How much of a preflight do _you_ do after a "short" stop?
Fred Stellabotte
>Having heard several opinions in the hangar, and seen several different
>approaches in practice, I'm curious how the net feels about this: how
>much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop? Say, for example,
>you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
>to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
I do a complete pre-flight anytime I go away from the aircraft. I may
do it a little faster but I do it. I will especially check the following:
1) Oil
2) If I took on gas I will sump the tanks and check fuel color
(clear/white means fuel grades were mixed)
3) The Tarmac around the wheels for dripping brake/hyr fluid
4) Clean the windshield if it is all full of bugs.
If I have stayed with the plane .. I will still check the Fuel/Oil
and around the wheels / engine for drips or smells.
Fred J. Stellabotte
CFI-A ASEL
stel...@cshl.org
Brent Chapman
approaches in practice, I'm curious how the net feels about this: how
much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop? Say, for example,
you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
Before we get a real flame war started, let me say that I certainly
agree that, yes, you should always do a thorough pre-flight before
every flight. BUT, what I'm asking is, what's the common practice,
and why is the common practice acceptable or non-acceptable?
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman Telebit Corporation
Sun Network Specialist 1315 Chesapeake Terrace
br...@telebit.com Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Phone: 408/745-3264
William LeFebvre
|> ... landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
|> to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
|> pre-flight?
As experience imparted here by others has proven, you should at a very
minimum drain and check fuel after *every* refueling. Bret Marquis posted
a story here from Compuserve awhile back concerning that (I still have a
copy if anyone cares).
William LeFebvre
Computing Facilities Manager and Analyst
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Northwestern University
<ph...@eecs.nwu.edu>
Jordan Brown
> how much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop?
Not much. If short == get gas, staying with the airplane, basically
none at all. I figure that's no worse than a full stop & taxiback.
If short == get lunch, leave airplane, I tend to walk around to make sure
nobody ran into it, and maybe check gas quantity depending on the situation.
There are certainly good arguments for doing more of a preflight both
of these times, but... you have to draw the line someplace.
>Before we get a real flame war started, let me say that I certainly
>agree that, yes, you should always do a thorough pre-flight before
>every flight. BUT, what I'm asking is, what's the common practice,
>and why is the common practice acceptable or non-acceptable?
I'm willing to define "flight" as any sequence of operations on a
single day. (Though if I fly in the morning and then in the evening,
that tends to be two "flights" for preflight purposes.)
For a different but related question: How about runups? Each and
every takeoff? First takeoff of the day? What about pattern work
involving full stop taxi-backs?
My answer tends to be before every takeoff, except during a sequence
of full stop taxi back operations. I used to do one only on the first
takeoff of a sequence, but I finally decided that (1) runups don't take
long and (2) I was forgetting to set the mixture.
Tim Capps
> ...Say, for example,
> you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
> to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
> pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
Full preflight.
If I have just stopped to take on or let off passengers (or similar low time
activity), and the plane has not been out of my sight, I just do a quick
once-over. If the plane HAS been out of my sight (bathroom stop, etc), then
I walk all around it to make sure nobody has smacked into it with a fuel
truck or wingtip.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Capps | t...@qed.tcc.com | Give The QED BBS a call! New
QED Software | The QED BBS (213)420-9327 | phone number - V.32 & PEP etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Mazanec
>Having heard several opinions in the hangar, and seen several different
>approaches in practice, I'm curious how the net feels about this: how
>much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop? Say, for example,
>you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
>to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
When I first started flying with a friend a few years ago, I wondered,
once or twice, why he insisted on repeating the full pre-flight after
simple fuel-stops. When asked, his response was glib and to the effect
of ``Just to make sure nothing fell off during my landing.''
Starting with my student X-countries and through the present, I find
myself doing the same thing. Looking at some of my landings, though,
my friend may have been more serious than I originally thought.
BTW, during my checkride, since we did the short-field at the examiner's
home field, he had me stop and shut down while he dropped something off
in his hangar. Before leaving, he noticed me doing the walk-around and
made a comment like ``If you're doing that for my sake, you don't have
to.'' I finished the check -- for MY sake.
bob
--
Robert L. Mazanec @ Convex Computer Corp.
maz...@convex.com
DISCLAIMER: You think they PAY me to say this stuff??
Matthew L. Ginsberg
but then describe something that I would best describe as partial, so what
follows is how I do both. Things marked with a * are DELETED if I've been
away from the plane for a short while (like lunch). I do a runup if the
engine has cooled.
1.* Check for squawks
2.* Paint -- cracked at stress points?
