The Aztec icing business has been much discussed previously and never conclusively. I am sure the dual engine stoppages are absolutely not certifiable and probably caused by water accumulation, possibly helped by crap maintenance. The one owner reporting them was unwilling to discuss it in detail.
Perhaps more likely is too much air in the tanks 
Ibra wrote:
That was a double engine failure in an Aztec on the return flight, likely frozen fuel?
It could’ve been a crankcase breather tube freezing as well.
I got my PPL(A) in 2009 at a fairly reputable UK training school. There was no instruction on how to do a 180 turn under the hood, and there was no test on that with the examiner. I have not looked at the training requirements since.
Within a few months i started an IMC course and completed it and i can say that is a life saver.
RobertL18C wrote:
arj1 the point is that all pilots at some point were trained and examined to carry out a course reversal on instruments. So either the currency program at the flying club was deficient, or PPL examiners are not carrying out this element of the test correctly, the latter I would regard as unlikely.
@RobertL18C, I see what you are saying, but I’ve mentioned the ASI experiment for specifically that reason, to point out that semething does not work.
I think the best lesson is to actually fly into the cloud and perform some turns etc so that the pilots can see it. And not for 15 seconds, not, real IMC flying for at least half an hour.
I did the 180 in my PPL in 2000/2001.
The thing is that in nearly all crashes a number of holes in the cheese need to line up. It is easy, and somewhat “strictly-legal banal” to blame the lack of instrument qualification on this. But remember that across “elitist” Europe the IR was and remains a big expensive project which few have the appetite, bank balance, or aircraft availability for, and the IMCR is not that different on the last two. Yet people all over Europe fly VFR in IMC and are not getting killed all over the place. I would bet any money that the autopilot didn’t work or nobody knew how to use it (which, in turn, might have been because it rarely worked); a situation I am very familiar with from my 20+ years of hanging around the scene. The CAA is unlikely to investigate that (which they easily could by interviewing some people) because it would point a finger at the maintenance business. Same as they didn’t want to raise the wreckage of that carbon-monoxide Sala PA46. And they would not want to dilute the “no IMCR/IR = absolutely no flight in IMC” message.
Peter wrote:
I did the 180 in my PPL in 2000/2001.
I think the problem is not that VFR PPLs aren’t trained in the maneuver, it’s rather that they never practice it later on in their flying life. Probably made worse by the fact that in the UK (and other places around Europe) you cannot realistically do much night VFR flying, which would help.
Sure that’s true but a working autopilot and knowing how to use it would eliminate that hole in the cheese.
That RBS “banker” in the SR22, also going to LFAT, is another one. And Kennedy Jr. And many others.
I use the autopilot for VFR, in 100% VMC, extensively. It is the right way to fly a plane if going any distance.
Having spoken to someone who flew to L2K that day and took pictures of the wx formation. It’s quite possible the turbulence in those clouds would elicit an autopilot disconnect anyway.
It’s sad because as someone ‘not scared of a cloud’ I looked at the images of that day (taken while flying around the well defined edge of the mass) and would definitely never willingly fly into them.
I’m genuinely surprised that anyone would.
Enroute, one tries to go around stuff, but if flying an approach you may just have to go through it. You slow right down, to well below Va, and just maintain the attitude.
The problem is doing this just below the base of CAS, if you bust, the CAA will bust you, and the circumstances won’t help you; you would be admitting VFR in IMC…
I like an autopilot but for most of my flying life I have never had one. The only club plane I remember having one was a simple wing leveller on a Robin Aiglon.
When I first did the MEIR the autopilot,.Piper’s version of a Century 3 which worked less that it didn’t.
So I am not surprised if club renters do not know how to use an autopilot, although, if a club aircraft has one I would have thought that part of the check ride on that particular plane, would be at least a demonstration of it.
