Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Flying II…The Emergency’s

PlaneCrashing
There is a saying I have heard many times about flying. It says “flying can best be defined as hours and hours of boredom, punctuated by a few seconds of stark terror.” It took several years of flying professionally to fully appreciate the truth of that quote.
When I was instructing, I required my students to read in the NTSB Reporter and Aviation Safety News. (Those papers deal with aviation accidents.) I also was very strict on emergency procedures and safety. So many times I saw students or licensed pilots go through a routine during a simulated emergency without really thinking about what they were doing, and I knew in a real emergency they would likely end up in one of those papers as a statistic if they were not shown a better way. The other serious flaw I saw in the training of most pilots is that almost none of them were ready to accept any damage to the aircraft. So many times, a bent prop or damaged wing tip could have been the extent of the damage, but because the pilot in command was not ready to accept that, people died and aircraft were totaled.
Now, I think it is time to relate a few of my own real life emergencies, minor as they were, and tell about a few simulated ones in training, and how some pilots reacted to them.
Sherman’s Check out.
I think the best story to illustrate what I mean about pilots going through simulated emergency procedures without really thinking what they are doing is a check out I did for the A&P mechanic at one of the FBO’s where I instructed.
Sherman was in his mid-20’s, and had a couple hundred hours on a private ticket. He already had a complex and hi-performance sign off; I was just checking him out in the FBO’s C-182 RG. Make no mistake, Sherman was a good pilot, and being an A&P, he understood aircraft systems, although as you will see, in times of stress, we can forget even the things we know best.
We had gone through all the maneuvers, stalls, slow flight, etc, and I had simulated engine failure a couple times by pulling the throttle back. (Which is how it is usually done.) Sherman handled everything very well. He had his sign off in the bag, but I knew he was reacting to the emergencies by rote. I decided to throw him a bit of a curve. I ask him to do some maneuver or other, and when he was doing a clearing turn and looking over his left shoulder, I reached down on the floor between our seats and turned the fuel selector to off. This actually cuts off the fuel supply to the engine, but there is about 30 to 45 second lag before the engine dies. By the time the engine quit, I was very innocently sitting looking at my map; my hand was no where near the throttle or the fuel selector. Sherman’s reaction was one of total disbelief….he said “Shit…F—k…Damn…in quick succession a few times…touched the throttle, and that was about all. I suggested he go through the emergency procedure he had demonstrated so well earlier. He followed that suggestion, INCLUDING ACTUALLY TOUCHING the fuel selector and saying “fuel selector on both.” He also began pointing out a small airport and some large open fields where he thought we might make an emergency landing. I waited a few seconds and ask him to go through the emergency procedures again….SLOWER….and to think about what he was doing. He went through it again and STILL MISSED that the fuel selector was in the off position. He was still repeating the “Shit…F—k…Damn” every now and then, but I got him to go through the procedure a third time…he finally caught the fuel selector had been turned off, switched it to the both position, and in a couple seconds, the engine started again.
He told that story all over the airport, and I think had several good laughs at himself.
The Simulated Emergency That Almost Was.
Once when I was doing some instructing at North Perry Airport, an instructor that was freelancing at another FBO came over for a check out. She was early 20’s I’d guess, and cute as anything. I guess she was unhappy instructing where she was, and wanted to start flying out of this FBO. Insurance requires a check out and sign off by an instructor already at that location, which fell to me. Now, I didn’t want to waste this girls money on a full blown check out, and I planned a “quickie” that I used for many experienced pilots just needing to satisfy the insurance requirements.
I would tell them to do a short field take off, but rather than recovering at 50 feet AGL to keep the short field procedure going to 100 feet AGL.
On the check out, upon reaching 100 feet AGL, I would chop the throttle to simulate an engine failure, and if they did everything real good, we could land on the remaining runway. They of course did not know what I had planned, and if they reacted wrong, or to slowly, we would just add power and go around.
In a C-152 a short field take off is done at 54 knots indicated, with 10 degrees of flaps. When I cut the engine, the correct response would be to immediately drop the nose to maintain airspeed, dump full flaps, and even do a slip to increase descent rate further.