3. Release control sticks
4.* L aileron -- travel, hinges, seals
5.* L aileron slave tube -- no play
6.* Fuel sample ok (two places)
7.* L flying wires and attach pts ok
8.* L javelin and hardware ok
9. Pitot and static clear
10. L tire ok and inflated
11.* L wheel pants free of mud
12.* Inspect engine compartment
13.* Alternator belt ok
14.* Engine baffles uncracked, secure
15.* Cowling interior unchafed
16.* Exhaust manifold, stacks uncracked
17.* No shorting on spark plug wires
18. Oil -- 6-7 Q acro or 8 Q
19.* Install access panels
20.* Spinner -- cracks, loose, oil leaks
21. Propeller -- nicks or scratches
22.* Induction air filter ok
23. Fuel sufficient
24. R tire ok and inflated
25.* R wheel pants free of mud
26.* R flying wires and attach pts ok
27.* R javelin and hardware ok
28.* R aileron -- travel, hinges, seals
29.* R aileron slave tube -- no play
30.* Elevator -- travel, hinges, seals
31.* Trim tab -- alignment and play
32.* Rudder -- travel, hinges, seals
33.* Tail flying wires and attach pts
34.* Tailwheel assy ok; oil cup removed
35. Controls -- free and correct
36. Trimtab -- free and correct
Matt Ginsberg
Mark Cousins
of:
- Walk-around removing tiedowns, control locks, chocks, and any other "remove
before flight" items (such as the Pitot tube cover). Check for gross
damage, such as might be evident if someone ran into the plane while I
was gone.
- Check security of fuel caps, and quantity of fuel in tanks.
- Check engine oil level.
This is what I was taught by my instructor. It will be educational to see
what the net.wisdom on this is.
Mark
--
Mark Cousins Hewlett-Packard Co. m...@hpsemc.cup.hp.com
HP-UX VAB programs 19055 Pruneridge Ave., MS 46T5
(408) 447-4659 Cupertino, CA 95014 FAX: (408) 447-4364
Nancy Piltch
A partial preflight implies 2 different checklists, a "cold" and a
"warm" one; this seems to be begging for careless errors. The items
least likely to have changed are also those that require the least
time to check. So what's the hurry?
Nancy Piltch pil...@venus.lerc.nasa.gov
NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland Ohio 44135
Andy Stadler
(Brent Chapman) writes:
>Having heard several opinions in the hangar, and seen several different
>approaches in practice, I'm curious how the net feels about this: how
>much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop? Say, for example,
>you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
>to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
I have an "abbreviated" preflight routine which I use in the situations
you're describing. Basically, I think of it this way. Many of the checks
in a "full" preflight can be considered "what did the previous bozo renter
break?" Assuming I'm about to start my nth leg where n>1, the previous pilot
is me and the airplane just flew reasonably successfully, so I know that
mechanically it's basically OK.
So on my "abbreviated" preflights, I tend to concentrate on "expendables."
That is, what might have changed between the previous flight and this one?
I always religiously check oil level, fuel level (visually), drain the sumps,
and check the alternator belt. I also check the tires and struts (since my
landing might have been a "cruncher"). I do a quick walkaround looking for
any obvious mechanical damage; I usually give a quick wiggle on the control
surfaces. Finally, if I flew in the daytime and it's now night, I check the
lights.
All of this takes perhaps 1/2 the time of a normal preflight.
Also, the amount of "abbreviation" depends on the amount of time the airplane
has been unattended. For example, if the set of nearby parked airplanes has
changed, I keep an eye on the skins in case anybody bumped me. And so on.
Andy sta...@apple.com
Christopher Pettus
>you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
>to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
I usually do a "fluids check" after each shutdown. This includes fuel
level, oil level, draining the sumps, and checking the brake reservoir
(if it's available). I also do a walkaround, mainly to make sure the
airplane is untied, unchocked, and a fuel truck didn't remove part of
the airframe.
--
Christopher Pettus -- Object-Based Systems -- Apple Computer, Inc.
MS 3-PK -- (408) 974-0004 -- c...@apple.com -- Link CHRISTOPHE
"Don't let your .h write no check that your .c can't cash."
Brian Lloyd
the belly of a plane. You could break a ring and have LOTS of oil
going out the breather without any indication in flight. A quick look
under the aircraft is probably worthwhile.
Prior to every flight I normally do a full walkaround looking for
things that might have changed. This includes fuel (did the plane
develop a leak during the last flight?), drain the fuel sumps (if I
fueled), pitot tube, tires (a nail can be nasty), oil, a look in the
engine compartment for obvious problems, a look under the plane for
unwanted fluids (or actually fluids that you would rather keep in
their appropriate containers instead of on the ground/belly :-), and a
full eyeball walkaround.
You have to think about what has or could happen to an airplane since
the last time you flew it. I would tend to be more suspicious of a
club or rental aircraft than my own bird that I just flew last night
(8-10 hours earlier).
