Systems Knowledge

[Colonel]

There are several basic skills of a pilot.

1) Stick & rudder (aircraft handling)
2) Systems Knowledge
3) Prioritization

There are some other areas you need to work on - Navigation,
Weather, Regulations - but especially given technological
advances, they are much less challenging today than they
used to be, decades ago.

I think anyone that reads what I write probably knows how
important I think basic stick & rudder skills are (dead horse)

Systems knowledge (eg 737 Max worldwide grounding) is
something else I have emphasized, but people don't seem
to get the message.

I have probably flown more different, weird types of aircraft
than 99% of the pilots in Canada, and I'm still alive.  Why?

When I look at an aircraft, I try to prioritize ((3) above) and
figure out

a) what I need to know
b) what's nice to know
c) I don't give a shit

Looking at a strange, weird old complicated, highly modified
airplane that you are going to fly solo without a checkout ...

First thing is the retractable gear.  It had better fucking work.
How are the microswitches?  How dirty is the gear?  Can I
put it up on jacks and swing it myself?  This sounds nuts, but
it may not have flown in years.

Get out the AFM and put a stickie on the page for manual
gear operation.  For god's sake, make sure it's available
when you go flying.  If you've got it up on jacks, can you
test the manual gear extension?  If it's hydraulic like an
Aztec, you can pump it down.  Don't blow it down with
the tank - that's a one way trip.  If it's got a crank, say
like a Mooney, crank it down.  A failure mode of those
cable systems is that the plastic coating comes off the
cable and jams shit up.  Oops.

Test the gear lights.  Three green?  Turn off the nav lights
if you can't see them.

Clean the gear and grease it.  Change the zerk fittings if
they won't take grease.  Avoid metal on metal if you want
an airplane to last..

Check all the castellated nuts for cotter pins.

Ok, gear is good.  Next is the fuel system.

Some aircraft have really simple fuel systems - one tank,
gravity fed to a carburetor.  All you need to know is where
the shutoff valve is, in case the needle valve is dribbling.

Some aircraft have hideously complicated fuel systems.
The C421B is a poster child.  Tanks all over the place,
some you can crossfeed from, some you can't, some you
can take off with, some you can't.  When I did 421 checkouts,
first thing I did was pass a clipboard to the student and ask
him to draw me the fuel system.

And fuel pumps.  Do they run all the time?  Some of the
time?  Even a little fuel injected SEL can bite you in the
ass on this - Lycoming likes boost pump for takeoff, TCM
does not - TYPICALLY. AFM/POH is golden.  Do what it says.

Ok, we've talked about gear and fuel systems because they
are really fucking important - remember, priorities.  If you don't
get them right, it's all over.

What other systems are important?  Well, that's up to you, to
figure out.

An example of that is the L39 cockpit heat, which sounds pretty
innocent.  But people like to get into cockpits and play with shit,
which scares the shit out of me.  Parents think it's cute when
little jimmy pulls on live ejection seat handles.  Hope the pins
are in, or we're going to need a hose to get little jimmy off the
ceiling.

Every time I get into an L39, I look on the right and make sure
the heat is on AUTO.  If the heat is selected MANUAL and the
knob is turned up - harmless on AUTO - bleed air from the turbine
is directly routed into the cockpit at hundreds of degrees, like your
wife's self-clean oven.  You won't forget that mistake.  High priority.

Anyways, I hope this helps.  Looking at the 737 Max fiasco, I suspect
there's nothing anyone can do to stop the deterioration, but I try.

A few years back I was doing an airshow, and on the shuttle from
the hotel to the airport, my friend Carlos Dardano - you've never
heard of Taca 110, but unlike today's children, he could really fly
a 737 - Carlos asked me what happened.  He told me we used to
be the best pilots in the world, and we had gone to shit.  I agreed
with him and looked out the window.  I didn't have an answer.

[vanNostrum]

Is Carlos the guy that lost an eye?
IIRC  they interview him for  the Taca 110 Mayday episode

Regarding system knowledge
do you think that someone that is not mechanically inclined
and has no other technical  knowledge can understand and
operate complex  systems in an airplane proficiently, even in emergencies ?

[Colonel]

Yes.  Carlos flies better with one eye than most with two.

A pilot that doesn’t understand systems is at a huge
disadvantage when something goes wrong.

Everyone shit on Dick Piche for example - see the
Air Transat Azores gilder.  He followed checklist
procedure and pumped all his fuel overboard.

The 777 pilot at LHR that lost both engines bumped
the flaps up on short final, against procedure.  He
reduced drag and a bunch of physics majors figured
out afterward that he saved a bunch of lives by doing
that, so the airline fired him.

[vanNostrum]

It puzzles me to meet pilots without even a basic
knowledge of physics to help them understand flying
and airplane systems
  Some years ago I knew some guys that were at, or, waiting to get into
First Air FE ground school [ B 72]
To them, electricity was a great mystery
The concept of ,KVA , KVARS ,AC frequency,phase etc
were very difficult to grasp without first having a basic understanding
of Amps,Volts or Watts
Don't know how they could understand and operate with confidence all
the  systems in this airplane

[TundraTire]

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=9550.msg27239#msg27239 date=1553104654]

The 777 pilot at LHR that lost both engines bumped
the flaps up on short final, against procedure.  He
reduced drag and a bunch of physics majors figured
out afterward that he saved a bunch of lives by doing
that, so the airline fired him.
[/quote]

That's not actually true.

After the crash Capt Burkill was placed on stress leave, and then returned to duty.  However, due to rumours about his performance during the crash, he chose to quit BA for other opportunities.  When that fizzled out, BA took him back.

[Colonel]

Revisionist history aside ... at the time, he was viewed as a HUGE fuckup.

Somehow, they hung the blame on him for the fuel heater icing
design problem, and for bumping up the flaps on short final, which
was a split-second decision by him, NOT in the QRH, which was
brilliant.

Lesson for the day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal

[quote]In employment law, constructive dismissal, also called constructive discharge or constructive termination, occurs when an employee resigns as a result of the employer creating a hostile work environment.

Since the resignation was not truly voluntary, it is, in effect, a termination[/quote]