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-   -   My dumb story, and the danger of breaking your routine (https://vansairforce.net/community/showthread.php?t=101186)

John Clark 06-26-2013 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aerhed (Post 782885)
My boss was always In a hurry...

I used to work for this guy's clone. The lad was always going Mach 1 with his hair on fire. Lots of stories including taking off with the towbar still attaced to his Cessna 310. An electric powered towbar, no less. One of my duties as "the other pilot" in the company was to open the hangar doors when he was going to go flying. When I returned a few hours later to close the doors, I just stood there and laughed. The hangar was full of Jepp plates, scattered everywhere. Seems he had, as was his habit, started up in the hangar and taxied out. The 2" Jepp binder was probably left on the wing in his haste. I gave a couple of seconds thought to cleaning up the mess, but figured there might be a "teaching moment" at hand. I picked up the plates that were outside the hangar, tossed them inside and closed the doors. He returned later that evening and never said a word.

John Clark ATP, CFI
FAAST Team Representative
EAA Flight Advisor
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

Sig600 06-26-2013 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlloyd3 (Post 782720)
Done all those and more. Canopy unlatched, transponder off, gust lock in place, coffee cup on roof (the boss), belt out the door, etc. Once I departed into lousy weather with one of my bags still in the car--should have made two trips due to use of umbrella. Almost every time I forgot something was the result of one and/or two things. Distraction while doing something and not using a checklist. Think I will dust that checklist off and use it every time.

This is one of my personal red flags, if I find myself getting distracted from habit pattern/checklist a big red warning light has evolved and I'll start over if need be.

N546RV 06-26-2013 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neal@F14 (Post 782927)
I used to have a placard on the panel of my old Cherokee that said, "Brainfarts prohibited in this aircraft".

I saw this at the local EAA pancake breakfast a couple years back:


AX-O 06-26-2013 01:13 PM

Philip,
This is a rule at work that I use with my own personal flying. Once the flight is cancelled (or a NOGO is reached) for any reason, It is not flown no matter how bad I wanted to fly. ORM (operational risk management) wise the brain has a tough time re-engaging on that task. Unless, the process is started from the beginning and all those ?routines? are re-established.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have also done similar things. One of my least favorites was putting my wife?s bran new ipad on the wing, closing the canopy, starting, taking off, landed about 30 miles away to then figure out the ipad was not inside the plane. At least I did not leave my wife.

erich weaver 06-26-2013 01:16 PM

I had to modify my pre-start checklist to include "towbar, chocks & tiedowns removed" at the top. Dont ask.
erich

erikpmort 06-26-2013 04:37 PM

both of my close friends have taken off with tow bar engaged. 1 damaged, one not. they were both CFI ratings.

I'll tell my quick dumb one that coulda been bad and demonstrates the usefulness of standardized controls-

my carb heat and throttle are the same type of lever on my varieze (sold) I was on final and went to add more throttle and nothing happened. thought I had lost my engine! kept pumping it, and finally realized I was moving the carb heat lever not the throttle. luckly caught it before anything bad happened. sometimes you gotta just take a deep breath and engage the brain as some have said.

E. D. Eliot 06-26-2013 06:38 PM

Check List
 
IMSAFE works for me - not only when about to fly but before any task that involves risk - like operating any kind of equipment, driving, etc.

pcs_russ 07-08-2013 07:54 PM

Being in a Hurry
 
Once I was headed on a day trip for work and called my brother to see if he wanted to tag along. He's a PPL also. He hurried over to the airport where I had the plane running and waiting. Off we went... Things ran long and we didn't return until 10:00 at night. He had parked his truck in front of the hanger but couldn't find his keys when we returned. We searched the airplane and truck several times. Nothing. After an hour we decide to just push the truck out of the way so we could put the airplane away and go home. Had to climb under the truck to disconnect the shifter to get it out of park. Luckily the wheels were straight so I open the door and start pushing..... hey wait a sec.... There is a note on the windshield....
"Left your truck running. It was almost out of gas. Keys in the FBO".
We have no idea how long it took someone to realize it was left running. Imagine having to go to the office at the FBO and ask for the keys back..... "hey I'm the guy that left his truck running all day. Can I have my key back please?"
Maybe I should add that to my preflight checklist....

N8RV 07-09-2013 08:18 AM

I've often heard pilots proclaim that they say out loud what they're touching with each checklist item. I've never seen the need for such foolishness.

Until last weekend. :eek:

I took Smokey up for a quickie in the area on Saturday and wrung out some stiffness from both of us. As I set up for a routine landing, I noticed that there were a few planes at the clubhouse ramp, with their pilots and passengers just waiting to grade my landing.

I decided to use the parallel grass runway (landing on grass is always smoother-looking than the unforgiving pavement) and made a delicate, picture-perfect landing. If grass could squeak, it would have.

I decided to avoid taxiing by the crowd due to time constraints, despite my ego needing a good stroking. A nice taxi with a pilot wave to the adoring crowd would have felt good, I'm sure. I stowed the ego and taxied across the pavement on the other grass runway toward my hangar.

As soon as I cleared the active runway, I did what I always do -- I raised the flaps and turned off lights and fuel pump. I know better than to do that on an active runway (not that I'd do something stupid.)

I had no more cleared the active and raised the flaps and the engine quit!

I tried in vain to restart the engine, knowing that by now the assembled crowd of adoring fans on the ramp were wondering why my engine died. "Bet the idiot ran out of gas," they were probably opining. "Good thing he made it to the airport. Moron."

After a couple of tries (the fuel pump was still on, naturally), I decided that I needed to treat it like a flooded engine. Still no go.

Then I saw why the engine had quit. Instead of flipping off the switches for the taxi and landing lights, I had flipped the switches for the IGNITION! They're not even on the same panel. Talk about a brain fart. Sheesh ... :rolleyes:

Needless to say, as soon as I flipped the mag switch back on and cranked the engine, it started immediately. I'm just glad that I didn't pull that stunt in front of the assembled crowd of adoring fans. I'd have never heard the end of it! :D

Sig600 07-09-2013 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by N546RV (Post 782946)
I saw this at the local EAA pancake breakfast a couple years back:


I would question why this individual needs a placard for that. :eek:


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