Another "preflight" is one that should be done periodically when you
have more time. This includes taking the time to inspect things that
are just not convenient to look at every preflight. This includes
poking into certain inspection areas; looking back up the empennage at
all the cables, pulleys, etc.; inspecting, cleaning, and servicing the
battery and its terminals; checking the exhaust system for obvious
leaks (they can be a killer if not caught very quickly -- running an
engine with an exhaust leak right at the head can lead very quickly to
erosion of the exaust port requiring removal and repair of the
cylinder head); blowing dirt and dust out of the radios; lubricating
the piano hinges; and more. I consider this to be the important
preflight because it is the one that catches the real maintenance
problems.
--
Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN Telebit Corporation
Network Systems Architect 1315 Chesapeake Terrace
br...@napa.telebit.com Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1100
voice (408) 745-3103 FAX (408) 734-3333
Jim Schinnerer
Sometimes, I will walk around the plane for a quickie, but unless
I really wacked it in, or flew through ice or a T-storm, the
plane probably didn't break. (Yes, complacency kills, but if the
nylock bolt was there 4 hours ago, and has been there ever since I
bought the plane, it *is* still there.)
I will *always* do a complete run-up/pre-takeoff checklist sequence.
---------------------------------------------------------
Jim Schinnerer - PP-ASEL-IA | Hewlett Packard
Mooney - 350X - "Buster" | Cupertino, CA
Hang IV - Magic KISS | (408) 447-6319
email - schi...@hpihoah.HP.COM |
---------------------------------------------------------
Kerry Kurasaki
>approaches in practice, I'm curious how the net feels about this: how
>much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop? Say, for example,
>you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
>to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
>
philosophy is: "It's easier to check it on the ground, than in the air!"
On the "abbreviated" list, I will always try to check:
Control surfaces & hinges !!!
Nacelles/cowlings for bird's nests (haven't seen one ever)
Fuel, quantity & caps
Oil, quantity & caps
Tires, scuffs & cracks (inflation checked at first flight)
Brake lines for leaking
Propellor for nicks
On the runup, about the only thing I change is that I'll only cycle the
prop once if the engine is still warm. Just to make sure it cycles.
If it is a cold day, and the plane has been sitting for more than a
few hours, I'll cycle it a couple of times to get warm oil into the dome.
Kerry
Bluejay Adametz
>approaches in practice, I'm curious how the net feels about this: how
>you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
>to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
Depends on whether or not I've left sight of the aircraft.
If I haven't, I focus on things that might "happen" during operation -
basically the prop and fluids, the rest gets a quick once-over.
If I've been away from the airplane, I'll do a full preflight.
In article <25...@oolong.la.locus.com>, jbr...@locus.com (Jordan Brown) writes:
>For a different but related question: How about runups? Each and
>every takeoff? First takeoff of the day? What about pattern work
>involving full stop taxi-backs?
As long as I'm on the ground and not moving, I figure why not take advantage
of the situation and do a few checks? One doesn't usually check the mags during
the course of a flight, and running the carb heat is a good opportunity to
get rid of any ice that may have formed during taxi (the 2nd major reason to
put the carb heat on during runup).
Let's try yet another angle at this... how much of a POST-flight do people do?
- Bluejay Adametz
AA-5B N45210
19.1 SMOH and counting
Per Lindberg
(Brent Chapman) asks about preflight opinions.
Here in Sweden you *must* do a full preflight before the first flight
of the day. Other checks are optional.
Of course, the law != common sense, so most people I know (including
myself) do some sort of preflight each time.
Since fuel starvation is one of the most common causes of forced
landings, and the easiest to prevent, I never get into a GA plane
without checking the fuel visually myself.
--
Per Lindberg (p...@front.se) ! __!__
Front Capital Systems, Box 5727, ! _____(_)_____ Ceci n'est pas une Piper
11487 Stockholm, Sweden. 8-6611510 ! ! ! !
99708000
We've been considering putting a Walker Airsep air/oil separator on
a Conti TSIO 520 C. It has been blowing a lot of oil for _years_,
thru several overhauls! It has a wet vacuum pump, which may be
contributing to the problem.
Anyone out there tried one of these? How'd it work?
--
-Rob
From Bitnet: rob@ucscvm From Internet: r...@ucscvm.ucsc.edu
Christopher Pettus
>Full preflight: then I'm less likely to forget something important.
>A partial preflight implies 2 different checklists, a "cold" and a
>"warm" one; this seems to be begging for careless errors. The items
>least likely to have changed are also those that require the least
>time to check. So what's the hurry?
Well, there are things that are work to check that are unlikely to
change between flights (although it does need to be said that
everything could fail sometime; understanding fault recovery is as
important as understand fault detection!). For example, I check all
control surface hinges during the first preflight of the day, while I
skip them on subsequent flights.
