At Long Last, an Airport Story...

The BBQ Pit
1

Notice a lack of flying stories from me the last year or so? Sure, lots of commentary on airplane threads, but no stories…

Well, I haven’t been flying much these past 15 months. All for good reason, like illness in the family and finances, but finally, at long last, I feel I am in a position to resume defiance of gravity. Of course, my skills are rusty… so I wisely sign on with an instructor for some refresher and recurrancy training because I highly value my own personal safety.

(By the way - all names have been changed)

So I go out to the airport for a flight at High Noon. I arrived early, since whenever possible I like to pre-flight the airplane and get myself ready in a non-hurried fashion. Turns out a newish instructor - I’ll call him Nick - has an intro-flight scheduled in that plane just prior to my use of it. No problem - an intro-flight is about a half an hour of air time, he should be back at noon.

He’s not. 15 minutes goes by. Then a half an hour.

His girlfriend is starting to get nervous. As is his dad. Mind you, this is not the new student’s friend and loved one, this is the instructor’s significant people.

45 minutes

50 minutes overdue, we hear him on the radio on approach for a landing. At 5 to 1 - almost an hour into MY time - he lands. His girlfriend says I looked pissed. Well, yes, as a matter of fact I am. That’s just rude. Worrying people, inconveniencing people… TOTALLY unnecessary, especially as he has a working radio and could have just given us a call.

Yeah, I go out there. “Hi, did you have a good flight?”

“Yes, yes I did.”

“Good. I’m glad. Do you realize you’re an hour overdue?”

“No way - I can’t be that late.”

“You are. This time I’ll accept an apology” (Yes, he actually gave me one).

Anyhow, he drops off paperwork, I pick up paperwork, and go out to pre-flight the plane. I realize the key is not on the clipboard. I ask Nick where it is. He tells me it’s in the airplane.

Now, that’s not really a good thing - you really should leave the keys to vehicles in said vehicles. Just not good policy. Even so, I’m expecting the keys to be sitting on the seat or something.

They’re not. It’s FAR worse than that.

The keys are in the ignition. The ignition is turned to “both”, meaning both magnetos are “hot”, that’s is, ready to fire the spark plugs. The main power switch has also been left on. OK, what this means is, if someone passing by pulls on the prop, or leans on the prop, or even, possibly, bumps the prop that prop could start moving. That would be a Bad Thing. Potentially a Very Bad Thing. How bad? Take a blender. Put it on high. Drop in a carrot. Only not a carrot but a person. That kind of bad.

This is not rude. This is not sloppy. This is hazardous.

OK, I’ve pretty much decided I am not going to fly with Nick. Ever. Fortunately, I am not flying with Nick, I’m flying with Eugene.

Problem is, by this time I’m pissed and cranky. Not to mention rusty.

I did have a pretty decent flight, from the standpoint of what I wanted to accomplish. It really wasn’t that wonderful - I was sloppy and struggling and, oh, just out of practice. Which is precisely the reason, of course, I have my instructor/personal coach with me. It was, to be frank, embarssingly on several levels. Just ick.

Although I still remember how to land well. THAT’s a good thing!

But my time was cut short - we both had obligations that required us to leave at two.

And now I have to say something officially about what Nick did. The fact he only charnged a customer 30 minutes worth of time for a 90 minute flight is not my problem, leaving an airplane in an unsafe and unsecured condition - that’s everyone’s problem.

What a jackass.

I hope, really hope, this was just a piss-poor day on his part, an aberration, and not a pattern.

>sigh<

2

How odd… 163 views and not one comment. Don’t think that has happened to me before.

Ah, well, one bump then it sinks like a stone into obscurity…

3

Well, I haven’t piloted a plane in over 25 years, but I remember the aggravation of having my lessons screwed up by others who couldn’t seem to read a watch. Bad enough when it was another club member, worse when it wasn an instructor.

I was almost afraid you were going to say that Nick drove off with the keys in his pocket. We had people do that more than they should. Our supply of spare keys saved more than one flight. But leaving the key ON?!?!?! Very very bad. Sorry the aggravation messed up your flight.

