We have just been finishing up the annual for the Twin Comanche. The only major snag was a cracked exhaust pipe on the right engine, and a completely broken pipe, the same pipe actually on the left engine. We had to replace both of them, as neither the crack nor the broken pipe were weldable.
I took two days off work to do most of the work myself, with James, my licensed mechanic coworker did the actually inspections and provided me with the guidance I needed.
The new exhause pipes finally came today and so I spent what only amounted to be an hour and a half installing them. It was easier then I expected. I already had the old pipes removed, so I spent my lunch time drilling a hole for the clamp pin and clamping the old tips onto the new pipes. After work it was just a matter of sliding (more like wrestling, they didn't slide in very well) the pipes into their slot, bolting them onto the exhaust port with a new gasket, and then re-attaching the tip sling. Once the pipes were properly installed I just had to drill new holes for the EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature) probes and clamp them into place. That was that. Maybe I'll take some pictures of the engine tomorrow and then post them.
Its nice to actually accomplish something. Sometimes the frusterating thing about maintenance in aviation is there are so many inspections and not a whole lot of anything else. You spend an an hour ripping panels off and removing parts to look at what you wanted to see and say, "Yep, looks good". Then you turn around and have to put everything back together again. You almost feel better about the whole thing when you open something up to find it broken (money aside of course, when its your own airplane this is not so much the case), and then you can at least feel your efforts aren't in vain, and you can have the satisfaction of fixing it.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Near Miss
Saturday I was down in Sarnia flying my Cessna 150 getting ready to take my CPL flight test, when I witnessed a near mid-air collision. I had just joined the downwind circuit for runway 32, and there were 2 other airplanes in the circuit. One was a rental pilot out flying the school's 172, the other one, also a 172 was from somewhere else, as I didn't recognize the callsign.
The rental pilot was flying ahead of me in the downwind (parallel to final approach leg, but flying opposite direction), with the other pilot on his base leg (90° to final approach leg). The rental pilot made a radio call indicating he was doing a gliding 180 maneuver, which is a commercial level maneuver that involves pulling all the power off in the downwind, and gliding down in a 180° turn to land. The rental pilot's first ignorant mistake was to practice things like that with other aircraft in the circuit. His second mistake was his complete and total disregard to where those other aircraft were. During his manuever, I watched the airplanes come easily within 2 wingspans of each other as the rental pilot cut off the other pilot as he turned to the inside of the other airplane. He was just not paying attention. He ended up landing to do a touch and go, and the other pilot decided at that point to overshoot.
Talking to the rental pilot afterwards I learned that he never even saw the other airplane until he was down and rolling on the runway as the other aircraft flew over top of him in the overshoot. I've never seen airplanes so untintentionally close to each other in flight. The rental pilot has a passenger onboard, his wife, who was completely oblivious to the whole incident until we mentioned it to the pilot on the ground. The worst part about it was the rental pilot thought it was funny when we mentioned it to him, and he never admitted any wrongdoing or took any responsibility for his actions at all. Apparently he has a reputation among the flight instructors for being ignorantly reckless. Even thinking about it now, 4 days after the event, it gives me a knot in my stomach. I almost saw people die - a pilot who had done nothing wrong, and a completely innocent passenger. All from a ignorant pilot's actions.
When I mentioned it back at the flight school after we were both on the ground, I asked him very gently if he had seen the other airplane, and didn't really comment on anything other then what I saw. I regret being so kind. The more I think about it, seeing how he reacted with no remorse, and with no intentions on making sure the event doesn't repeat itself, the more I wish I had chewed him out in front of his passenger and everyone else in the room. It very well could have been me he nearly smacked into. Ignorant, self-righteous pilots like that with no respect for the responsibility they carry should not be aloud to hold a license, and the flight school should not be renting airplanes to him. At least it ended safely, if only by sheer dumb luck. It makes me sick just to think that I could have witnessed the collision of two airplanes from a birds-eye-view, I'm not sure how I would have handled it had it actually happened.