On the other hand, I do a full runup each and every time I take off
after an engine shutdown. Why? It doesn't take much time (1-1/2
minutes, maximum, from stopping at the runup area to being ready to
take the active), and following the same procedure each time minimizes
errors.
--
Christopher Pettus -- Object-Based Systems -- Apple Computer, Inc.
MS 3-PK -- (408) 974-0004 -- c...@apple.com -- Link CHRISTOPHE
"If we had brains, we could have brains 'n' eggs, if we had eggs."
Brent Chapman
didn't state what my own pre-flight practices after a "short" stop
were. I'll admit it: I was chicken, and wanted to make sure that what
I was doing was more or less the same as what everybody else on the net
does. I'm relieved to see that apparently it is.
For the record, my pre-flight after a short stop is a quick walk-around
to remove all the tie-downs and such, wiggle all the control surfaces,
and look for collision damage from passing aircraft or vehicles on the
ground. I then spend a couple of minutes "up front", checking the oil,
tire pressure, fuel level, alternator belt, prop, and static port. If
I've taken on fuel during the stop, or if it's been raining during the
flight or the stop, I sump the tanks and pull the engine fuel drain for
a few seconds; I try to do this as late as possible in the pre-flight,
to give any water that might be in the fuel as much time as possible to
settle out.
Someone asked about runups. If I've shut down the engine, I do a runup
before takeoff, even if the shutdown was only for 2 minutes to let
passengers disembark and I never got out of the plane. This may be a
little bit of overkill on my part, but I scared myself pretty good one
night in Oakland before I started doing it that way. I had landed at
Oakland to drop off my passengers, shut down the engine before I let
them get out and walk away, cranked back up again, and taxied back out
for takeoff. It was late enough at night that the tower and ground
controller were one and the same, and I was cleared for takeoff as soon
as I got to the runway, without even having to ask. I thought to
myself, "What about the runup? Ahh, I just flew in, and I'm just
making a 10-minute hop across the Bay to Palo Alto; everything's fine"
and decided to skip the runup. Unfortunately, I also skipped some
other stuff on the pre-takeoff checklist, like setting the trim (which
happened to still be heavily nose-up from the landing). As I rotated,
I found myself having to maintain FORWARD pressure on the yoke to keep
the plane above Vx (forget about Vy, even!). I was about 5 feet off
the ground and just about to pull the throttle and abort the takeoff
when I realized what was wrong, and quickly cranked the trim back to
where it should be. Not fun at all.
Now, because of that incident and several minor incidents during
training of forgetting to turn the transponder on before takeoff, I
have a quick 5-point checklist that I run through as I'm pulling onto
the runway: trim set, carb heat cold, mixture rich, flaps up,
transponder on. My hand makes a quick path up the console, right, and
up again as I touch each item as I check it.
Jordan Brown
>As experience imparted here by others has proven, you should at a very
>minimum drain and check fuel after *every* refueling.
My impression is that drain-and-check isn't all that helpful immediately
after fueling, because there's just been a lot of turbulence in the
tank and the water doesn't separate instantly. I could be wrong.
Matthew Waugh
>Having heard several opinions in the hangar, and seen several different
>approaches in practice, I'm curious how the net feels about this: how
>much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop? Say, for example,
>you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
>to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
I do a full pre-flight if the planes been out of my sight (because you
never know who backed into the plane 2 minutes before you walked
around the corner). I'll admit I'm not as through in checking for
foreign objects like birds nests, they'd have to be fast to get
going over a lunch hour.
Say a two pilot plane landed for gas, and one pilot was with the plane
the entire time, well oil and gas checks would seem adequate, but I
don't get in that situation much.
Call me paranoid, but you can't be too careful. I'll ask you an
interesting side question, if I check an airplane this much before
I fly it why do I check nothing on my car before I drive it? Is
the danger from defective equipment on an airplane that much MORE
to justify the discrepancy in pre-... checking?
Mat
Matthew Waugh wa...@dg-rtp.dg.com
RTP Network Services {world}!mcnc!rti!dg-rtp!waugh
Data General Corp.
RTP, NC. (919)-248-6344
Matthew Waugh
>For a different but related question: How about runups? Each and
>every takeoff? First takeoff of the day? What about pattern work
>involving full stop taxi-backs?
Oh boy, this could keep us going for weeks!
Every takeoff. A plane I know backfires on the first check of the right
magento on ecah runup, but is perfectly OK if you check the mags again.
Is this likely to be a lazy spark plug for you mechanics out there?
I would have thought you'd want to particularly check on the landing
taxi-back takeoff sequence, wouldn't this be prime time for spark
plug fouling?
