FLYING LESSONS for September 1, 2016

Transcription

1 FLYING LESSONS for September 1, 2016 FLYING LESSONS uses the past week s mishap reports to consider what might have contributed to accidents, so you can make better decisions if you face similar circumstances. In almost all cases design characteristics of a specific make and model airplane have little direct bearing on the possible causes of aircraft accidents, so apply these FLYING LESSONS to any airplane you fly. Verify all technical information before applying it to your aircraft or operation, with manufacturers data and recommendations taking precedence. You are pilot in command, and are ultimately responsible for the decisions you make. FLYING LESSONS is an independent product of MASTERY FLIGHT TRAINING, INC. This week s LESSONS: Pursue Mastery of Flight As promised, this week we ll catch up on reader Debrief items which are often some of the most insightful FLYING LESSONS of all. Let s get right to it. Comments? Questions? Let us learn from you, at mastery.flight.training@cox.net See Debrief: Readers write about recent FLYING LESSONS: A great many readers were apparently inspired by last week s LESSONS about command decisions and the need to respond correctly and decisively in the event of an abnormal or emergency situation. I received more Best Issue Ever -style comments than I think ever before (thank you!) and of course last week s reality-based scenario provided many questions for your consideration, and almost nothing in the way of direct answers. See From your comments I ve come to believe most FLYING LESSONS readers are thoughtful decision-makers, and several of you provided personal experiences to share. One reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, writes: I feel that I need to comment on last week s issue as it hits close to home. Seven years ago on a SAR [Search and Rescue] exercise in my [Cessna] Cardinal RG I had a landing gear incident. I was with three other people, none of whom I knew well or had flown with before. Two of them had very limited experience in small airplanes. After completing one leg of our mission we were going to stop for lunch at an outlying airport. I put the gear lever down and heard an unusual noise. I didn t get a green light and when I looked out the window could see the mains flopping in the wind. The main gear actuating rod end had failed and there 2016 Mastery Flight Training, Inc. All rights reserved. 1

2 was no way to put the mains down. The nose wheel still worked properly. We ended up flying to a bigger airport and spent almost two hours burning off some fuel and preparing for a landing. The only real decision I made that day was what airport to land at. I had thought through this scenario and others many times in my mind before, addressing many of the points you brought up in your blog. Most of the decisions had been made by reading safety-related articles, studying aircraft manuals and thinking through emergency situations while safely on the ground. We were going to land on pavement at an airport with emergency equipment. We would make a gear up landing, electrics off but with power still available to the engine. Full flaps, into the wind at a normal soft-field landing speed. Doors were popped open on final as per Cessna s recommendations. I had no intention of being a test pilot or doing something that I hadn t practiced before. We had lots of insurance to pay for damage to the plane and I did feel a real sense of responsibility to get my passengers on the ground safely without alarming them anymore than they already were. All loose items were stowed by the passengers, under the seats or in the baggage compartment under a net. I had them remove their headsets on downwind and stow them so that nothing would interfere with quickly exiting the aircraft. We briefed emergency procedures like brace positions and exit procedures for when we landed. We had also done this in the safety briefing before we took off. Our landing was as uneventful as it could be in this situation. The insurance adjuster was surprised at how little damage was done to the belly of the plane. It was repaired and is still flying today. Two of the three passengers still fly with me today. The third hasn t many due to his wife s concerns about him going in a small plane. Oh, and one of the passengers is now my wife and has flow hundreds of hours all over North America with me since the incident. Personally I know that there is real value in thinking about and going through what if exercises on the ground before they happen, in the unlikely event that they happen to us in the air. You have a great blog. I enjoy it and pass it on to other pilots. Reader Cal Young adds: Another good LESSON. It is one thing to brief door opening but more useful to have the right seat person practice the task. To answer question 1, runway or off-runway with failed gear, I read about gear up landings but don't recall reading about accidental gear up landing fires or flipping over on their back. Going through the logs, my '62 [Beechcraft] Deb[onair] has had three gear up landings in its history but no fires. From my glider years, what looks acceptable at pattern altitude can be drastically different on the ground and that is after circling over the area several times trying to work weak lift. David Tuckers shares his experience: This week's FLYING LESSON brought back memories for me as I suffered a nose gear failure on my Cessna 303 back in The circumstances were a little different as I did not actually get airborne. I was departing from a potholed runway at Damazin (HSDZ) in the Sudan when my nose gear became unlocked just as I was approaching rotation speed of 80 knots. Instead of rotating the nose dropped and the aircraft slid straight along the runway on its nose for about 330 feet. There was no fire and [I] and two passengers exited without injury. A couple of pictures are attached showing the aftermath. You can publish these if you wish. Looking at your command decisions, I would say based on my event: 1. Land in as normal a configuration as possible. My SOPs call for takeoff with zero flap, but even if the flaps had been fully extended they would not have been damaged. 2. Land with gear down on a hard runway. You will have much more control than on an uneven grass surface Mastery Flight Training, Inc. All rights reserved. 2

