Pre-flight check

It is easy to trust a plane is ready to fly if one thinks it is well maintained. We pilots build up practices to do a thorough inspection of the plane using a checklist as part of the pre-flight procedures. This includes things like checking the surface and controls, looking for water and contaminants in the gas, checking the oil, inspecting the propeller, tires, struts, brakes, lights, static port, and air-inlets, including the pitot tube and fuel air inlet.

Is this enough? NO. The PIC must validate that the plane is airworthy. This means the airplane is in a safe condition for flight and in compliance with approved data or approved altered state. Approved data includes the POH associate with the aircraft, any logged approved and logged alterations to the aircraft including equipment and any Airworthiness Directives (A/D). An A/D can be met either by complying with the A/D in one of the ways described in the A/D or through a specific approved request sent to the FAA administrator for an alternative (such as complete removal of the faulty equipment).

Prior to each flight, the PIC needs to verify that the plane is compliance. Included in this validation process is checking the engine log for 100 hour inspections, propeller log for 100 hour inspection and the airframe log for the annual. These are usual all done as part of the annual along with the ELT inspection (battery 50% of life or used more than an hour. Other things to check include the 24 month inspection of the transponder and pitot static system. These go together since Mode C transponder report altimeter readings.

Lastly, the oil changes are required to be compliant with manufacturer recommendations. This can be as often as every 20 hours.

Seems like alot to do. It is not if you familiar with the aircraft. For any aircraft new to you as a pilot, it is worth going through all this with the maintenance log books. It is good practice and, if something were to go wrong, you, as a PIC, can say that you completed a thorough inspection. Your passengers will thank you as well!

I'm back...and then I am not

I wanted to write. I got busy. I have been a pilot for eight months now. I fly once every three weeks. Until now. Ear drum rupture.

My last planned excursion was going to be free. Thanks to a good friend who needed to fly a plane to a FBO for maintenance, I was going to fly the entire trip under the hood for the price of lunch at Sheetz and, I hope, some good company. The weather fouled our plans, so we opportunistically trained me on a FAA certified simulator for another great price. Not free...but easily affordable. The sim was modeled after Piper Arrow, so I was able to start my complex endorsement work as well. Two birds, one stone. Love it.

What did I learn?

FLOW is important. The carb heat, landing gear, throttle, prop, mixture and flaps, IN THAT ORDER, left to right, to be managed in a well defined flow. There are some basic rules. They are simple, so this is where pilots mess up. In the end, its not simple, without FLOW and a little knowledge of how the specific aircraft works.

Land Gear: landing gear down for landing, landing gear up after positive rate of climb on takeoff.
Prop and Throttle: avoid high manifold and low RPM (sometimes not...but more on that later).
Mixture: Adjust for altitude over 3000 AGL, Full rich on take-off and landing.
Flaps: 10 degrees on take off (for this aircraft...it is truck).

How did I take off? Carb Heat off. Mixture Full Rich. Prop Full RPM. THROTTLE to the Wall. After positive rate of climb, gear up. Confirm (visually) Now back over to the flaps. Flaps up.
Climb out? Technically, throttle should be brought back before RPM. Keep the flow, right to left. Throttle to 25" MP. RPM to 2500. Adjust Mixture.
Cruise? Throttle to 24", RPM to 2400. Adjust Mixture.
Slow Cruise? Carb heat. Throttle to 18", RPM to stay. As plane slows, Throttle to 20". RPM to stay. Check Mixture. Trim.
Descent? Throttle to desired descent rate, assuming no airspeed change. RPM to stay. Adjust mixture periodically.
Landing? Reverse direction with one slight alteration. Carb Heat. Do this now while the exhaust temperature is still hot. Flaps (10 degrees). Landing Gear. Confirm. Mixture full rich. RPM full. Throttle as necessary.

Now. Every senior pilot is going to have a different flow. Every plane may have variants in the POH. Here are some considerations:

(1) On a carbureted engine like the Lycoming in a Cessna 172N, any RPM setting is not going to stress the engine for any throttle setting. Go ahead, ask Lycoming. I know one pilot that keeps the throttle at the top of the green (around 25") after climb out and does not move the throttle till landing. Cruise is around 2100 RPM to 2200 RPM. This pilot knows his plane. He is extremely precise with the mixture and its effects on fuel flow. For best performance and best longevity, this is where the time and effort make the most sense. I would only follow this procedure on his plane. I am too new to this business to do anything different than what is in the POH. If you are curious if this fore-mentioned pilot runs ROP or LOP, I do not recall. I will find out.

(2) Why flaps and gear down at the same time? Simple, it cancels out the flare when 10 degrees of flaps is added. The aircraft just slows down and stays in near perfect trim. This is critical in instrument flying. Sure, gears could go down earlier. Many planes support gear down and higher speeds than 10 degrees of flaps. If a I remember correctly, the gear and speed should be adjusted at the FAF and held in a controlled descent until either the field is identified or a go around is initiated. In either case, a different configuration takes place at that point. Slow aircraft can adjust this model so they do not hang in the lane from the FAF to the field. One idea I am exploring is keeping the speed up, not going to gear down configuration until DA or reaching MDA. I shall see what my mentors have to say about this. It is still a controlled descent...just a tad faster.

(3) For the sake this discussion, I did not include gas tanks in the flow, just mixture. For example, Cessna 172 POH has the tanks set to Both for take off and landing. I believe the Arrow is Left take and landing, and right for second half of the flight. I need to confirm this. I also did not include other critical check list items such as fuel pumps. All important. However, for someone new to complex aircraft, the flow described above is critical to understand and deserves special attention.

So where am I going with this blog. Well. I am going to make an attempt to back fill lost lessons in both private and instrument training. I am also going to move forward with more exciting flights.

At the moment, I have some time to backfill. You see, I am grounded. Ruptured Ear Drum.