If I can add an old gripe to yours: I was not only a club member, but I worked in the office to earn flight hours. My name was on the “In case of emergency, call” list, and since I lived the closest, I got these calls. The scariest was the night I was informed one of our emergency locators was transmitting. I hadn’t worked that night, but we often had folks flying after we’d locked up - there were procedures to secure the planes and leave the keys.

Anyway, I drove to the club in the wee dark hours, and the planes were all there. After a bit of investigating, we figured that whoever had the last plane out had made at least one “solid” landing and tripped the switch, much to the annoyance of the tower personnel. We reset it and instituted a policy that returning pilots would listen on the the radio to see if they were sending out a distress signal before turning everything off. I guess it worked - I never got a call for that again.

All of a sudden, I miss flying. Wish I could afford to get current again, but as long as we’re boat owners, that’s not gonna happen.

4

Left the… key … magnetos warm? Geez. I’ve seen pics of what happens when people do that.

Do you think he was on dope, or something? Or just stupid?

5

>sigh<

No, I have no reason whatsoever to believe he was on dope or drunk. Ya know, having a “substance abuse” problem is almost more curable than criminal carelessness…

I ran into the head instructor this morning when I met some people at the airport this morning for breakfast, so I had a word with him. He’d already heard about the one and half hour intro flight… he hadn’t heard about the hot mags. And I saw the head guy pull the offending CFI (yes, this was a CFI being that boneheaded) aside for a brief conference. At least they’ll have a closer eye on this guy until he either straightens out or they have cause to get rid of him.

Young fellow, new CFI. May be going through that stage some new commercial pilots go through when they’re cocky to the point of careless. As I told the head instructor, I hope this is a one time aberration.

While the line guys are always encouraged to double check things like that for safety, they should be able to do their jobs without have to put up with that level of careless disregard for the safety of others, and the line folks don’t always bother to check if they’re busy.

Honestly, when I saw that my blood ran cold. I do NOT want to be anywhere near the sort of accident that can cause!

6

Seems to me if the pilot can’t read such a basic instrument as a watch, then he or she might not be able to pay proper attention to the aircraft instruments, and shouldn’t be flying.

I know that sounds petty, but isn’t a basic element of flying knowing the time, as an aid to navigation?

7

Not petty at all.

Yes, time elapsed can be important in navigation. It’s also important when you’re dealing in matters paid for by the hour, and other peoples’ money. Then there’s the whole issue of being responsible in general. If you can’t be trusted on something as basic as showing up or returning on time people are less inclined to trust you on other matters. Like letting you fly an airplane.

We’re all late from time to time - it happens. But there is a responsible way to deal with that, especially if you have a working radio and even more so in this age of cellphones. If he had been late because, as just one example, someone had gotten violently ill and he thought it best to land at the nearest airport, get the person straightened out, and clean up the airplane… well, OK, no one would have been pissed about that. It falls under the category of “shit happens” But that’s nowhere near what happened. Apparently, he was having too much fun and didn’t want to come back. Too fucking bad.

I suspect the only reason I didn’t get the down-the-nose sneer of “Well, I’m a commerical pilot and you’re not!” is because I am twice this yahoo’s age. Maybe also because I’ve been flying five times as long as he has.

It was a boneheaded mistake, leaving the mags like that. It wouldn’t be tolerated in a student. It shouldn’t be tolerated in a licensed pilot at any level

8

CFI here.

Not to excuse an instructor leaving the mags hot, but… Go find me someone who has never left out an item on a checklist.

If he’s a new CFI, he probably has a lot to learn. I don’t think I really got good at it until I’d done it for a year or so. Remember that an instructor not only has to monitor themselves as a pilot, but the student too. That’s a high workload, and it takes experience to manage it all. And experience takes time.

And believe me, not everyone who passes the initial CFI is truly ready to be a good instructor. You know how they call the Private Pilot License the “license to learn”. Well the CFI is the biggest license to learn of them all. I’ve seen a lot of instructors who were very good pilots, but really didn’t know how to go about teaching. Then when they began concentrating on teaching, some other stuff temporarily went the wayside. I wonder if perhaps that might be the situation here?

