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Here's a few thought starters for everyone:
1. You've filed IFR in your low time LNC2 from Minneapolis to Mobridge S.
Dakota (pick your favorite 2 hour trip) and it's slash Golf thanks to your
nifty GX60 GPS/Comm. Your other equipment is a KX-165, transponder and the
audio panel of course. Right after takeoff, the GX-60 mysteriously goes
blank for a few seconds then re-initializes with a Memory Test Failure and
several other discouraging messages. What do you do?
2. You've filed IFR in the same airplane for the first leg of this trip
from Detroit to Minneapolis, planned the trip for days (you're on your way
to Billings, Montana to have some instrument work done and you're
unknowingly about to add a couple of items to the squawk list), bought all
those trip kits from Jeppesen and VFR sectionals and you're cleared "as
filed". You rotate, lift off into the blue sky with broken clouds at
3,000, raise the gear handle, switch to departure and initiate contact. Of
course you're cleared to 5,000 feet on course. At this time you notice
you're only doing 120 knots instead of the customary 140-145 knots. At
this instant, departure asks you to recycle your transponder since mode C
is lost. Flaps are up, so what gives?
3. Here's one that some of you will relate with. Not quite as dumb as
scud running in mountains that claimed a local Lancair pilot a couple of
years ago but depending on your instrument experience (and airplane
experience as it turns out) may not be the best move. You're flying back
from Minneapolis to Detroit, a 2 hour 30 minute flight with expected ground
speed of 230 knots (Yes!). The weather briefing showed you would cross a
cold front en-route. 1000 foot overcast in the middle of the route, and
5000 foot ceilings around the destination but with worsening conditions
forecast not long after the arrival. Obviously the concern is ice. Ice is
forecast in clouds up to a zillion feet and Pireps are sketchy - one old
one saying moderate rime/clear at 11000 feet (my planned altitude) and
others reporting no ice on let downs by airliners. Did I mention that
you're taking off at 5:30 pm local out of Minneapolis? What do you do?
Answers: 1) Fortunately it is severe clear and I decided not to activate
my IFR flight plan. After 30 seconds of bewilderment (be ready for this
guys when the unexpected happens) realization gradually settles in that not
only am I no longer /G, but I'm not even DME capable. Flightwatch and I
scratched our collective heads and came up with /U when I decided to file
IFR anyway. Let's see, no DME... Damn! Speed, time, VORs, towns, roads...
No GPS backup (later I picked up a terrific Garmin 295). Also, it sank in
later, I had lost 50% of my Comm capability. I had a King portable Comm
but would it work in South Dakota? It took me about 30 minutes to
re-oriented in my thinking and settle down with a plan. What if it had
been IMC? Sobering. The portable Garmin is will cut down this
disorientation time by a huge amount.
Answer 2) What gives is the gear never came up. The 3 green lights were
staring back at me as if they had crossed their arms waiting to see what
I'd do about it. I've had plenty of these kind of problems due to what I
believe to be a faulty Gear Minder system, but I knew this time Gear Minder
was not to blame because I had bypassed that unit a month ago. Uh Oh.
Sure enough, cycling the gear handle did nothing. Openning the cross over
valve was similarly useless. At least the gear was stuck Down. Then I saw
the problem. I've got those hydraulic gages on my panel ( one for up and
one for down). both circuits had lots of pressure in them. Over 800 psi
in fact. Consequently the up pressure switch thought the gear was already
up and so would not let the pump come on! How can this happen? Combine a
small internal cylinder leak somewhere (it only leaks when the gear is
down, not up, which I know by watching the gages) with a oil pump that does
not have a relief valve to relieve Up pressure when the gear is down and
kicks on from time to time due to the small leak. This will conspire to
raise pressure to the point where the down circuit is at about 500 psi and
stabilized because the Up circuit has built up to 500 psi due to the leak.
Normally the gear will still raise on command because the Up pressure
switch is looking for about 800 psi before it interferes with the pump
(according to my gages). The final element, was increasing temperature as
the airplane was taken from a cold hangar to warming air. This was enough
to raise the pressure from 500 up to 800 and prevent the gear from coming
up. The quick fix was to cancel IFR, land and crack open the offending
line to drop pressure. Once again, the hydraulic gages paid for
themselves. No way I could have figured this out without them.
Now, what if this had been a launch into hard IFR? It is so easy to get
pre-occupied with the unexpected that flying the airplane is forgotten.
Would I have been prepared for the return to the airport on instruments?
Keep that departure airport approach plate on your kneeboard and get ATC to
take some heat off by telling them what's going on and getting vectors.
Answer 3: If you said " get a hotel room" it would have been a good play.
the weather the next day was blustery but very VFR all the way to Detroit
since the cold front moved through quickly. But, uh, that's not what Pilot
X decided to do. He took off with a plan B to climb to 13,000 if warranted
to get out of ice and if that didn't work to descend into either warmer
temperatures or to stay between layers. Let's see how it worked out.
Departing Minneapolis was severe clear. Skirting south of class B airspace
was cool. ATC was calling out Jet traffic and telling them to watch for
the Lancair at 11,000 feet (and I was motoring at 230 knots ground speed,
200 knots true on the indicator, I'm not fibbing!) The sight of an Airbus
rising up at your 8 oclock coming right at you is awesome. It's all
cockpit, lights and big black engines set against a backdrop of a low
stratus layer. And he had me in sight! Baby, who's your daddy! You 4-p
guys do this every day but it's a novelty for this 360 driver. But the fun
didn't last long.