Geoff Peck
> how much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop? Say, for example,
> you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
> to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
> pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
Well, first of all, the preflight has two purposes. One is to check the
airplane and make sure it's OK to fly. The other is to get the pilot's
brain engaged into "pilot" mode. So, whatever comments I make below on how
to abbreviate a pre-flight inspection, _you_ as a pilot must do as much
of a preflight as is required to get you back into the methodical, careful
mode you need to be in to fly safely. If it takes an absolutely complete
pre-flight, from the beginning of the checklist to the end, so be it.
If I stop the engine to let someone get out, but I never leave the
aircraft, I'll
- do a partial check in the run-up area (mag check and cockpit scan only)
[sometimes I'll omit this; after all, one doesn't do a mag check on
each flight around the pattern...]
If I stop the engine to get gas, but never leave the aircraft, I'll
- check the fuel levels and sump the tanks looking for contamination
- check the oil level
- do a full check in the run-up area [sometimes I'll reduce this to a
partial check]
If I leave the vicinity of the aircraft but only for a little while, I'll
- do a quick walk-around inspection to make sure no one ran into the
airplane with a ground vehicle, to ensure that nothing obvious has
gone wrong, and to ensure that it's untied
- check the fuel levels and sump the tanks looking for contamination
- check the oil level
- do a full check in the run-up area
If I'm away from the airplane for more than a lunch or dinner stop, I'll do
the whole thing, from stem to stern, start to finish.
Now, it's really hard to recommend anything other than "follow the checklist
-- do it all". Why? Because pilots vary tremendously in their levels of
experience and in their ability to spot problems. I tend to approach the
airplane each time with the question "what am I going to find wrong here?"
and I do look very carefully. I've been known to find problems with an
airplane which has been carefully pre-flighted by another pilot as I simply
walk by the plane! (No, not rubber snakes...) But I do also know other
pilots who are even more fastidious than I about preflight inspections.
Geoff
Tim Capps
> For a different but related question: How about runups? Each and
> every takeoff? First takeoff of the day? What about pattern work
> involving full stop taxi-backs?
Good question! My answer is a tad different than yours. I do a runup
whenever I taxi out to the runway, except in the case of a taxi-back.
In that case, I go through the takeoff checklist, but omit the runup
portion. This keeps me from forgetting about the mixture. You have
a good point, though, runups don't take that long, except that I tend
to do all that stuff slowly (much the the frustration of passengers).
I suppose that for the taxi-back case, I should work on expediting
that procedure a bit so I can justify doing it. Thanks for the brain
food!
Ron Wanttaja
>
> On the other hand, I do a full runup each and every time I take off
> after an engine shutdown. Why? It doesn't take much time (1-1/2
> minutes, maximum, from stopping at the runup area to being ready to
> take the active), and following the same procedure each time minimizes
> errors.
I agree heartily. Some engine problems won't be noticable until the engine
reaches operating temperature.
About two months after I started flying the Fly Baby, I started up, did a
normal runup (no problems) and took off. I crossed Puget Sound and had a
snack at small airport restaurant.
Afterwards, I started up and taxied to the active. But during the run-up,
the engine barely ran on the right mag.
Turned out that the coil had a heat-sensitive failure. It worked fine
until the engine neared operating temperature. The problem wouldn't have
been caught, if I hadn't done the runup before flying home. In fact, the
then-club president tried it, and decided there *wasn't* a problem... he
couldn't get the engine to miss before takeoff. But then he took off, and
checked the mags in the air.
I remember the problem well... it quadrupled the Fly Baby's maintenance
expenses that year. A new coil cost $80! :-)
|
_|_
/(_)\
-------:==^==:-------
[[| o |]]
-----------------__________\_____/__________-----------------
_ / \ _
T T/_______\T T Ron Wanttaja
| | | | (ssc-bee!prang)
""" """
Lars-Henrik Eriksson
airport. I do a walkaround to make sure that the follow-me car hasn't
bumped into the aircraft or some other obvious damage has been caused.
I also check the fuel and (if the preceeding flight was long) the oil.
My reasoning is that there is no reason for anything catastrophic to
have happened to the aircraft the last hour, that wasn't caused by
someone outside the aircraft. If I had made a really bad landing or if
I found something acceptable, but marginal, at the last preflight, I
will do a more thorough investigation.
I will do a new engine runup every time I have shut down the engine,
primarily to keep the routine and to check for plug fouling from the
taxiing. If I do glider tows, however, I generally won't do a runup
before every takeoff. My rationale for this is that if the engine ran
well on my landing, it is unlikely that anything catastrophic has
happened when I start it next time. The very short taxi times make
plug fouling unlikely.
The ideal would, of course, be to constantly do thorough inspections,
but somewhere you have to make a tradeoff between safety and
practicality.
--
Lars-Henrik Eriksson Internet: l...@sics.se
Swedish Institute of Computer Science Phone (intn'l): +46 8 752 15 09
Box 1263 Telefon (nat'l): 08 - 752 15 09
S-164 28 KISTA, SWEDEN
Lars-Henrik Eriksson
>In article <1991Jun4.2...@telebit.com> br...@telebit.com
>(Brent Chapman) asks about preflight opinions.