Also, with regard to scheduling: I’ve found that to be one of the hardest things about running a flight school. I go to a lot of effort to put together a schedule, only to have it blown apart by weather, maintennance issues, traffic delays, etc. I hate hate HATE to disapoint students when they come out prepared and pumped to fly, and for some reason we have to cancel. But it happens. It doesn’t sound like that’s what happened to you, but I thought I’d mention it.

If the kid knows what he did wrong, give him a chance for experience to kick in. You may find he’s a better instructor in a few months.

9

That’s one way to look at it, I suppose.

On the other hand, I’m guessing that the passengers on Continental Flight 1943 weren’t so philosophical back on February 19, 1996. That’s when the captain on their flight (a man with approximately 17,500 hours of total pilot time) skipped over the fourth item on the in-range checklist: “hydraulics.” And, unfortunately, the flaps don’t deploy and the landing gear doesn’t extend on a DC-9 without high-pressure hydraulics. It made for an exciting landing. The whole (somewhat sorry) story is here (warning: large PDF file) on the NTSB site.

My favorite part of the CVR comes just 30 seconds prior to “sound of impact, loud rattling, rumbling”.

Personally, if I’m paying for the services of a professional pilot to fly me around (even if it is “just” a CFI giving an intro flight) then I figure I should get someone who goes through each and every applicable item on the checklists. Otherwise, it just doesn’t seem like I’m getting my money’s worth…

10

All I’m saying is, nobody bats a thousand. Even professional airline crews, as your example illustrates.

Cut the kid some slack… for now. If this problem appears to be a pattern after a little time, then write the CFI off. But give him a chance to learn his craft.

11

Maybe if the kid had made just one mistake I’d cut him more slack - but he made three in a row. 1) way overdue 2) master switch on and 3) hot mags.

If he had been 10 minutes over due… yeah, OK, but he wasn’t. He was an HOUR overdue, on a local flight, originally scheduled for 30 minutes. WTF? And it wasn’t a matter of misreading the schedule - I was there when he was looking at it and, not recognizing my last name, asked who had the plane at noon and I said “I do”. So he knew what time he was supposed to be back.

Yeah, passengers can be distracting. New jobs can be distracting. We all get distracted. Still fucking careless of him to leave an airplane in an unsafe condition like that.

I did NOT get into a shouting match in front of his paying customers - I took him aside and calmly pointed out that I didn’t appreciate starting my lesson an hour late because he lost track of time and that he had missed some rather important shutdown items. And yes, I told his boss, who would know far better than I if this was a one-time fuck up or part of a pattern.

As far as I can tell there are three long term outcomes possible:

  1. He straightens out and becomes a good CFI - hey, I’m all for it

  2. He keeps fucking up and gets fired - I can live with that

  3. He keeps fucking up and someone gets hurt or killed - THAT I would find unacceptable.

12

I hear your frustration Broomstick. Personally I find the time keeping thing to be a lot more worrying than leaving switches on. Losing an hour (if he trully wasn’t aware of the time) is what happens prior to the fuel running out.

Switches on? It happens, people make mistakes. Personally I always leave the rotating beacon on so if the master is left on it is obvious.

If it happens often though, then it can certainly be a problem. Leaving switches on goes hand in hand with leaving fuel caps off and landing with the wheels up. I avoid landing with the wheels up by using a checklist AND having a healthy paranoia about it.

Just having a checklist isn’t always enough. I’ve seen very experienced pilots forget to even DO a checklist simply because they were overloaded with other things such as landing at a new airport, finding out that a restricted area (in the circuit area) was active that they weren’t familiar with, and being at the end of a 7.5 hour flight involving continual operations at altitudes between 1500’ and 200’ AGL.

I once forgot to call for a checklist because I had a problem with the aircraft and was concentrating on what the engines were doing while I flew back and landed. The crew member who normally reads them to me thought I didn’t want the checklist as it was a special situation and so didn’t offer it to me (even though he had noticed that I had missed it.)

Anyway, you’re certainly justified in getting into that plane shaking your head and thinking “you dumb fuck”, but it may well be the jolt he needs to start developing his own unease about whether he has done everything that should be done.

It is also a good lesson about assuming other people have done everything they are supposed to* and about the similarity between guns and mags. Guns are always loaded and mags are always on, even if you know they’re not.

