Page 17 - Volume 11 Number 5

what they are telling you. I hope you will conclude that none of them says that the airplane won’t continue to accelerate and fly. “Fuel Pressure?” Golly, I only have 10 hours to sort that one out! “Bleed Air Fail?” No problem to wait a while to address that at a safe altitude. “Oil Pressure?” (For those models that have it.) The engine is not in immediate probability of seizing. We have time to monitor the gauge and look for oil residue on the cowling at a safe altitude. I have yet to see a “Wing Fell Off” light in a King Air. I’d abort if I saw that one!
Inverter failure? The inverter light is a unique case. For the majority of King Airs, the main pilot-side flight instruments depend on AC power along with at least the torque gauges, the most important engine power instrument. If Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) exist and power had already been set – as it should have been, long before – then the plane will fly just fine with no alternating current. Yet departing into low clouds would not be nice, especially if you don’t have another qualified pilot in the right seat to temporarily take control using that side’s instruments, most of which will be working fine. So I encourage you to brief carefully, even if it is just talking to yourself, about the highest speed at which an inverter light would trigger an abort reaction. Keep in mind, too, that this should be a temporary problem only, until the other inverter can be selected.
Finally, that big, scary nemesis – “Engine Fire.” Surely, I’d abort for that one, right? No! And here’s why.
To the best of my knowledge – and I have talked with a lot of other high-time King Air pilots and mechanics – there has never been an in-flight engine fire in a PT6! Even if there were a large fuel leak, what would ignite the fuel? The hot exhaust stacks are forward, not aft. (Well, except for the Piaggio and Starship.) If there had been a large fuel leak downstream of the Fuel Control Unit (FCU) and upstream of the nozzles, it is questionable whether you’d be able to make takeoff power normally.
Combine that thought with this one: King Airs have a horrible history of false fire warning lights. This tendency to illuminate when no engine fire is present was rectified when the newer, gas-filled tube warning system was installed, beginning with the 300 model in 1984. But the older system that was triggered by infrared radiation – or, in some cases triggered by flickering light – was known to yield many false warnings. (“Look! I see fire! Oh, wait, it’s the sun, ninety-three million miles away.”)
Here is my bottom line: Once the speed is such that an abort is no longer a slam dunk, easy procedure for the particular takeoff conditions that exist, then I am aborting for one reason and one reason only ... inability to control the airplane.
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MAY 2017
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 15