>
>Here in Sweden you *must* do a full preflight before the first flight
>of the day. Other checks are optional.
>
>Of course, the law != common sense, so most people I know (including
>myself) do some sort of preflight each time.
So do I, unless I *know* that the preceeding pilot did a preflight
that was acceptable to me and that nothing unusual happened during the
last flight/taxi. Of course I never do know that...
Ron Wanttaja
> In article <1CZCVJ#@b-tech.uucp> ze...@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) writes:
> (drat - lost the internal attribution...)
> >>My impression is that drain-and-check isn't all that helpful immediately
> >>after fueling, because there's just been a lot of turbulence in the
> >>tank and the water doesn't separate instantly. I could be wrong.
> a friendly local ex-military helicopter jockey quotes "15 minutes"
> and then relates a story of the "Lieutenant who demanded that they get going
> before the 15 minutes -- at 5 minutes the drain didn't show any water,
> but the post-crash analysis did..."
I've posted the story about my water-in-the-fuel engine failure umpteen
times... Just take it from me; the above is true. Pump turbulence *will*
mix the water with the fuel, and it can take a while to separate out. In
my case, a bare trace of water ten minutes after fueling, but four gallons
of H2O after ten minutes of flight. See _Flying_, May '87, ILAFFT: "Tiny
Bubbles".
| "Stupidity survived is knowledge. I'm
_|_/ *real* knowledgable...."
Kerry Kurasaki
>I usually do a "fluids check" after each shutdown.
I ALWAYS make sure my passengers have visited the head before a long
cross-country leg.
:-) Don't you drain your sumps before each takeoff?
Diana L. Syriac
>It is also a good idea to look for oil or other consumable fluids on
>the belly of a plane. You could break a ring and have LOTS of oil
>going out the breather without any indication in flight. A quick look
>under the aircraft is probably worthwhile.
I wasn't going to say anything, figuring plenty of other pilots would throw
in their two cents, but this posting "rang a bell" that is worth telling.
About two months ago, I went flying in a C182RG. We did some steep turns
with me under the hood. After about 15 minutes, I started to get sick,
so we whipped off the hood, headed back to the airport and he landed (I
wasn't feeling well). It was dark when we got back, we called a fuel
truck, and he tied the plane down while I filled out the paperwork.
He comes around to the pilot side and said, "when you're finished, go check
the nose wheel". It was slick wet with oil. Looking up inside the nose
area, all we could determine was that there was oil everywhere. Checking
the oil level, it was down TWO QUARTS from when I preflighted it 20 minutes
earlier.
I won't go into more detail. Suffice it to say that a piston had gone
thru the engine....the engine had to be replaced. There was no indication
while we were flying of any impending doom....unless you want to say that
I got sick from the oil fumes....but he was not affected by any oil fumes
and we didn't smell anything.
ALWAYS check the fuel and oil....who knows what might have happened.
->Diana L. Syriac d...@genrad.com Ham: KC1SP (Sweet Pea) <-
->I'D RATHER BE FLYING! P-ASEL, INST CAP: 1LT, Freedom 690 Mobile<-
->GenRad AD ASTRA, PER ASPERA <-
->MS/6, 300 Baker Ave, Concord, Mass. 01742 (508) 369-4400 x2459 <-
Matthew L. Ginsberg
If anyone is interested, my own pre-landing checklist is "GUMPF"
G gas on
U undercarriage welded
M mixture
P prop
F feet: heels off the floor ...
: )
Matt Ginsberg
Tim Capps
> In article <25...@oolong.la.locus.com> jbr...@locus.com (Jordan Brown) writes
> >My impression is that drain-and-check isn't all that helpful immediately
> >after fueling, because there's just been a lot of turbulence in the
> >tank and the water doesn't separate instantly. I could be wrong.
>
> I heard that someone did a test and you have to drain approx a quart before
> you get the water.
Another reason I was told to do the fuel check is to make sure that the fuel
jockey didn't put the wrong grade of fuel into the tank. If a quart really
needs to be drained, then probably you couldn't detect the wrong grade of
fuel either.
One possible solution to the fuel grade problem would be to use one of those
fuel guage tubes. You lower it into the tank, put your thumb over the open
end, then draw it out. As it is then full of fuel, you could check the color.
I dunno, though. Seems like a heck of a lot of work.
I was also told that when draining the sumps, it is a good idea to SMELL the
fuel as well as to look at it. If you drain out a whole sampler full of
water, it can fool you into thinking that there is no water (you won't see
the tell-tale bubble/dividing line).
Matthew L. Ginsberg
>
>One possible solution to the fuel grade problem would be to use one of those
>fuel guage tubes. You lower it into the tank, put your thumb over the open
>end, then draw it out. As it is then full of fuel, you could check the color.