*I know you didn’t make any such assumptioms here but the lesson is still valid.

13

I’d like to point out that in the checklist anecdotes above, all the appropriate checks had been done, it was just that the checklist had not been read. The item which is supposed to be a back up to catch our mistakes can’t remind us to use it.

14

I have a policy of not touching the prop unless the keys are in my hand - cuts down on the chances of an accident. And I always start the pre-flight in the cockpit, which is why I spotted the problem so quick. Those are habits I picked up both from experience and as the advice of more experienced pilots whose opinions I respect.

I agree, partly this is inexperience on his part. If I must have a new-minted CFI I tend to prefer those that have a number of years of just plain flying behind them in all seasons and conditions rather than some academy graduate who is long on theory and short on experience, but the world is not an ideal place. Which is precisely why one needs to be careful.

15

Yes, unfortunately instructing is a “starting out” job for most pilots so you get a fair number of low-paid, inexperienced CFIs. And even the best flying schools can’t hold the new guy’s hands all the time.

16

I became a mechanic when my first bird went down due to my mistake. No injury, no damage, military thing. (Not good to do it that way but to never make a mistake or three is not always possible.) *::: Good judgement ofton comes from surviving your bad judgement. ::: *

I have yet to ever move a prop regardless of where the switches are without assuming the engine is going to fire. Why, because I put that very bug into systems during test cell training for A&P’s MAGS are always HOT, no matter where the switches are. ( guns that are never pointed at people don’t shoot people. regardless of ammo condition.)
There is a safe way to do it that even if the engine fires, it won’t hurt you or anything else. You just have to do it right every time.

I quit being an instructor because I was not suited to it. I had plenty of time in both hours and time, grew up around planes and I could not remember a time my Dad had not had one.
What I could not handle was folks that refused to listen.

The majority of CFI’s today seem to be young and inexperienced. ‘Tis the nature of the game due to economics and other things.

This fellow does not seem real swift for a CFI but I think you should have either had a better talk with him in an effort to help and not gone to his boss or told him you were going to his boss and give him the chance to go first.

I don’t know if he actually was in a hurry to get back and knew he had goofed up and was trying to cover or what. Was he shut down before he saw a mad female charging at him or were you storming across the ramp ( Oh s— I forgot about her ) before he was out of the plane?

You are usually real cool from what I know of you. Sounds like you went super nova on this guy before you knew what the deal was. You gave all kinds of things he could have said or that could have happened but you did not know at the time you were in his face. He knew you were pissed before you ever asked the first question. ( Not making excuses for him but I was not there.) I have had folks charging across the ramp at my airplane and had to shut engines down in a hurry for everything from danger to me and thee to guilt, etc.

Remember the four most dangerous times in a pilots career. 500 hrs, 1500 hrs, 5000 hrs, ( A lot of new CFI’s are at the 500 hrs mark) and anytime the boss or company can scare the pilot about his job enough to make him cut any corners. ( Sadly, this happens a lot to pilots for hire and not to PPL’s flying for fun and self.)

It is good that you are / were careful. Never trust anyone when it comes to airplanes and guns. Check it out for yourself as you did.

And don’t forget, there is not 100% safety or compliance in anything dealing with airplanes.

Wanna see all the things I did wrong once… Check this out. and I have more ::: sigh :::

17

So what IS the safest way to move the prop (presuming you need to move the prop) so if it DOES fires nobody gets hurt? In ten years of flying I’ve never had anyone give an answer that satisfies me. I know too many people who just don’t consider that they could get hurt.

Like I said - I told him a calm, quiet manner. I didn’t shout or swear. I got the definite impression he just blew off my comments. Maybe I didn’t make that clear before. It was a real “oh, whatever” attitude. Maybe if he response had been “Oh, shit - geez, that was stupid, I’m sorry, I’ll be more careful” I wouldn’t have been so pissed off. I can handle someone who admits his mistakes. Someone who won’t admit to them never learns and never fixes the problem.

As far as I can tell, no, he was oblivious to the fact he was an hour late. Either than or he’s a hell of an actor.

