simulator....... I want to discourage any pilot from using it as a prep tool unless using it on 100% realism and VATSIM as ATC. If things go south on you computer you walk away and live to "fly" another day, not so in the real world. I am begging you guys and girls, never think that just because you can sim it means you can fly it. Don Thomasmadcrowd@hotmail.com
Message Edited by madcrowd on 08-06-2007 09:10 AM
Message Edited by madcrowd on 08-06-2007 09:10 AM
The pilot was prepared to take his Instrument check ride at the end of the month. He had 500 hours in that airplane. He also had instrument time in that airplane with other pilots, including me as the plane was flown on many cross-country trips. Nobody expects to have a problem during a flight. I don't know why he left that night.....sometimes we get so comfortable flying the same airplane hour after hour, year after year without issue that we let our guard down. In this case, after eight years of flying the airplane with the tip tanks installed, a year after the crash I found out that the fuel valve was a valve with a problem. The AD was issued over 30 years ago, however, we bought a "new" system only eight years prior. It took eight years for an issue to show. It happened while I was on a flight. We had it looked at and nothing was found. I flew the airplane with the accident pilot on two short flights trying to get the problem to show itself again. I could not repeat what happened to me. It was suggested by the accident pilot that I didn't select the tip tanks in the correct order...which would result in the engine quitting. I didn't take as many cross-country trips as the accident pilot. So, the night he left, he knew that the valves worked properly on two flights prior....and also knew a mechanic could not find anything wrong with the valve when he looked at it. He should not have left that night with all the bad weather he would have to cross under him. The valve forced him into that bad weather and after flying for more than an hour of hard IFR...he time ran out. The bigger crime is we were sold a valve as "new", which wasn't. How many airplanes are flying with parts which have a problem within them, yet the pilot doesn't know? Airlines have been brought down with a total loss of life for the same reason.....faulty parts sold as "new."
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