kent.misegades

Still one of the better-looking designs from the past. All done with slide rules and real engineering.

1 reply

mruthven

Back in the 1970s a friend owned a 200D and I rented it from him several times. As I recall, it would true out at 210 mph at 7,000-8,000 feet. Gear and flaps down it would drop like a (good) rock, so quite easy to fly a close-in pattern. My last time with it was when the fuel pressure dropped to zero when I has taxiing for takeoff. The fuel pressure “fixed itself” but I definitely didn’t fly it that day, or any other day after the owner’s mechanic didn’t find anything wrong.

Bill_B

I don’t know what the AD on the pitch trim system was about but I know the system and lack of maintenance on it almost killed me on my one and only flight in a 200D back in the 70’s. It’s an involved and interesting story that I should probably write about but it comes down to “but by the grace of God go I.” I still love the looks of the airplane.

jet36

Had to chuckle when reading this (near the beginning).
“Performance was on a par with the V-tail Bonanza: 170-knot cruise speeds and 1150 FPM climb rates, - - - .”
Having owned & flown numerous V-tailed Bonanzas back then, none came anywhere close to those reported performance numbers (but we all wished)

schultz.da

I was one of the two pilots who rode N71LB to her final landing. You are correct that it was a flameout that caused the crash. We had returned from a flight to the East Coast trying to sell the aircraft. We dropped the owner off in Greenville, Mi from the failed attempt. When he got out he must have kicked the baggage door lock because on takeoff it began to flap open and closed. The PIC, I was a passenger, opted to put the aircraft in a slip to hold the door closed. As we turned about a 2 mile final at KGRR the engine flamed out as we turned on to the final approach. Neither of us were prepared for the wild ride that Negative Torque Sensing produced. I can only describe it like being tied to the end of a whip. The prop governor would increase it’s oil pressure as the feathering prop spun faster. Then as the pressure increased the prop would flatten out for normal flight. It was like hitting a brick wall and whiplash as the prop cycled back and forth. I was instructed by the PIC to feather the prop if I could. The pitching of the nose of the aircraft was so extreme that he could not leave go of yoke to pull the feather button. Once the engine was feathered, control of the aircraft returned to normal. Something I never noticed before in the state of Michigan was the practice of wind rowing fields. Trees are planted on the parameter of the field to help protect the top soil from blowing off. This is a great practice for farming, however, not so good when you are crash landing in that field. Fortunately, the PIC got the aircraft lined up on a diagonal line from two opposite corners of the field. The impact immediately took the gear off of the aircraft and opened the bottom of one of the two wing fuel tanks. Just as we were a couple hundred feet from impacting the wind row trees the left wing dug in and we did about a 180 degree turn on the ground. We both exited the aircraft, walked up to a house that was at the end of the field and started making phone calls to notify the authorities.

The Interceptor 400, in my opinion, had a design flaw. It could only feed out of one wing at a time. There was no interconnect that allowed feeding fuel out of the fullest wing in a turn. I was told by the PIC later that fuel starvation was the reason why the engine flamed out. I suspect that the turn to final, the slip on the aircraft, and the design flaw were the cause of this final crash and it’s first one too. I was told that when N71LB crashed the first time that the pilot was flying along the beach in California when it crashed into the Pacific Ocean. As the story was told the pilot had begun circling just before the flameout happened.

I flew the aircraft as a FAR 135 charter aircraft that flew canceled check and blood tests to Detroit, Michigan and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was fun having controllers think that I was a KingAir because of the speed and altitude that I flew at. The aircraft had some particular quirks. First was P-Factor on take off. If you had a crosswind from the right the question was always which would come first Rudder effectiveness or the left hand edge of the runway. The aircraft also had a tendency to sit on it’s tail while loading. It was best to have someone in the pilot’s seat before loading luggage or aft passengers as a precaution.

I always had the feeling that this airplane was going to hurt someone someday. In fact it was one of the biggest reasons why I left the employment of this charter operator. It did teach me that you really do not have a right to fly an aircraft that you do not know the systems on. Because the Factory had gone bankrupt there were no resources for information about the aircraft. The only training I got was on the Garrett engine from their training department. Thank God that just opening the operators manual and trying to absorb as much as you can are gone for ever with good reason. As I attended Flight Safety and an Airline training the training diagrams, boards, and devices helped bury system operations so you could analyze what could be the potential problem. This knowledge made me a better pilot because if I could not figure it out I knew who to call to help me with the issue.

Sadly, back in 1995 I had that proverbial Elephant sit on my chest at 2 AM and as they say, “The rest is history!”

Thanks for letting me the “rest of the story!”

sbssmike

Thank goodness they didn’t use that new timey fake engineering!