I did not meet him on the ramp. I waited until he was inside the FBO and had stepped away from the intro-ride people. I said I wasn’t happy about him being an hour late. He apoligized and gave me the clipboard with the paperwork. I started out the door, then realized I didn’t have the key. He said it was in the airplane. I then walked across the ramp and got in the airplane, looking for the keys - and that’s when I found them in the ignition. So no, he never saw a pissed-off little me storming across the ramp because I never “stormed across the ramp”. No one was riding his ass when he should have been doing a shutdown.

Nope, I didn’t go “supernova” at all - I save that for the rant board. I tried to address the problem in a calm, rational manner and got blown off. THEN I got angry.

Yeah, I know - but attitude counts for a lot. Like I said “Oh, geez, I did something stupid - I’ll do better in the future” is a lot different than “Yeah? Whatever.”

18

Pretend you are prop-swinging in order to start the engine*. Brakes on, wheels chocked if practical, throttle closed, switches off. Stand in front of the prop with both feet firmly planted and your weight balanced so you don’t fall forwards when you turn it (if anything you want to take a step backwards as you do it). Use both hands and if you can, try not to curl your fingers around the edge of the blade (sometimes it can’t really be helped). Pull the prop through smoothly. Expect it to start. If you always expect it to start then you will naturally treat it with caution.

NEVER** pull the blade through if you are standing in the propellor arc.

A friend of mine got a nasty cut in the back from a prop that kicked. He was performing maintenance and the engine wouldn’t have run if you tried to start it, but it still got a spark and kicked over once.

I know of someone else who started a Tiger Moth with the throttle wide open (starting procedure was to pull the engine through with throttle open and switches off as part of the priming sequence, he forgot to close it prior to starting.)

The Tiger saw its chance, roared in to life, leaped over the chocks, and started its first ever attempted take off unencumbered by the weight of a pilot.

Unfortunately for the little biplane it had been fitted with handgrips in the lower wingtips. The panicking would-be pilot managed to chase after it and grab the grip on the left wing. Then, in a battle of wills, the pilot tried to stand firm while the tiger struggled to get away. The pilot would have feared better if he had managed to get the tail rather than the wingtip. Instead of calmly slowing the whole aircraft to a stop, he only succeeded in stopping the wingtip. The rest of the aircraft continued on in its fight for freedom.

You know those wire controlled model planes, where you stand in the middle and the plane flies around you attached by a couple of control wires? Looks like fun eh? Well, apparently it’s not so fun when it’s a full sized antique biplane running at full power with 5 hours of fuel in the tank and no way to shut it off!

*There are several differing ideas about how to prop-swing an aircraft, all have their pros and cons. If you stand in front of a tail dragger and do it, the prop blades can get quite close to your legs. Another option is to stand behind the prop so the blades are moving away from your legs.

**Never is a strong word, and as always there are exceptions. Aircraft fitted with radial engines require the prop to be pulled through several revolutions to make sure there is no oil in the bottom cylinders. On a two bladed prop at the nose of a reasonably sized taildragger, you can’t always reach the prop without standing underneath it. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can to keep clear of the propellor arc.

19

It’s worth noting that you can do everything right and *still * get whacked. If one of the mags has a broken P-lead, it won’t be grounded even with the switch at Off and the key out (that’s also why you have to see *some * RPM drop at your runup - to make sure the off mag is really off). Bump the prop wrong and off you go. Just stay away from props at all times.

Rule at my FBO is to bring the key back to the office along with the Hobbs clipboard, with the control lock in place so the little plate covers the switch. Also a good idea to listen for the gyros spooling down after shutdown as a hint to turn the damn master switch Off.

1920, how did the Tiger Moth incident turn out? I can think of a lot of possibilities, none of them good.

20

Broomstick: Sounds like you did a good job, thanks for the clarification. sounds like you ran into one of those that might not be good in the long run.

What the others said about learning to 'Prop" an engine.

Actually, I’ve 'Propped" a lot of engines, all the way up to an P&W R-1340 by hand. ( Only once on an AT-6 but it was a bit scary. ) The most difficult and worry some for me was an LYC, I O - 540 on a 1965 Piper Comanche B. Lots of compression, prop not in the right place on compression stroke, way low to the ground and hard to get a hold of without putting some body part in harms way.

Like was said before, the mags are always hot and if you move the prop, the engine will start.

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