Strike Force Behind The Book: strikeforce.mp3 Writers Roundtable Interview With Dale Brown ATARI ACT OF WAR: DIRECT ACTION LINKS Dale Brown Interview With: Peter Anthony Holder When a former pilot turns his hand to thrillers you can take their authenticity for granted. His writing is exceptional and the dialogue, plots and characters are first-class... far too good to be missed.' --Sunday Mirror ‘Dale Brown is a superb storyteller’ --WASHINGTON POST ‘Dale Brown is the best military adventure writer in the country’ --CLIVE CUSSLER

Overly Cautious?
by Dale Brown, 2008

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, May 09, 2008

I flew the Cessna Turbo 182 last Thursday afternoon, and it was great to be back flying again.

It was a good flight. I was a little nervous and a little behind the airplane with those two big displays in front of me--there is so much information there that it's a little like trying to drink water from a fire hose. I eventually had to leave the G1000 alone for the most part and concentrate on flying.

It was not the best of conditions for doing airwork, with continuous light to moderate turbulence and squirrelly winds. While I wasn't able to nail an altitude while doing slow flight, I think I demonstrated at least that I could bring the plane and instructor back both unscathed.

I went out again this morning to finish up the checkout. But when I did the runup and checked the individual magnetos in the ignition system, the check was borderline--the drop in RPMs was still within tolerance, but barely.

Usually this is due to a little carbon fouling on the spark plugs and is corrected by leaning the mixture for a few seconds to burn off the carbon. That didn't work. But the mag check was fine when the engine was leaned back during the runup.

Reno-Tahoe International Airport sits at 4,400 feet above sea level, and at power settings below those which activate the turbocharger (such as taxiing) it's necessary to lean the mixture to prevent too rich a mixture, spark plug fouling, and possibly flooding the engine. At high power settings (above 80%) full rich mixture is necessary for cooling. It's necessary to lean the mixture at lower power settings.

But the checklist calls for full rich mixture for the mag check. In my plane, I've always done the check with full rich mixture, because that's what the checklist calls for.

Some of the other pilots said that they lean the mixture for the runup. Fair enough...but where does it say to do that? Personal experience? Past instructors?

I made the decision not to fly the plane, and we taxied back and parked it. There were no maintenance guys available to check the spark plugs (usually it takes just a few minutes to clean the plugs and that almost always fixes the problem), so we were done for the day.

I asked the instructor if he would've taken the plane, and he said "yes." I'm not an instructor pilot, but I disagree with him. It was a training flight, and there was something going on. It might've been minor, but something was wrong.

The only time you are ever at full power is takeoff and climb (in the T182T you can keep full power in the climb, unlike the P210 which is limited to 5 minutes), and I knew the engine wasn't putting out full power because of some glitch in the ignition system.

To tell the truth, when I sit in the cockpit of that almost-new 2004 T182T, I feel every dollar of that $300,000+ plane, and I don't want to break anything. The checklist says "FULL RICH" for the mag check. The RPM drop was not out of tolerance, but close enough for me to get concerned. Better to park it and fly another day.

Again, truth or dare: If it was my plane, and I was flying the plane on a book signing trip instead of just going up on a training flight, would I have taken the plane?

Do I have backup airline reservations (I almost always do)? How's the weather? The T182T has few anti-ice systems and no de-ice systems. Can I track down a maintenance guy somewhere to clean those plugs?

If it was my plane, and I had somewhere to go, and the weather was good...I think I would've taken it.

But a training flight, in an unfamiliar plane that wasn't mine and was worth more than almost any other plane I've ever owned...nope, I'm parking it. I was the pilot in command. The decision was mine, and I made it.

Call me a wussie if you want, but I didn't break the plane and I'm still around to fly again.

I read aviation accident reports all the time, and they quite often read just like what was going on this morning: marginal mag check but the pilot took the plane anyway, and on takeoff it lost power and they crashed.

Chances are good that the plane would've done just fine. But if something happened, what would my defense be? Assuming I survived the crash, the investigators would ask:

"The mag check was borderline, Mr. Brown--why did you take the plane?"

"The checklist says to do the mag check in 'FULL RICH,' Mr. Brown--why did you do it leaned out?"

What could I say?

Probable cause of the accident: pilot's inattention to an anomaly in the engine ignition system during runup; pilot not following proper procedures; pilot accepting an unairworthy airplane for flight. Pilot error.

No thanks.

Welcome to AirBattleForce.Com Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA Cyberspace home of: Dale Brown readermail@dalebrown.info