DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Any DA62 related topics

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VickersPilot
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DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by VickersPilot »

Herewith an interesting exert from Wikipedia:

"In 1953 the FAA "60-minute rule" restricted twin-engine aircraft to a 60-minute diversion area, based on the piston engine reliability of the time, with flexibility beyond with special approval. In the 1950s the ICAO recommended a 90-minute diversion time for all aircraft, adopted by many regulatory authorities and airlines outside the US.[1]"

"Engines must have an In-flight shutdown (IFSD) rate better than 1 per 20,000 hours for ETOPS 120, 1 per 50,000 hours for ETOPS 180 and 1 per 100,000 hours for beyond 180"

Whilst not applying to Part 91, from a good practice perspective, I would be curious what others are/or would use as their "personal ETOPS" for over water flying. Let's ignore water temperature (count swimming as an unacceptable risk!) and let's moderate the weather appropriate to the size of our aircraft. Now, to make it more interesting, let's assume the life jackets are stowed, no "special passenger brief", and no immersion suits - just a routine Saturday morning flight.

ETOPS - How far (in minutes) from land, at the one-engine speed (what is that number CFIDave?!) do we consider acceptable for "every Saturday morning" type flights in a DA62?
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Gordon
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by Gordon »

Very interested in this topic as I am planning some long over water flights in the future but haven't got around to doing the math yet on critical points and PNRs.

Apart from using a plotting chart, does anyone have a program or formula for off track critical points? On track CPs for departure / destination are easy enough.

I'm looking at YBCG-NWWW (780 nm over water). With out crunching any numbers my thoughts were 55% power out to the CP so that max fuel is available at that point for single engine on/home, once past the CP crank it up to 80% + power to get the journey over with asap.

If that turns out to be too tight I can route via YBCG-YLHI-YSNF-NWWW which is a bit out of the way but making the longest over water 480nm. Trouble is after 480 nm and no alternates nearby at YSNF, I would have to be carrying gas to fly onto Noumea (NWWW) or the other way to New Zealand.

I would definitely have a raft jackets and waterproof Satphone though!

@wolfvoador on this forum would have some answers as he did a bunch of Atlantic & Pacific flying on his around the world DA42 trip. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... WJb9dcmDpf

Of course in airline circles "ETOPS" is jokingly referred to as: Engines Turning Or Passengers Swimming :)
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Steve
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by Steve »

From a different perspective, when I was in a Patrol Squadron in the Navy flying P3Cs, we would routinely shut down (loiter) an engine to extend our mission duration over water. :shock: Of course, we had 4 big turboprops. :bow
Soviet Alfa in Sea of Japan, 1984
Soviet Alfa in Sea of Japan, 1984
Visible above is our #2 engine shut down with the prop feathered, and the periscope of a Soviet Alfa submarine visible on the surface. We had been prosecuting (tracking and running practice attacks) on him for several hours when he came shallow and took a look...
Jroseund
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by Jroseund »

Sonar probably got tired hearing you guys buzzing around him for hours. At least you pissed him off :thumbsup:
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pietromarx
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by pietromarx »

Ummm. Wow. There's the competition between superpowers in a single photograph. Amazing.
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CFIDave
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by CFIDave »

Something to consider:

Hundreds of new Diamond DA42 and DA62 twins have been successfully ferried from the Austrian factory in Wiener Neustadt to the Canada factory in London, Ontario -- across the cold north Atlantic Ocean via Scotland, Iceland, and Greenland. AFAIK, Diamond has never lost a plane on this route -- despite these all being brand new aircraft that one might expect to experience "infant mortality" issues, or that might experience the typical bathtub-shaped reliability curve (where most faults occur early on, and then much later.)

This trip includes at least three 4-hour overwater legs with few or no alternates:
Scotland-to-Iceland
Iceland-to-southern tip of Greenland
Greenland-to-Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada

I made this trip in my new DA42-VI back in 2013 (maybe stupidly not wearing an immersion suit):
FlightTrack.jpeg
So while this is not an "every Saturday morning" type of trip, it shows that Diamond twins with diesel car engines can almost routinely fly 4-hour legs over large bodies of water.

Anyone want to fly to Bermuda? ;)
Last edited by CFIDave on Tue Mar 09, 2021 1:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Steve
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by Steve »

Jroseund wrote: Mon Mar 08, 2021 5:17 am Sonar probably got tired hearing you guys buzzing around him for hours. At least you pissed him off :thumbsup:
I don't think we pissed him off too much. We weren't actively pinging him, just using DIFAR (Directional Frequency Analysis and Recording). They often wouldn't know we were tracking them, as long as we were high enough so that they didn't hear us, and we set our sonobuoy patterns far enough away that they couldn't hear them splashing into the water.

We occasionally did provocative maneuvers, usually with Soviet surface combatants. But I have drifted this thread enough already...
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dgger
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by dgger »

VickersPilot wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 8:46 pm ETOPS - How far (in minutes) from land, at the one-engine speed (what is that number CFIDave?!) do we consider acceptable for "every Saturday morning" type flights in a DA62?
I would not worry about the engines too much. You can quite comfortably cruise home on a single engine should one ever quit on you. At least in a DA42, but I hear the DA62 is no different in this respect. And loosing both engines two or three hours into a flight (which is when you would be far away from a suitable landing site option) seems unlikely.

My pet peeve with the DA42 (not sure about the DA62) is the hydraulic system. There is a single pump and should you ever loose pressure the gear would come down resulting in added drag. The remaining range would take significant hit, then. On a long leg, halfway between two isolated fields that could easily be catastrophic.

So, if there was a choice, personally, I would want to stay close enough to a field that I can reach with the gear down.
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wolfvoador
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by wolfvoador »

Hello, I did 12 hours in my DA42NG from Hawaii to California. I calculated that if one engine quit halfway (1000nm from land), I still could just about make it without swimming. I found no single eng cruise tables, and with the 2 minute rule for single eng op, no time to stabilize, trim plane, and get meaningful real-life data. But from the single eng climb charts, you see (for DA42NG) a zero climb at about 12,000, at 85 KIAS (which is about 105 TAS). So, you burn 8.3gph with one eng, and this gets you just 100nm less range than your typical 75% cruise on both engines, but much slower of course. At midpoint of my trip, I had 91G left (with fuel efficient 50-60% settings first half), so would have had 1,060 nm range plus 45 min Res. From experiencing with one engine "simulated feathering" (running at about 20%), I also found that you can increase your single engine range by throttling back the op engine. As a consequence, I never used those uncomfy immersion suits.
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Re: DA62 - Personal ETOPS Discussion

Post by nworthin »

dgger wrote: Tue Mar 09, 2021 8:49 am
VickersPilot wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 8:46 pm ETOPS - How far (in minutes) from land, at the one-engine speed (what is that number CFIDave?!) do we consider acceptable for "every Saturday morning" type flights in a DA62?
My pet peeve with the DA42 (not sure about the DA62) is the hydraulic system. There is a single pump and should you ever loose pressure the gear would come down resulting in added drag. The remaining range would take significant hit, then. On a long leg, halfway between two isolated fields that could easily be catastrophic.
Wouldn't you need to have a failed pump AND a hydraulic system leak for the gear to auto-fall?
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