On this occasion, at 100 feet, I chopped the throttle and….OhhhhhShiiiiiitt…..the throttle knob and about 6 inches of cable came right out of the instrument panel….the cable was broken, we now only had idle power available on the engine. I think we both simultaneously pushed that little Cessna’s nose towards the ground and her left hand and my right were slapping the flap handle full down, after a couple seconds I remembered to kick full rudder one way, full aileron the other to do a slip. I had requested “the option” from the tower, which meant we could do a take off, abort, or what ever, and I doubt they suspected anything was wrong. We made a somewhat firm landing, with plenty of runway in front of us, and were taxing at idle power to clear the runway. The tower ask us to expedite off the runway…I would love to have seen the looks on their faces when I replied “unable to expedite, we only have idle power.”
We walked in the FBO together after parking the plane, and I handed the owner the throttle knob….he took it in his hand…looked at it a second, and asked, “What’s this?” I think he almost fell over when I told him what happened.
I Think I’ll Just Sit Here For A Bit Longer.
Pilots are not the only ones in aviation that make mistakes. The following happened to me one day as I was ready to depart West Palm Beach International for the Bahamas on a scheduled flight. As I neared the departure end of the runway, ground handed me off to the tower, and I checked in with them by saying “Airways 123 is with you, ready to go on the right.” As I said that, I was looking at a small general aviation twin on short final to my runway, and expected the controller to tell me to hold short. Instead, the controller clears me for take off. The controller was obviously unaware of the aircraft on short final. I replied, “Ahh, tower, I think I’ll hold short for a little bit.” There was silence, when I’m sure the controller was using his binoculars to see why I wanted to just sit there. Within 15 or 20 seconds, the aircraft, an Aerostar, was over the numbers and the controller asks if I can taxi into position and hold, and I replied I could. Once the Aerostar cleared the runway, I was given take off clearance, and on climb out, the controller actually apologized to me. He said the Aerostar was cleared for the left runway, not the right. (At West Palm Beach, 27L is a very small general aviation runway, and hard to see if unfamiliar with the airport.) He asked if I would like to make a report, which I declined to do. I would guess all that came of that incident was the pilot of the Aerostar would have been asked to call the tower, and tower personnel would have told him he landed on the wrong runway. Unless the FAA turds were monitoring the frequency, then, both the Aerostar pilot and the controller who missed him being on the wrong runway would have probably gotten violated. That is why I declined to file a report. Everybody drops the ball sometimes, as long as one of us caught the mistake, there was no danger at all, even if I had accepted the first take off clearance, the Aerostar would have just made a go around.
Bird Strike.
One day I left Fort Lauderdale Airport with 4 or 5 passengers and headed for Miami, where I was to pick up a few more, then head to the Bahamas. It is about 25 miles between the two airports, and a very scenic flight. One lady out of Fort Lauderdale was very frightened, not only of flying, but especially of being in a small commuter aircraft. I put her in the co-pilots seat, and told her I would show her a little about the plane and the area, and that I bet she would not be so scared of flying if she understood a little more about it. After departing Fort Lauderdale, I was showing the passengers the Football Stadium where the Miami team plays it’s games, Opa Locka Airport where Amelia Earheart last sat foot in the USA, and a few other sights. The lady up front seemed relaxed and actually enjoying the flight, at least after the first few minutes.
We were almost to Miami and making a shallow right turn when I caught a quick glimpse of something out of my left eye and BANG…something, either a buzzard or a brown pelican, hit the leading edge of the left wing between the fuselage and the left engine. The prop was not damaged, in fact it did not look like it even had been hit, but the wing’s leading edge was pushed back in a lot. I reduced power on the left engine, just in case the prop had been hit, the last thing I wanted was a prop blade flying loose, and we made a normal landing at Miami. Unfortunately, that was it for that particular aircraft for a few days, and my passengers went on to the Bahamas with another flight.
The Bermuda Triangle.
Well over 4000 of my flight hours were spent in the Bermuda Triangle and I must admit I am a little disappointed I didn’t see something exciting and unusual. Something that might be expected in an area with the reputation that the Bermuda triangle has. In fact, I saw more weird things inside the plane, from my passengers, than outside. However, there was one night I got a taste of how easy it could be for a plane to just mysteriously vanish in that area, as many have.