>I dunno, though. Seems like a heck of a lot of work.
Hey! I really like the fuel gauge tube I made for my plane. It
looks like there's actually a *benefit* from not having fuel gauges
inside the aircraft ...
For what it's worth, I also always do my own fuelling. And I can tell
"blue" from "clear" when I drain the gas at the beginning of the day ...
Matt Ginsberg
Mary Shafer
I thought you-all might like to know how lucky you are to not have to
go through what we do with our research aircraft.
The preflight takes place the day before and it takes most of the day
before the airplane is closed out. This preflight is usually good for
about two days, so that the flight can slip a day or so without having
to be re-preflighted. On the actual day of the flight there's a
day-of-flight check (original names, eh?) that the crew does before
the pilot steps to the plane. I think that this resembles the
preflight for GA--walking around the plane, tugging on the control
surfaces and looking to see that no one has stolen the engine, being
sure the plane is clean and dry. Sometimes the test pilot will walk
around the plane with the crew chief doing this check.
The pilot then climbs in the plane and goes through the preflight
checklist, being sure that the instrumentation, etc, is alive and
well. He then taxis down to last-chance, followed by the crew chief
in a van, and gets one last control check and lookover before he takes
the active. After takeoff, the safety chase joins up and looks the
plane over.
We don't normally do hot refuelling (for a number of reasons--the
Air Force doesn't like it and it's their fuel truck, Safety hates it,
etc) so the airplane gets shut down to refuel if we're doing a quick
turn. Then it's the walkaround, the preflight checklist to bring the
plane back to life, the last-chance inspection, and another flight.
When the day's flights are over, there's a postflight inspection that
the crew does.
Research aircraft don't have real high flight rates, for some reason.
Chase planes are preflighted by the crew, inspected by the pilot in
the walkaround, and have a last-chance-like inspection just before
they taxi.
--
Mary Shafer sha...@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
Of course I don't speak for NASA
"Turn to kill, not to engage." CDR Willie Driscoll
G. David Frye
>One possible solution to the fuel grade problem would be to use one of those
>fuel guage tubes. You lower it into the tank, put your thumb over the open
>end, then draw it out. As it is then full of fuel, you could check the color.
>I dunno, though. Seems like a heck of a lot of work.
Doesn't work, at least not with our C-172 "FuelHawk" dipstick. The fuel
looks clear in the tube, probably because there isn't much of it. You have
to drain it from the sump to get enough to see blue. One trick I learned
from a new club member -- at night, it can be difficult to see the color of
the fuel in the sampler. Take the sample, hold it up next to a white part
of the airframe, and shine a flashlight on the area.
While I'm throwing in my two-cents' worth, I'll say that I agree with the
majority. For a continuing-flight operation, I'll preflight whatever is
a) likely to have broken during last leg, b) likely to be crucial to the next
flight segment, like the NAV antenna, or c) required by AD. This last one
is something that I've found may people skip -- on our C172, for example,
the oil cooler must be inspected before EVERY flight, and it's a non-trivial
operation. Fuel and oil levels get checked every time, runup is done every
time, controls are checked every time.
G. David Frye
Ron Wanttaja
>
> About two months ago, I went flying in a C182RG. We did some steep turns
>
> I won't go into more detail. Suffice it to say that a piston had gone
> thru the engine....the engine had to be replaced. There was no indication
> while we were flying of any impending doom....unless you want to say that
> I got sick from the oil fumes....but he was not affected by any oil fumes
> and we didn't smell anything.
People react differently... he may have just been more immune. About
fifteen years ago I rode right-seat in a CAP Mooney on a 500-mile cross
country. The rear-seat passenger complained of an exhaust smell right
after startup, but neither the pilot nor I noticed. He said it went away,
and we flew to our destination.
There were two silver-dollar sized holes in the heater manifold. I keeled
over in the terminal about fifteen minutes after we landed... carbon
monoxide poisoning. (Since this was the early '70s and I was college-age,
the airport rent-a-cops thought something ELSE made me fall over, but I
digress...).
Anyway, the rear-seater had a splitting headache, but the pilot was
apparently unaffected. In fact, after my little episode, I merely felt
tired.
So the fact that your right-seater didn't show any affects from fumes
doesn't necessarily mean there weren't any. There's no question fumes
could have reached the cockpit... when the 'Baby decided to blow the last
18 inches of the exhaust system overboard last year, I only noticed it
because of a strong exhaust smell... in an open cockpit, no less.
Ron Wanttaja
(ssc-bee!prang, prang@ssc-vax)
Martha J. Underwood
> I was also told that when draining the sumps, it is a good idea to SMELL the
> fuel as well as to look at it. If you drain out a whole sampler full of
> water, it can fool you into thinking that there is no water (you won't see
> the tell-tale bubble/dividing line).