The rental pilot was flying ahead of me in the downwind (parallel to final approach leg, but flying opposite direction), with the other pilot on his base leg (90° to final approach leg). The rental pilot made a radio call indicating he was doing a gliding 180 maneuver, which is a commercial level maneuver that involves pulling all the power off in the downwind, and gliding down in a 180° turn to land. The rental pilot's first ignorant mistake was to practice things like that with other aircraft in the circuit. His second mistake was his complete and total disregard to where those other aircraft were. During his manuever, I watched the airplanes come easily within 2 wingspans of each other as the rental pilot cut off the other pilot as he turned to the inside of the other airplane. He was just not paying attention. He ended up landing to do a touch and go, and the other pilot decided at that point to overshoot.
Talking to the rental pilot afterwards I learned that he never even saw the other airplane until he was down and rolling on the runway as the other aircraft flew over top of him in the overshoot. I've never seen airplanes so untintentionally close to each other in flight. The rental pilot has a passenger onboard, his wife, who was completely oblivious to the whole incident until we mentioned it to the pilot on the ground. The worst part about it was the rental pilot thought it was funny when we mentioned it to him, and he never admitted any wrongdoing or took any responsibility for his actions at all. Apparently he has a reputation among the flight instructors for being ignorantly reckless. Even thinking about it now, 4 days after the event, it gives me a knot in my stomach. I almost saw people die - a pilot who had done nothing wrong, and a completely innocent passenger. All from a ignorant pilot's actions.
When I mentioned it back at the flight school after we were both on the ground, I asked him very gently if he had seen the other airplane, and didn't really comment on anything other then what I saw. I regret being so kind. The more I think about it, seeing how he reacted with no remorse, and with no intentions on making sure the event doesn't repeat itself, the more I wish I had chewed him out in front of his passenger and everyone else in the room. It very well could have been me he nearly smacked into. Ignorant, self-righteous pilots like that with no respect for the responsibility they carry should not be aloud to hold a license, and the flight school should not be renting airplanes to him. At least it ended safely, if only by sheer dumb luck. It makes me sick just to think that I could have witnessed the collision of two airplanes from a birds-eye-view, I'm not sure how I would have handled it had it actually happened.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Ignorance is Bliss
As soon as you earn your license and start taking non-pilot passengers up with you, you learn pretty quickly that your behaviour in the cockpit greatly influences their perception of the flight, particularily their safety. If pilots in a commercial airliner run into a problem, even if its a moderately serious one, they are able to work through and deal with without being under the scrutinous eyes of nervous passengers. Something could go wrong, and if they're able to either ignore it or fix it, nobody will be the wiser. In private airplanes however, the passengers can see everything that goes on in the cockpit, so we don't have that luxury. However we still have the responsibility and desire to maintain the confidence of our passengers, and demonstrate to them that flying is indeed as safe as we say it is. Especially if we want those passenger to fly with us again.
This presents a little bit of dilema for small airplane pilots, and can require a certain amount of good judgement to maintain the confidence of your passengers without comprimising their safety. It does become a little easier if you're operating single pilot however, which, fortunately, the vast majority of the time we are. The exception being if a fellow pilot is riding along left seat and you use him as a sort of simulated copilot (two sets of hands and heads are always better then one). In this case its always better to openly point out and discuss everything going on, so both persons have full situational awareness, and two knowledgeable brains can help work through the problem. Operating single pilot if you notice a small problem you can note it mentally and take the necessary actions or just monitor it silently as needed. The truth is small problems happen fairly often, but they usually don't cause reason to panic. Radios can act up, spark plugs can foul, carburetors can start to ice up. Usually its just a matter of taking the proper steps to fix or side-step the problem so it doesn't become a factor or monitoring it as needed to make sure things don't get worse. If they do we want to already be on top of them. But many passengers, especially nervous ones, if they notice that something isn't quite right, even if its a little something, can become far more concerned then need be. In those situations its difficult if not impossible to set them at ease simply by explaining the situation, (providing we can spare the time and attention at the moment do so) so I find for the most part its best to just try and not let them in on the problem, as long as their safety isn't jepardized by their ignorance. In this case its important to keep a confident appearance and at least appear that everything is fine and you're under control. If things worsen and the passengers have a need to know what's going on so they can react accordingly, that is an entirely different situation. But 99% of the time it never comes to that, so why worry them?
