Pilot's Operations Handbook (POH) attention getters

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

While looking up something for another thread, I found some attention-getters in my Robinson R-22 POH:

Power lines are deadly. (But people still fly into them.)

NIGHT FLIGHT PLUS WEATHER IS DEADLY (Yes, many crashes are weather related and happen at night.)

WALKING INTO TAIL ROTOR CAN BE FATAL (Really?)

But my favourite one has always been:

LOW ROTOR RPM STALL CAN BE FATAL

After a few paragraphs describing what the situation is and the aerodynamics behind it, we read:

[emphasis mine] Ya gotta love an “owner’s manual” that uses the word “doomed”. :stuck_out_tongue:

2

Yeah, you can just see some pilot frantically leafing through the manual during a rotor stall…

Passenger: “What does it say!?!?”
Pilot: “It says we’re ‘doomed’!!!”
Both: “Aaaaaugh! We’re doomed! We’re doomed!”

Also: “Walking into Tail Rotor can be Fatal.” Sure, but it’s the easiest way I know to make people sausage.

3

What?!!

No mention of sustained inverted attitude in a fling-wing?

Lawyers must not have been awake…

rule 1: in event of emergency, ignore all manuals.

(I got that one from a fellow who flys a '47 for DHL)

4

Not to mention the most expensive!

A Bell 47? Or a C-47? (Both are pretty uncommon in commercial operations, although I see a DC-3 flying around Long Beach very frequently.)

5

As any good fixed wing pilot knows:

The only reason whirlybirds fly anyway is because they shake so much and make so much noise that the ground rejects them.

:stuck_out_tongue:

Buliwyf

God was my copilot, then we crashed and I had to eat him.

6

A C-47 and a DC-3 are essentially the same plane. (C-47 is the military desination) Many DC-3s still fly on small passenger lines in America and in many other parts of the world.
Buliwyf

you sig is hilarious.

7

'47 = Boeing 747 probably in the cargo configuration as it is a DHL bird.

-me

8

elf6c gets a cigar!

9

I recently was asked to look up stall speeds for a Mooney A-model (the first of the 2-place Mooney models that later became a metal 4-place airframe). There is no stall speed in the manual!

So, we’ve gone from providing little information in the POH (circa 1955) to warnings about the seemingly-obvious.

BTW, here’s the verbage for proper stall procedures: “At 65 mph the aircraft will settle in within fifty feet or so after the power is cut.”