ROTFLMAO at Mangetout
Goodam it, Mangetout, are you trying to get us all killed? The main pattern buffer on your average small recreational plane can’t take anywhere near the amount of power needed for your rather idealistic plan to succeed.
Indeed, he is asking me to work with stone knives and bearskins. Not a chance in hell that would work without at least SOME sponge platinum
I want to know what happened with the airplane after you squawked it. I assume this was a rental. Did they just sign it out to the next poor SOB who showed up?
And really, the cold weather is a pretty poor explanation of the symptoms you described. Generally, once you get the engine warmed up, airplanes have lots of extra performance on cold days (as you well know) compared to hot weather.
Maybe a bad magneto? Fouled plugs?
Power couplings? Alluvial dampeners? Chewie, hand me my hydro spanner…
You’re neglecting to factor for the EM pulse shift.
Perhaps I should reverse the polarity of the neutron flow next time?
But seriously, to answer Mangetout’s question - I don’t know what happened after I left. I wrote out the squawk, and I told the front desk girl to warn anyone after me who wanted to fly it that I didn’t get full power out of it and to watch for that if they insisted on taking it up. Because, given Mr. Personality’s attitude, he might well have said nothing to the next person and let them discover it on their own. I’ve seen it happen. In fact, I once did take out an airplane, discover Major Problem (before I got off the ground) and found out the last three guys had all noticed it. Two never said anything about it, and even after the one guy reported it (but not in writing), the idiot running rentals still handed me the keys.
Which is why you do a pre-flight and run-up prior to take-off.
What could be wrong? Here’s the list I’ve assembled so far, after talking to various knowledgable people:
- Broken tachometer (or “gauge thingy”, for the non-mechanical)
- Broken carb heat cable (leaving carb heat on continously, although I doubt that, since when I turned the carb heat off the rpm’s rose again, as they’re supposed to)
- Stuck throttle cable
- Jammed carbeurator value
- Defective air filter (nothing visibly wrong there, though)
- Fuel flow problems
- Something else (under the “boy, that’s weird. Let’s look under the hood” cateogry)
So far, everyone but Mr. Personality agrees with me that returning to ground was the prudent choice. Since it’s unlikely I’ll get back to the airport until the weekend, I won’t know for awhile what is wrong.
Your list seems pretty exhaustive, but have you considered that the dilithium crystals may be misaligned, causing phase modulation of the primary warp plasma?
I neglected to mention this is strickly an in-system craft and entirely lacks a warp engine - impulse drive only.
Yeah, whenever you feel the impulse to drive it.
Whatever the case, people sometimes get the impression that because she’s a girl and because she’s diminutive, they can push Broomstick around.
People are wrong.
Keep us posted, Broomie, I wanna know how this washes out.
b.
Not an engineer here, but did the pattern buffers check out okay? Did you check all 4? Did you try cross channeling to circuit B?
Hmmm. You know, those impulse engines can be tricky in an atmosphere.
Next time take it orbital.
One Gulf November is officially still Out of Service.
Well, hot damn, guess I was right, fucking fancy that!
Apparently, last Sunday afternoon somebody was flying it, but that might have been a mechanic test-flying it to see what was wrong (a fair number of the mechanics at my airport have a pilot’s license, and do their own test-flights).
Didn’t get a chance to get a detailed report on the airplane, what with the head mechanic having just gotten out of the hospital after an emergency medical procedure so folks were mostly telling him how glad they were to see him, the mechanic on duty last week was off somewhere else working on his CFI rating, and the holiday party was going full swing.
I did note that Mr. Personality did not seem eager to speak to me, or even be in my vicinity. Good. Mr. Personality also seemed a little surprised at just how much a part of the airport community sweet little ol’ “diminutive” (thanks, Billy) me really is, not to mention that little incident with the hayfield got dregged up again, with eyewtinesses to the day (including the chopper pilot who brought me back to the home field*) testifying that yes, the little girl really IS a good pilot, even under adverse conditions. Mr. Personality also finally learned why the words “fuzzy slippers” and “Cessna” in the same sentence can generate peals of laughter among the regulars. But I digress…
- As a general rule, if you get a free helicoptor ride you’ve either done something really, really wrong, or you’ve been hurt really, really bad. In this case, it was neither. Long story, might have related it in another thread around here.
“fuzzy slippers”
“Cessna”
“free helicopter ride”
Now Broomstick, did you have an Unscheduled Undergarment Emergency at 5K feet? 
[sub]I’m picturing you in a terrycloth robe and fuzzy slippers, fighting with a clogged carbeurator, and giving the surprise of a lifetime to some farmer, out in his back 40…[/sub]
Oh, it was MUCH lower altitude than 5k. To make a long story short:
Inadvertantly flew into intrument meterological conditions, which is just a fancy way to say I fucked up and found myself in the middle of a cloud bank/fog situation. Not too proud of that little goof, although it can and does happen to even much more experienced pilots. There I was, 400 feet off the ground (which was fading rapidly from sight) charging along at 90 kts, knowing there’s a 2000 foot tower within 5 miles (that’s 2.5 minutes flight time) of my present position, but no longer sure exactly which direction it is in.
It was one of those moments when you really really really wish you were back on the ground.
So that’s what I did.
Didn’t even bother with an airport, just parked it on the nearest thing resembling a flat surface of sufficient length. Barely sufficient length. Did a textbook short ‘n’ soft field landing and stopped with about 50 feet to spare. Surprised the hell out of the nice owner who was having his morning coffee on the back porch. Let’s be frank, it surprised the hell out of me, too.
Anyhow, I knew that I didn’t have the skills to fly that airplane out of such a short field. Wasn’t sure anyone had 'em, or if we were going to have to put it on a trailer and take it back to the airport by road. But, in the end, they found a pilot MUCH more experienced than me to fly it back.
The helicoptor was used to get the other pilot into the field, and take me back since the less weight in the plane the easier it was going to be to get it out.
Between the landing and the take-off, all sorts of bits of hay had gotten stuck in the brake cables and landing gear. You know those really fuzzy bedroom slippers? It looked like the airplane had those on its “feet”. A little Cessna put-putting back to the homefield with half a bale of hay stuck to each wheel.
Anyhow, no damage to me, the airplane, or anything on the ground. Got a pat on the back for having the courage to land and make an excellent landing rather than press on into the mess . (Probably the best damn landing I ever made, but I was highly motivated to do it right.) This, by the way, was about 3 months after JFK, Jr. did more or less the same thing (but at night and over water) so I felt doubly stupid for having got myself into the mess in the first place.
By the way - I was a student pilot at the time, did not yet have my license. I like to think that I’m somewhat more skillful now, and most certainly more knowledgable about the weather But I am still occassionally subject to the occassional good-natured ribbing of my fellow pilots.