My flight instructor taught me to check three things:
Color = for me, blue
Quality = Anything floating/water?
Scent = does it smell like fuel.
He said that water can take on the dye color and fool you.
For me, I do a preflight each and every time, even if I'd just been in
the plane. It takes so little time and really saves me worry.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martha Underwood Four cats and a
mu...@andrew.cmu.edu burmese python
Berry Kercheval
>In article <1991Jun4.2...@telebit.com>, br...@telebit.com (Brent Chapman) writes:
>|> to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>|> pre-flight?
>minimum drain and check fuel after *every* refueling.
*And* check the oil. "Never pass up a chance to take a leak or check
the oil" says my instructor.
He also, after a short stop, will at a minimum walk around the plane
to "make sure no one drove their car into it."
He, and by extension I, since he taught me, feels that a detailed
pre-flight is unnecessary after a brief stop. I usually make that to
be about an hour. If I have lunch, say, I'll do my standard
preflight, but if I just stop to visit the euphemism, I'll just check
oil, fuel and walk around.
Of course, after flying out to Oakdale for my PPSEL checkride, I did a
THOROUGH preflight, even though the inspector wasn't watching. (I
think...)
--berry
--
BErry KErcheval :: Intelligent Decisions Inc.:: reply to be...@lll-crg.llnl.gov
Tim Capps
br...@telebit.com (Brent Chapman) writes:
> ...Say, for example,
> you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
> to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
> pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
Full preflight.
If I have just stopped to take on or let off passengers (or similar low time
activity), and the plane has not been out of my sight, I just do a quick
once-over. If the plane HAS been out of my sight (bathroom stop, etc), then
I walk all around it to make sure nobody has smacked into it with a fuel
truck or wingtip.
Matthew L. Ginsberg
Here's my two cents on this. Some people say they do a "full preflight"
but then describe something that I would best describe as partial, so what
follows is how I do both. Things marked with a * are DELETED if I've been
away from the plane for a short while (like lunch). I do a runup if the
engine has cooled.
1.* Check for squawks
2.* Paint -- cracked at stress points?
3. Release control sticks
4.* L aileron -- travel, hinges, seals
5.* L aileron slave tube -- no play
6.* Fuel sample ok (two places)
7.* L flying wires and attach pts ok
8.* L javelin and hardware ok
9. Pitot and static clear
10. L tire ok and inflated
11.* L wheel pants free of mud
12.* Inspect engine compartment
13.* Alternator belt ok
14.* Engine baffles uncracked, secure
15.* Cowling interior unchafed
16.* Exhaust manifold, stacks uncracked
17.* No shorting on spark plug wires
18. Oil -- 6-7 Q acro or 8 Q
19.* Install access panels
20.* Spinner -- cracks, loose, oil leaks
21. Propeller -- nicks or scratches
22.* Induction air filter ok
23. Fuel sufficient
24. R tire ok and inflated
25.* R wheel pants free of mud
26.* R flying wires and attach pts ok
27.* R javelin and hardware ok
28.* R aileron -- travel, hinges, seals
29.* R aileron slave tube -- no play
30.* Elevator -- travel, hinges, seals
31.* Trim tab -- alignment and play
32.* Rudder -- travel, hinges, seals
33.* Tail flying wires and attach pts
34.* Tailwheel assy ok; oil cup removed
35. Controls -- free and correct
36. Trimtab -- free and correct
Matt Ginsberg
Robert Mazanec
In <1991Jun4.2...@telebit.com> br...@telebit.com (Brent Chapman)
writes:
>Having heard several opinions in the hangar, and seen several different
>approaches in practice, I'm curious how the net feels about this: how
>much of a pre-flight do you do after a "short" stop? Say, for example,
>you've flown in somewhere, landed for gas or lunch, and are now ready
>to depart again. Do you do a "full" pre-flight? Or an "abbreviated"
>pre-flight? How abbreviated? Or none at all?
When I first started flying with a friend a few years ago, I wondered,
once or twice, why he insisted on repeating the full pre-flight after
simple fuel-stops. When asked, his response was glib and to the effect
of ``Just to make sure nothing fell off during my landing.''
Starting with my student X-countries and through the present, I find
myself doing the same thing. Looking at some of my landings, though,
my friend may have been more serious than I originally thought.
BTW, during my checkride, since we did the short-field at the examiner's
home field, he had me stop and shut down while he dropped something off
in his hangar. Before leaving, he noticed me doing the walk-around and
made a comment like ``If you're doing that for my sake, you don't have
to.'' I finished the check -- for MY sake.
bob
--
Robert L. Mazanec @ Convex Computer Corp.
maz...@convex.com
DISCLAIMER: You think they PAY me to say this stuff??