It got dark due to the sun going down. There was a 5000 foot undercast
that looked innocent enough and blue sky above. Then it got black. Stars
above. Strobes and nav lights are on. The strobes are blinding a bit
because the strobe shields are not installed at the wing tips (no clouds
yet). Memo to Lancair: With certain Whelen setups, we need strobe shields
( or guards or whatever every other airplane in the world calls them).
They need to be long enough to not flash the prop too. Another weekend
project. Then the snow starts. Hmmm. This pilot has snow experience in a
Mooney and had no difficulty. Obviously it's coming from... right. no
more stars above. OK. Snow looks like so many fireflies when lit up by
the strobes. The radios start crackling. The mic is not keyed. P-static
this pilot's mind registers. Hmmm. Now cloud. A layer must have come up
to meet me. Right. At night you can't see the layers. I've heard you
don't get ice if it's snowing. Not true. If you're in cloud ice can form
regardless of snow falling from above. The mag lite was strong enough to
illuminate the wing leading edge although the angle from the pilot's
vantage point is not right to catch the first formations of rime. The
canopy leading edge showed what appeared to be ice accretion and I've
learned that if the canopy shows signs of ice at the base, then the wing is
picking it up. Memo to self: these thin wings appear to pick up ice
faster than a Piper or Mooney. If we see signs of ice, don't dawdle!
Plan B: go to 13,000 feet. Quickly out of the layer and into clear
blackness speckled by fireflies. The plane climbs at between 500 and 1000
feet per minute even here but the airspeed drops from 170 knots indicated
to 120. Any ice at all on the wing will cause a noticeable airspeed loss
and that is your first clue if you miss the ice on the canopy. Leveled
off, the airspeed climbs back to 160 indicated or about 190 true. (My
manifold pressure is about 21 inches at 11,000 feet and a bit over 19
inches at 13,000 with ram air). The rules say we're allowed 30 minutes max
at this altitude so the clock starts. The fireflies come back with a
vengeance just after I report conditions to ATC as being tops at 11,000 and
clear above (I saw stars after all). On a night like this Chicago Center
didn't have much to do and wanted to chat about the airplane and my
destination. At some point I've found time to keep up with weather at the
destination which is holding.
The snow is heavy now. The radios crackle to the point where hearing ATC
talk to othe pilots is getting difficult (a couple of other guys were
slogging around down at 9,000). The Shadin altitude management system is
throwing off spurious alarms and the VMS-1000 is sending sporadic low
manifold pressure alarms to the EC-100 for a fraction of a second at a
time. Thankfully the engine gages themselves were all normal and
apparently unaffected. The Strikefinder is painting dots at the 11 o'clock
position at the edge of the screen. Then the Shadin unit gave an altitude
alarm that quickly checked out when I turned to the altitude readout page
(instead of the normal target altitude page). Oh yeah, the altimeter
agreed, why didn't I look there? Oh and the attitude indicator showed a 20
degree bank. What the ... The S-tec 50 autopilot had kicked off. Not
just to the ready mode, but all the way off. Fortunately it reset. It did
this twice. The second time I caught it right away. Memo: Keep that scan
going! You don't feel a thing when the AP shuts off if the pitch trim is
right on. You don't feel a bank at all until it is way too late. Any
doubt as to what did JFK Jr. in?
At night you can see cities through an undercast by the glow of light in
that direction. One glow showed that I was about to run out of clear air
from a rising undercast. I'm getting close enough to the destination now
that it's time to go down anyway and I'm not feeling good at 13,000. ATC
clears it and down I go through two layers before breaking out into the
ground lights at about 5000 feet. What a sight! And no ice on the way
down. No more fireflies. There was a strong southerly breeze (15-20
knots) that was evident in my crab heading east. Fortunately the home
runway was alligned with this wind. I knew this because I had a local
towered airport give me their winds on my way by. Forget ATIS on a night
like this. I just asked approach and they were happy to help, nobody else
was up there for them to talk to.
Lot's of lessons here obviously, different for different people. I had an
hour and a half of spare fuel for the trip which was certainly nice not to
have to worry about. These airplanes, even the LNC2s are very capable
platforms and can clearly do more than we can. Oxygen is now on my
investigate list. I'm sharpening my "limits" for go/no go and tackling
fronts at night will be in the no go category. Beyond this, risk
management gets more complicated because no single thing would necessarily
shut down the flight (T-storms over the field, forecast moderate-severe
icing, freezing rain excepted) when you have my level of equipment - about
mid-level for you 4-p drivers. But when you add up smaller risks they may
become unacceptable.
I can't say enough good things about the Garmin 295. It was very
reassuring to see the color moving map showing the airplane tracking true
over the unseen ground and lakes no matter how dark it got outside. One
final thought, if you feel this story could not have been you since you
don't fly IMC, make sure you're not tempted to be like the guy I mentioned
above who drove his 235 into a rock in Tennessee scud running. Get an
instrument rating and buy yourself more options (and yes, more ways to get
into trouble).
Best Regards,
Ed de Chazal
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LML website: http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
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Please send your photos and drawings to marvkaye@olsusa.com.
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