Page 21 - Volume 12 Number 8

Around 1982, while performing King Air training on my own through my company, Flight Review, Inc., I received a call from the chief pilot of Garrett’s Los Angeles operation. They were operating the second B100, BE-2, primarily as a shuttle airplane transporting employees between their Phoenix and Los Angeles locations, usually making two round trips a day between KLAX and KPHX.
The department had a co-pilot they were wishing to upgrade to a captain position and wanted me both to flight train and evaluate this fellow to gauge his suitability for the change.
I showed up at their Los Angeles International office – then at the FBO owned and run by Garrett – and had a meeting with the chief pilot, the upgrade candidate, and also with one of their B100 captains who would be riding along as an observer. (Probably to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid!)
We began the flight training by heading away from the Los Angeles basin to proceed to a less-crowded area ... over the desert between Thermal and Blythe. All was going well and we made a lunch stop at Bermuda Dunes (KUDD) near Palm Springs. After the break, we were ready to do some one-engine-inoperative practice.
We climbed to 9,500 feet on our way east toward Blythe. We shut down the left engine per the TPE331 procedure and looked at single-engine “Magic Numbers” as we did
a simulated approach and go-around. Now came time for the airstart. All went well but the engine did not start. Hmmm ... did we miss a step on the checklist? We redid the procedure but with the same results. Namely, as the unfeather pump put oil into the propeller dome and the propeller blades came out of feather, relative wind provided rotation and at 10 percent engine speed, fuel and ignition were automatically activated. We could verify this by observing the ignition annunciator illuminating and the fuel flow gauge showing flow. But no light-off. About the only logical guess was that the ignitors were both bad or the ignition exciter unit had failed. As we feathered the prop again and scratched our heads some more, the captain who had been assigned as my observer woke up from his after-lunch nap and came up to the cockpit. “Golly, Tom. I’m sorry. I should have told you that we’ve never been able to airstart this engine. Just land and it’ll start fine on the ground.”
“What?! Now you tell me?!” I said in disbelief. “Heck, you guys make these engines! But you can’t do an airstart?!” “Nope. Never have been able to on this left engine.”
So now a simulated emergency has turned into a real emergency and we are faced with a single-engine landing at Blythe. No big deal at all, but so damn unnecessary had I been properly briefed. The student flies an excellent visual pattern and we touch down at KBLH with no problem, even making our way to the ramp on one engine. We take
AUGUST 2018
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 19