We'll use carburetor icing as an example. While fairly rare, it can and has happened to me. While not serious in the least if the correct actions are taken, it is not a normal part of the flight. I was taking a passenger up in the Cessna 150 once, and I could tell she was a little nervous. It was a little bit of a moist hazy day, and I pulled the carb heat out to check for icing. Sure enough, the engine started running just a little rough. Unfortunately I couldn't hide the change in engine sound from her and she visible jumped. I was a little concerned about the icing, at least until the carb heat could clear it out, but I didn't show it, and simply confidently explained that I pulled the carb heat out, which would cause the engine to lose a little bit of power do to the hot air. I neglected the part about possibly having an engine failure if I let the ice build up any more. She didn't need to know about that. In a couple minutes the ice cleared up, and everything went along as if nothing happened.
I guess its a matter of the cliche's "Knowledge is power" and "Ignorance is bliss". Non-pilot passengers often don't have the knowledge or experience to to fully understand whats going on, so as harsh as it sounds its best they don't know at all. Of course there are always exceptions. There are the passengers who have confidence in your abilities and the airplane and understand that minor glitches happen, and even if they don't fully understand everything, they do understand that most the time its no big deal because we always leave ourselves alternative options to take. In those cases providing you are able to take the time and give a commentary on whats going on, it can serve as an interesting learning experience, and can serve to boost their confidence even more. The trick is its important to know who those people are.
This presents a little bit of dilema for small airplane pilots, and can require a certain amount of good judgement to maintain the confidence of your passengers without comprimising their safety. It does become a little easier if you're operating single pilot however, which, fortunately, the vast majority of the time we are. The exception being if a fellow pilot is riding along left seat and you use him as a sort of simulated copilot (two sets of hands and heads are always better then one). In this case its always better to openly point out and discuss everything going on, so both persons have full situational awareness, and two knowledgeable brains can help work through the problem. Operating single pilot if you notice a small problem you can note it mentally and take the necessary actions or just monitor it silently as needed. The truth is small problems happen fairly often, but they usually don't cause reason to panic. Radios can act up, spark plugs can foul, carburetors can start to ice up. Usually its just a matter of taking the proper steps to fix or side-step the problem so it doesn't become a factor or monitoring it as needed to make sure things don't get worse. If they do we want to already be on top of them. But many passengers, especially nervous ones, if they notice that something isn't quite right, even if its a little something, can become far more concerned then need be. In those situations its difficult if not impossible to set them at ease simply by explaining the situation, (providing we can spare the time and attention at the moment do so) so I find for the most part its best to just try and not let them in on the problem, as long as their safety isn't jepardized by their ignorance. In this case its important to keep a confident appearance and at least appear that everything is fine and you're under control. If things worsen and the passengers have a need to know what's going on so they can react accordingly, that is an entirely different situation. But 99% of the time it never comes to that, so why worry them?
We'll use carburetor icing as an example. While fairly rare, it can and has happened to me. While not serious in the least if the correct actions are taken, it is not a normal part of the flight. I was taking a passenger up in the Cessna 150 once, and I could tell she was a little nervous. It was a little bit of a moist hazy day, and I pulled the carb heat out to check for icing. Sure enough, the engine started running just a little rough. Unfortunately I couldn't hide the change in engine sound from her and she visible jumped. I was a little concerned about the icing, at least until the carb heat could clear it out, but I didn't show it, and simply confidently explained that I pulled the carb heat out, which would cause the engine to lose a little bit of power do to the hot air. I neglected the part about possibly having an engine failure if I let the ice build up any more. She didn't need to know about that. In a couple minutes the ice cleared up, and everything went along as if nothing happened.
I guess its a matter of the cliche's "Knowledge is power" and "Ignorance is bliss". Non-pilot passengers often don't have the knowledge or experience to to fully understand whats going on, so as harsh as it sounds its best they don't know at all. Of course there are always exceptions. There are the passengers who have confidence in your abilities and the airplane and understand that minor glitches happen, and even if they don't fully understand everything, they do understand that most the time its no big deal because we always leave ourselves alternative options to take. In those cases providing you are able to take the time and give a commentary on whats going on, it can serve as an interesting learning experience, and can serve to boost their confidence even more. The trick is its important to know who those people are.
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