3 3. Pull the mixtures and props as soon as you touch down. Until then you may need both to keep control. 4. Don't worry about damage to the aircraft. If my accident had been in Europe or the USA the damage could have been repaired. As it was in a remote place, the insurers totalled it and paid up without argument. Reader David Autio helps erase any notion that just because I specialize in Beechcraft that FLYING LESSONS is a Bonanzas-only forum. He relates his story: [Last] week's LESSON strikes close to home for me. Last July 17th a Commercial student and I were practicing 180 accuracy landings at a nearby airport in a [Cessna] Cutlass RG. Upon departure we heard a loud "clang" from the area of the back seat. On downwind we extended the gear. I made the usual I've got a wheel [in sight] call and he responded by saying, I don't. After looking at each other for a couple of seconds I told him to leave the pattern so we could work the issue. As he flew the plane I pulled out and tried the emergency gear extension procedure exactly as explained in the POH. The result was the same: No left main. We decide to head back to our home airport as there was no imminent safety-of-flight issue. On the way back I called the owner of the aircraft and we decided that if we had to we would make a gear up landing on the runway. My student and I reviewed the gear up landing procedure and got ready to make a low pass by the tower. The tower confirmed that the left main was just dangling there. About this time two of my fellow instructors were just about to depart in another plane. They offered to join up with us [in formation] and try to work through the procedures with them observing. As we departed the pattern I asked the tower to call the [rescue] equipment, to which they responded that they were already rolling. The controller working that night is a member of our club. [The rescue personnel] confirmed what the tower had said. After failing to get the left main to move we returned to the airport to make an emergency gear up landing. On the way back my student and I removed the page containing the procedure from the POH and went over it step by step. On downwind we unlocked and unlatched both doors and tightened our seatbelts and shoulder harnesses as tight as possible. As [we had] briefed, after we were cleared to land my student turned off all electrical equipment. Once we turned final his job was to watch the airspeed as I flew the approach. On short final, also as briefed, when the runway assured I pulled the throttle and he pulled the mixture to Idle Cutoff, turned off the fuel valve, and shut off the mags. I just finished the landing and we slid to a stop. We evacuated the plane uninjured. It turns out that the left main landing gear actuator casing had cracked, rendering it useless. The gear wasn't going to lower or retract because of that. The moral of the story is FLY the airplane, work the issue, and have a plan. Great insights! Thank you all. We have a lots more reader mail, which I ll get to next time. What do you think? Send your thoughts to mastery.flight.training@cox.net Please help me cover the costs of providing FLYING LESSONS through the secure PayPal donations button at Thank you, generous supporters. You can always find the current and two most recent FLYING LESSONS reports at And now, a word from our sponsor We're always trying to reach more pilots with our Pilot Workshops Tip of the Week. The link to sign up (no charge of course): We've been sending out these short tips since 2006, and look forward to sharing more for years to come. Fly safely, Mark Robidoux PilotWorkshops 2016 Mastery Flight Training, Inc. All rights reserved. 3

4 Lack of Transition Training The FAA tells us the lack of transition training has been cited as a causal factor in many GA [general aviation] accidents. Learn more by reading the July 2016 Fly Safe Fact Sheet. See AOPA Air Safety Institute s Transitioning to Other Airplanes online course is another great resource for highlighting the need to become thoroughly familiar with an airplane that is new-to-you, regardless of your current experience whether or not the transition is a move up (e.g., normally aspirated to turbocharged), a move laterally (for example, Mooney to Comanche), a move down (e.g., piston twin to Cessna 172), or a move in avionics (for instance, Garmin G1000 to Aspen). Full disclosure: I was a reviewer of this course before AOPA took it live, and helped create the section on Beechcraft airplanes. The ASI course isn t your transition program, but it will help you put together a personalized transition training plan, including contact information for Type Clubs and other experts in the aircraft type. See And of course the FAA s Advisory Circular (AC) A, titled Transition to Unfamiliar Aircraft, contains much wisdom on the substantiation and conduct of transition training into anything that is new to you including Experimental aircraft and airplanes for which training in type is not available. See As an instructor who has devoted my career to type-specific instruction I may have a perceived bias toward transition training. Type-specific transition training is usually oriented toward systems instruction and operation. That s a vital part of getting to know your airplane, whether it s the jackscrew trim of a Piper Cub, the confusingly concentric overhead trim cranks of Piper Apaches (I never really felt like I could trim the Geronimo conversion in which I earned my multiengine and multiengine instructor ratings), the simple wheel-and-cable system in a Cessna 172 or 182, the moving-tail trim in a Mooney, or the electric trim in an A36 Bonanza (including the trim runaway I experienced at about 50 feet above ground level during takeoff a few years ago). You don t only need to know the systems, how they work, what normal, abnormal and emergency conditions look like, and how you work each system in normal, abnormal and emergency conditions. You also need to know the general handling and performance characteristics of the airplane and the equipment it contains including avionics. Because although the vast majority of airplane crashes result from the pilot s decision-making, you won t be freed up to make good decisions if you re too focused on simply figuring out how to fly the airplane and operate its equipment. In other words, you need to know the stick-and-rudder, power settings and systems/avionics management of the airplane without thinking or you won t be able to exercise your even superior judgment in an unusual or distracting event let alone if you have an abnormal or truly emergency situation Mastery Flight Training, Inc. All rights reserved. 4

5 So here s your FLYING LESSONS homework for the week: No matter what your experience or how much you know the airplanes you fly, read these sections of the Pilot s Operating Handbook (or their equivalent in airplanes with different-format manuals) for each airplane you fly: Section II, Limitations Section VII, Systems Description That s all. It won t take long. But I bet you ll find at least one a-ha item you didn t know, or that you knew but you ve forgotten. Let me know what you learned or re-learned from this exercise, at mastery.flight.training@cox.net. Share the skies with master aviators. Forward FLYING LESSONS to a friend Pursue Mastery of Flight. Thomas P. Turner, M.S. Aviation Safety, Three-time Master CFI Flight Instructor Hall of Fame 2010 National FAA Safety Team Representative of the Year 2008 FAA Central Region CFI of the Year FLYING LESSONS is 2016 Mastery Flight Training, Inc. For more information see or contact mastery.flight.training@cox.net Mastery Flight Training, Inc. All rights reserved. 5