I had a flight from Miami to George Town, near the bottom of the Exuma chain. Normally in a C-402, that is just under a two hour flight. I had flown that route many times, always VFR if possible and I could do it without any navigation aids at all if needed. On this night it was just getting near sunset as I left Miami. The Bimini VOR must have been down, because I was using the NDB there for reference. I crossed south of Bimini right on course, and I remember thinking about the NDB signals “bending” at a shore line at sunset. I had never experienced that before, only read about it, and was curious how much the signal would be affected. By the time I crossed the western shore of Andros Island I was still on course and on the proper bearing off Bimini. I could still see ground reference as I crossed Andros, and was exactly on course as I crossed the Eastern shore. I could see the lights at Nassau to my North East, and I still was showing the proper bearing off Bimini. Everything was perfect. Now, I had about 30 minutes of Open Ocean to cross before I would see the Exuma chain, or at least some lights in the towns there. I think the moon must have been up, because I was looking for the scrub cays, I remember thinking the water looked very dark…something did not seem right. I tried the localizer frequency for George Town, but it was not operating, as usual. I remember looking at the ocean and thinking, this is deep water, I’m not over the Bahama banks anymore, this isn’t right. My 30 minutes and more had passed, no lights could be seen in front of me, but far off my left wing tip was a bright light I had just noticed. I checked every frequency there was in the area for navigation aids, but could get nothing. I looked at that black ocean again, and turned towards the bright light on my wing tip. 20 minutes later, I could see the airport beacon and the lights of George Town. Had I kept going the direction I was headed when I first saw that light, I would have had several hundred miles of Atlantic Ocean in front of me. I am still amazed that in 30 minutes time things could go so wrong, and I was still on my same heading and the same bearing off the Bimini NDB.
To this day I can not explain why what happened, happened. I was on the proper bearing, still flying the same heading that I had been flying to maintain that bearing when I knew I was tracking right on course. I should have joined the Exuma chain about 20 miles North of George Town, not passed 40 or 50 miles South. Nothing was wrong, there were no mistakes…yet…..??
One Night, One Aircraft, Two Engine Failures.
I had flown a Pilot Services flight in the Twin Comanche from Tulsa to somewhere in Kentucky, dropped off my two passengers, and was returning to Tulsa. I had about an hour fuel reserve for the trip and the night was good VFR so I intended to make the flight non-stop. Somewhere near the Springdale/Rogers Arkansas area the right engine just up and quit. There were a couple airports very close, so I just shut the engine down, feathered the prop and went into one of them. I could not believe I was out of fuel, but after putting fuel in both tanks, both engines started and ran normally. I did a long run up before departure, and finally satisfied that for some reason I had ran out of fuel in the right tank, I departed. I planned to climb to 4,500 feet, and I canceled flight following as soon as I was clear of the Airport Traffic Area. I no more than leveled out, set the airplane up for cruise and settled back to enjoy the view when the right engine quit again. It seems like I was only about 100 miles from Riverside Airport, and now I knew I had plenty of fuel, so I had no intention of landing anywhere but Riverside. I did decide to pick up flight following again though, and when close enough contacted Tulsa approach and told them my location, and that I was VFR single engine for Riverside. They ask if I wanted the trucks out, but I said no need. The night was beautiful VMC with unlimited visibility, and as I got closer to Riverside and was trying to spot the airport beacon, I saw a mass of flashing red lights that seemed to be coming from right near where the airport should be. Sure enough, another few minutes I picked out the beacon, still a good 50 miles away, and those red lights were right by it. Turns out someone decided that the EMT and Fire Fighters did not get much excitement, so all the fire trucks and ambulances responded. Spartan was having a Multi-Engine ground school that night, and the class even turned out to watch me land. For those non-pilots reading this, a single engine approach in a twin engine airplane is a simple and straight forward thing, no big deal if you know what to do.
