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Time In Type?

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • A Mooney M20S Eagle crashed fatally due to the pilot's failure to properly set the elevator trim for takeoff, leading to an aerodynamic stall during the climb.
  • The pilot had limited experience (6.8 hours) in the specific aircraft type, a factor highlighted as increasing the risk of errors and difficulty in recognizing or recovering from unexpected aircraft behavior.
  • Post-accident investigation revealed the trim jack screw was consistent with a full-up setting, and while an abnormal trim should prompt an abort or corrective action, these universal pilot reactions did not occur.
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It’s an article of faith in aviation and other endeavors that having more experience with a specific machine is less risky than having less. In aviation, we measure this by the number of hours accrued in a specific aircraft type. A corollary is that pilots with relatively few hours in-type are at greater risk of making a mistake.

Usually, mistakes are not lethal, and we can easily recover from them. But understanding a problem confronting a low-time pilot and how to fix it can be elusive. It’s not that the low-time pilot doesn’t know how to fly; rather, it’s a lack of familiarity with specific systems and the consequences of doing X when we should have done Y.

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