What are the things you don't like doing or frustrates you related to aviation? (looking for business ideas)

In an Islander and many other piston MEPs you shut down and feather the engine and fly to the nearest suitable airfield, even in IMC.
Any half way decent ME/IR pilot will know before take off where the worst place would be for an engine failure and have made alternatives in case that should happen plus have practiced for it at least every six months. The most you might have to do is reduce electric consumption.
There are many ancient passenger twin engine aircraft still flying today and will continue providing they are well maintained.
SETs have not been around as long to know how they will compare in terms of safety to MEPs when they reach the same age.
The problem is that people keep coming up with the same tired old arguments to prove a point " the second engine will take you to the scene of the crash site." There’s nothing wrong with MEPs providing they are well maintained, flown by a well trained pilot who knows the aircraft and how to stay within its envelope.
The same equally applies to SEPs, SETs and METs.

arj1 wrote:

And I agree with them. Single point of failure (SPoF).

Considering single points of failure is a very easy analysis but can lead you the wrong way. It is really only valid if the probability of an accident is about the same for a single point failure compared to the failure of a redundant component.

Given the much higher reliability of turbines and the very marginal OEI performance of some light twins, this is not the case. You can’t say that a piston twin is safer than a SET just because its powerplants don’t have a single point of failure. (Well, actually they do — fuel.)

Snoopy wrote:

So a mep at MTOW on a hot day does a take off and enters low IMC and a manufacturing defect takes out an engine right then. What happens? Flight to the crash site.

What’s the failure rate of a piston engine vs turbine again?

Just for completeness, theoretically SET IMC AOC CAT ops can be done single pilot.

@Snoopy, that’s why I said that some MEPs are not suitable for CAT ops and xAA should be reviewing it, another one is defining the min cloud base/visibility for low-perfromance a/c.
You see, I’m not talking about the cases where operators cuts as many conners as they could (as you’ve seen it yourself, even on big jets an operator can really screw up with too many cost cuts), but about the relatively honest ones. All things equal, adequate MEPs mostly has got a higher chance of survival in a case of an engine failure with proficient and current crew.

Airborne_Again wrote:

Given the much higher reliability of turbines and the very marginal OEI performance of some light twins, that is not the case. You can’t simply say that a piston twin is safer than a SET because its powerplants don’t have a single point of failure. (Actually they do — fuel.)

@Airborne_Again, re: performance – that is why I mentioned that it works for adequate MEPs only. And re: fuel – yep, that is true, but again, on a twin you have a higher chance of survival as the contamination affects different engines at different times – you still have time to react.
But my point was mostly about qualified and unqualified passengers:
- if you want AOC, then ME aircraft with trained crew;
- if you want a cheaper flight, then you organise a cheaper plane with cheaper crew and cheaper ops.
That’s the threshold that the passengers have to cross if they want to fly cheaper, just like in many other regulated areas: you want less regulation – fine, then it is your responsibility.

Yes, absolutely. I have nothing against MEPs ;).
Regulator just looked at probabilities and then it’s not logical to ban SET.

Snoopy wrote:

Yes, absolutely. I have nothing against MEPs ;).
Regulator just looked at probabilities and then it’s not logical to ban SET.

I think it is more of a probability vs impact vs “external perception of regulator”.

The problem is that people keep coming up with the same tired old arguments…

There’s truth in them. Engine failures in MEPs are apparently more often fatal than in SEs

The dodgy OEI perf MEPs can’t be used for public transport anyway. Only charter AOC stuff.

There are other single points of failure e.g. ignition switches.

I think you will find that the type of MEPs used for CAT work do not have a very high rate of engine failures. At the smaller end of the MEP world, eg Islanders or Twin Otters, they are after all the same engines as used in SEPs, so why would they be more likely to fail in an MEP than an SEP.
At the larger end eg an old DC3, well perhaps they do suffer more engine failures, but I have not noticed the fatality rate being greater than in an equivalent capacity SET.
I don’t have a problem with CAT in SETs. In fact I have friends who pilot the Grand Caravan on the Brest to Ouessant route and it seems to work well and they have not mentioned any fear of engine failure and the passengers seem happy enough. It beats the boat trip for most.
But please stop pitting one against the other. Flown and maintained properly they can and do serve the purpose for which they have been chosen.
Accidents and failures can happen in any aircraft or any walk of life. Life is risky. If you don’t like the risk of flying with one engine to a small island, go by boat if you feel that is less risky.