The biggest challenge was taxing to parking. The owner of the FBO where I flew out of was still on the field, and had been notified I was coming in on one engine. He and the fuel truck driver met me on the taxi way, and when I was making a left turn, one held back on the left wing tip, while the other walked the right wing tip around. That was about the only way I could make a left turn with the right engine not running.
As it turned out, the problem was a loose piece of gasket material in the right fuel pump that occasionally blocked the fuel flow.
Holding With Margarita.
I have mentioned Margarita before. She was a gorgeous little Mexican girl, who I had been friends with since she came to Spartan to start her Private training. She was 18 or 19 at that time, and I was about half way through my Commercial/Instrument training, and I guess about 33 or so. At Spartan we both had the same instructor, the former Mig pilot.
Lets jump ahead a bit now. I had done some of Margarita’s Multi-Engine training in the Twin Comanche, and was working with her on her Instrument Instructor rating. She had been having some troubles with intersection holds, and John (her Spartan instructor,) suggested I help her a little. One night found us holding at the Kevil and Sappa Intersections south west of Tulsa. We were filed IFR and were in IMC. I would have her enter a hold at one of those intersections, get established, then move to the next. I always changed things enough so that she would have a different type of entry each time. At one of the intersections, we were almost VMC, so I requested higher from Tulsa approach, and it was granted. We climbed to the new altitude, which kept us IMC 100% of the time. I was left seat because she was working on the Instrument Instructor rating, and I think at that time I was doing the flying and making every mistake I could think of to keep her busy. All at once she points to the airspeed indicator, which was reading zero…..One of us grabbed a flashlight and shone it out along the wing where the Pitot tube was. It was encased in white rime ice. A look on the wing showed a couple inches on the leading edge. We were in a C-152, which I really did not think would fly with a ice build up like that. We started down and notified Tulsa what we were doing and why, and lower was immediately approved. The scariest part was hearing the chunks of ice come off the wings and blow back and hit the tail. 500 feet made all the difference between icing and not, and the build up was very fast, only a very few minutes.
There Are Those That Have, And Those That Will.
The only plane I ever damaged was an EAA Bi-Plane that I was ferrying from Mountain Home, Arkansas to Hollywood, Florida. The previous owner had lost his medical, and the plane sat for a couple years before it was purchased by the man who hired me to ferry it to Florida.
I had never flown an open cockpit aircraft before, nor had I ever flown anything quite like this particular aircraft. The day I picked it up was forecast to be very windy, so I was at the airport at sunrise to get an early start. The take off and climb out was uneventful. Reading a map in an open cockpit aircraft proved to be impossible, and I was happy for the hand held GPS I had along.
The first indication of trouble came on my first fuel stop. I tried 2 times to land the way the previous owner had told me, without success, and on the 3rd try I did it my way with good results. I topped off the fuel tanks, which by then were about half full and added almost 4 quarts of oil. The engine was blowing oil out the crank case vent at a pretty good rate. After discussing this on the phone with the new owner, I departed on my next leg of the flight. My next fuel stop was to be Greenville, Alabama. I had shortened my planned legs because of the oil loss problem, and Greenville was less than 2 hours away. I remember seeing the Selma, Alabama airport as I passed by about 15 miles south, and debated if I should land there; I was seeing some fluctuation in the oil pressure and was getting a little nervous. I decided against it because I did not have a radio, and was trying to stay away from anywhere that might have jet or turbo-prop traffic.
By the time I entered the pattern at Greenville, oil pressure was fluctuating a lot. The down wind leg was over town and the area all around the airport was populated or otherwise unsuitable for landing. The EAA Bi-Planes are similar to a Pitts, and landing one often includes doing a “bunny hop” down the runway, but my first contact with the runway resulted in a sizeable bounce. I added power, leveled off, cut power again and tried to land. The result was another big bounce. The end of the runway was fast approaching, and I had no oil pressure at all. Doing a go around was out of the question, so I forced the plane onto the runway. A couple good bounces and the left landing gear collapsed. The plane veered off the runway, dragging the left wingtip on the ground. According to the A&P mechanic/new owner, damage was not serious, but I still did not feel very good about it. The plane rode the rest of the way home in the back of a 24 foot rental truck.

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