My father taught me that every time before flying to check everything, engage, cycle, verify functionality. I've written about all that I do before getting airborne. You may sit in the run-up area for a few extra minutes while doing this, but those few minutes could save your life and the lives of any passengers you have aboard.
To the left is an example of what can happen if you don't make sure everything is in working order. The pilot of this Twin Beech didn't bother to verify that the propeller feathering system operated correctly before taking off with eleven passengers. On take-off the left engine failed, the pilot tried to feather the engine's propeller, but it wouldn't. The asymmetrical drag caused the plane to stall and crash. All aboard were killed. From the accident report:
AFTER TAKEOFF, THE AIRPLANE WAS SEEN AT LOW ALTITUDE TRAILING SMOKE FROM THE LEFT ENGINE. WITNESSES SAW THE WINGS 'TIPPING' BACK AND FORTH, THEN A WING DROPPED AND THE PLANE HIT THE GROUND. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT A SUPERCHARGER BEARING HAD FAILED IN THE LEFT ENGINE. THE LEFT ENGINE HAD BEEN RECENTLY INSTALLED BY NON-CERTIFICATED PERSONNEL AFTER BEING INACTIVE FOR 18 YRS WITHOUT PRESERVATION. THE AIRPLANE HAD FLOWN ABOUT 184 HRS SINCE THE LAST ANNUAL INSPECTION; NO RECORD OF SUBSEQUENT 100-HR INSPECTION. THE LEFT PROP BLADES WERE FOUND IN AN INTERMEDIATE POSITION BETWEEN THE OPERATING RANGE AND THE FEATHERED POSITION. THE LEFT PROP WAS CHANGED SEVERAL WEEKS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT THE LEFT PROP HAD EVER BEEN SUCCESSFULLY CYCLED TO THE FULL FEATHER POSITION. THE OPERATOR AND PILOTS WERE NOT AWARE OF HAMILTON STANDARD SB 657 RECOMMENDING FULL-FEATHER CHECKS EVERY 30 DAYS. LEFT PROP FEATHERING MOTOR RELAYS NOT RECOVERED. ALL 11 PARACHUTISTS WERE FOUND IN CENTER PART OF FUSELAGE; NO EVIDENCE OF RESTRAINT USAGE.
Probable Cause: INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE AND INSPECTION BY THE OPERATOR WHICH RESULTED IN AN ENGINE POWER LOSS DURING THE CRITICAL TAKEOFF PHASE OF FLIGHT. IN ADDITION, THE PILOT DID NOT, OR WAS UNABLE TO ATTAIN A FULL-FEATHER POSITION ON THE LEFT ENGINE PROPELLER, WHICH WOULD HAVE MOST LIKELY ENABLED THE AIRPLANE TO SUSTAIN MINIMUM CONTROL AIRSPEED.
Reading the report, I was baffled by how any flight operation could be so careless, incompetent and stupid. What they did, and failed to do, is unbelievable. And caused the deaths of 12 people.
Just the other day, two experienced pilots tried to take off in a Lockheed 12A, one of only eight flyable examples in the world, with the flaps down. The 12A is equipped with split flaps, meaning they cause drag only, no lift, and the airplane will not fly with them extended. Making sure they are raised is on the pre-flight checklist. Yet they took off with the flaps extended. They managed to get about 300 feet in the air before the plane stalled and spun in, exploding when it hit the ground, killing both pilots.
Then a couple of days later an experienced pilot and copilot landed another Lockheed 12A without locking the tailwheel, an item on the pre-landing checklist. The tailwheel castored when it touched the ground, throwing the plane into a groundloop. It ran off the runway and smashed into a tree, wrecking it and sending the three occupants to the hospital.
Not long after that incident a Cessna 172H flew with carburetor heat off on a day with humidity and atmospheric conditions conducive to carburetor icing. The carburetor iced up, the engine quit, the plane crashed, both passengers were severely injured and the pilot was killed. He apparently tried switching fuel tanks, thinking there was a fuel problem, but didn't think to turn on carb heat. If he had, the engine might have restarted in time to avoid the crash.
I could list example after example of similar accidents caused by pilots failing to strictly adhere to requirements that help ensure safe flying or simply doing the wrong thing -- wrong in retrospect. I read accident reports to learn what can go wrong and to remind myself to do everything right and not ever forget to follow each step in the flight process to help lessen the risks inherent in flying. I fear one day doing something careless or stupid that I know better than to do or just not doing the right thing when willing myself to stay calm in a sudden emergency -- I try A when I should have tried B....
How can I avoid screwing up when pilots much more experienced and capable than I am do so? One thing I do is not only verify each item on the checklist, I look at the item and reach out and touch it, then say out loud the checklist item. Read, look, touch, say. And I will not rush. And although procedure says you only need to check something the first time you fly on a given day, I check everything every time I fly. So if I fly in the morning, land and refuel, I go through the entire checklist again before taking off.
I'm reminded of how Charles Lindbergh was viewed by the fighter pilots of the 475th Fighter Group, "Satan's Angels," that he flew with during the Pacific War. The 475th flew P-38s and were a mob of heart-breakers
and life-takers if there ever was one. While the pilots of the group were initially in awe of Lindbergh, they began to regard him as a stick-in-the-mud, a slow poke. They began calling him grandpa (he was 42). That was because while they were kick the tires, light the fires and pull streamers hot dogs, Lindbergh was a very methodical, careful pilot who thought about what the airplane was doing and how to make it perform better. This showed up during combat missions when everyone else had to break off and return home when their fuel ran low while Lindbergh was able to linger longer in the target area yet return with more than 200 gallons of fuel remaining in his tanks.
Lindbergh explained how he achieved this: flying the engines "over-square"; that is, lower rpm, higher manifold pressure. The 475th's pilots flew every mission on auto-rich, props at 2300 rpm, manifold pressure 30 inches. Lindbergh taught them to fly in auto-lean at 1600 rpm, manifold pressure 32 inches. When they worried this would wreck their engines, Lindbergh said that this procedure was recommended to extend range in the operator's manual, something none of them had done more than flip through when they were first introduced to the P-38. He was actually advocating a more extreme engine management technique than the manual recommended, but he knew from experience that it worked, and he also knew these guys had never read the manual, or, if they had, they'd forgotten what was in it. Lindbergh, the careful and methodical pilot, who had never flown a P-38 before, had read the manual and not only did what it told him to do to fly the plane the way it was intended to be flown, he added in his own decades of experience in engine management to make the plane perform as it could at the hands of an expert aviator rather than with a shake-and-bake pilot at the controls.
Well, anyway, so far so good.
Fingers crossed.
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| I should make a placard of this to mount in the mighty Beech. |
