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How many people does it take to do a preflight?

N941WR

Legacy Member
There were four of us pilot types planning on the famous $50 burger run. The Cardinal was tied down outside and all four of us proceed to preflight the plane.

Preflight complete we climbed in, started up, and taxied over in front of the little FBO building/picnic area to do our run up in the ?defined? run up area. As we were doing the mag check some gentleman walked up to the plane and knocked on the door. He pointed to the gust lock still strapped over the VS & rudder. :eek:

We shut down right there, three of us walked away and the owner/PIC performed a through and complete preflight before we climbed back in.

Whoever that gentleman was I would like to thank him. How four of us could have missed that gust lock, I will never know, but it can happen to you.

Lesson learned, only one person should perform the preflight. Everyone else should step back and not interrupt.
 
Hopefully - and more

Hopefully, you'd have caught it when you did "CIGARS" (Controls - BOX CHECK, Instruments, Gas, Attitude (trim, etc), Radios/Runup, Seatbelts)....Here's a good one...A learning one that is.

This beautiful Lancair Legacy, below was *DESTROYED*, when the pilot forgot to remove a makeshift pitot cover. The pilot went to take off and had no or variable airspeed and aborted the take off, but didn't do it soon enough.


This is what the airplane looked like after the aborted takeoff :(
DSCF0013.JPG


Yes, he walked away, and actually rebuilt it. I don't know what it looks like today, I need to check in with him to see, last I heard it was being painted.

Ya just can't be too thorough!
 
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aadamson said:
Yes, he walked away, and actually rebuilt it.
You have to be joking!! Seriously? He didn't just salvage bits and basically build a new kit with used parts? If he rebuilt that I don't know whether to be seriously impressed, or seriously worried. Of course, I know nothing about glass planes (or aluminium ones for that matter :D ) but even so... wheeeeew (that's supposed to be a low long whistle!)
 
what he did

AntiGravity said:
You have to be joking!! Seriously? He didn't just salvage bits and basically build a new kit with used parts? If he rebuilt that I don't know whether to be seriously impressed, or seriously worried. Of course, I know nothing about glass planes (or aluminium ones for that matter :D ) but even so... wheeeeew (that's supposed to be a low long whistle!)
He salvaged some good parts, and built new parts, (the wings for example come completely off with only 5' of the inboard wing attached to the fuselage), and rebuild other parts. He was able to keep his airworthiness and didn't have to start over... Course, in time he probably could have built a new one...It was sad, that was sorta the flagship Legacy for awhile.
 
This is a good lesson. We all have our routines when it comes to preflighting the airplane. distractions or deviations from the routine could cause items to be missed.

when a group of fellow pilots are going for a flight in and airplane, if I'm PIC I ask the other pilots assist by letting me preflight the aircraft.
 
Say Adam, very interesting story AND a very interesting picture - the "before" of the Lancair. What can you tell us about that? Obviously a Photoshop/computer rendering. I assume the shot of the a/c was done while taxiing, prop appears to be at low rpm. Row of hangars behind? But little apparent detail. The "sky" above is not in very "sky" colors. But the whole shot gives a real impression of speed. Nicely done.
 
Here's my take on a "gang" preflight:

With more than one person doing the preflight, each person can "ass/u/me" that whatever he didn't catch, the other guy(s) did.

You're probably safer if ONLY you do your own preflight so that you know you have personally covered each and every detail necessary before flight.

I mean, c'mon, do you really need several people to kick the tires and light the fire on one little itty bitty single engine airplane? :p
 
Not really sure

seward747 said:
Say Adam, very interesting story AND a very interesting picture - the "before" of the Lancair. What can you tell us about that? Obviously a Photoshop/computer rendering. I assume the shot of the a/c was done while taxiing, prop appears to be at low rpm. Row of hangars behind? But little apparent detail. The "sky" above is not in very "sky" colors. But the whole shot gives a real impression of speed. Nicely done.

That airplane was the flagship Legacy back a few years ago (think it flew the first time in 2002). It was in the Lancair color brochure and it was featured on their website. That picture was done by a friend of mine, who does most of the marketing creatives for Lancair.

More than that would be guessing.
 
I have been guilty of the fast preflight in the past. But as of a couple of doh incidents (not that bad) I not ALWAYS preflight my own airplane, no matter who else has done it already...
 
pitot blockage

just touching on the pitot cover being left on a couple posts back... My ol' luscombe has a good size tube sticking out the left wing that bee's of some sort think they need to stuff with bits of tree leaves. Half a dozen times I've taken off and had a reading of 45 mph on takeoff. It stalls at approximatly 45. "huh, that's somethin, dang bees" I hear myself say into the intercom. I pop open the window and get a swift jolt of cool air in the face "mmm, feals like ... more than 45 mph. that'll work." and the flight goes on without a second thought. It's a sad thing I think when a beautiful airplane is plowed into the ground because of such a simple thing. Pitot tube, I don't need no stinkin' pitot tube! :D :D
 
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Couldn't agree more

joeboisselle said:
just touching on the pitot cover being left on a couple posts back... My ol' luscombe has a good size tube sticking out the left wing that bee's of some sort think they need to stuff with bits of tree leaves. Half a dozen times I've taken off and had a reading of 45 mph on takeoff. It stalls at approximatly 45. "huh, that's somethin, dang bees" I hear myself say into the intercom. I pop open the window and get a swift jolt of cool air in the face "mmm, feals like ... more than 45 mph. that'll work." and the flight goes on without a second thought. It's a sad thing I think when a beautiful airplane is plowed into the ground because of such a simple thing. Pitot tube, I don't need no stinkin' pitot tube! :D :D

Was his exact reason for putting on the makeshift pitot tube cover.... - Mud Daubers bees.
 
yeah, I need to order one of those... I've seen preflights tho where the pilot blew into the pitot tube and asked if the airspeed moved. I asked where his camera was. :D We call him "pitot boy" now.
 
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