[quote]everyone always thinks I'm going to die in an airplane[/quote]
Join the club. All the "experts" predicted I would
die, decades ago.
The "experts" unfortunately do not possess the
mental facilities to comprehend the monstrous
irony that I'm still around, watching everyone
else around me die.
Flying an ancient piston twin is a very high risk
activity, because of two things:
1) it's very likely to have a problem, and
2) most people are dead in a piston twin if
there's a problem at a low energy state (eg
less than 10,000 feet or 200 mph)
The knowledge above, does not come from
the regulations. Rather, from physics and
experience.
Waco YMF-5C
-
Colonel
- Posts: 3450
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:31 am
[quote]its high risk[/quote]
You bet your ass it is.
[quote]one that's worthwhile I'm sure you'll agree[/quote]
Hey, I fly all the weird and old stuff - of course.
[quote]it still won't rank maybe in the top ten riskiest or dangerous things I've done[/quote]
Now here's the interesting part. A serious problem I
see amongst pilots (esp less experienced) is that they
sometimes assume ENORMOUS risk without realizing it.
Many examples abound ... for example, I refuse to fly
close formation with helicopters - unlike many other fixed
wing pilots - because I can't see the main rotor disk in
flight. You can't see it, but there are terrible consequences
for an error.
Flying old piston twins is similarly high risk. The probability
of something going wrong at 100 feet after takeoff is very
high - and here's the rub - precisely NO ONE practices that
emergency in the aircraft, so they have no training for the
most serious emergency that could occur.
If that mother goes THRUM-THRUM-THRUM at 200 feet
after takeoff and starts to yaw and decelerate, it's no
time for deer in the headlights:
[youtube][/youtube]
Similarly, with old hoses, an oil or fuel leak is quite
probable. And with a twin, an engine fire melts the
spar. And, everyone on board is quite dead after that.
And I won't mention any names, but recovery from
unusual attitudes in piston twins doesn't exactly have
a very good record, either. It's something that shouldn't
occur, and is quite recoverable from an aerodynamic
standpoint, but most pilots just don't have the skill.
Watch your ass, ok?
You bet your ass it is.
[quote]one that's worthwhile I'm sure you'll agree[/quote]
Hey, I fly all the weird and old stuff - of course.
[quote]it still won't rank maybe in the top ten riskiest or dangerous things I've done[/quote]
Now here's the interesting part. A serious problem I
see amongst pilots (esp less experienced) is that they
sometimes assume ENORMOUS risk without realizing it.
Many examples abound ... for example, I refuse to fly
close formation with helicopters - unlike many other fixed
wing pilots - because I can't see the main rotor disk in
flight. You can't see it, but there are terrible consequences
for an error.
Flying old piston twins is similarly high risk. The probability
of something going wrong at 100 feet after takeoff is very
high - and here's the rub - precisely NO ONE practices that
emergency in the aircraft, so they have no training for the
most serious emergency that could occur.
If that mother goes THRUM-THRUM-THRUM at 200 feet
after takeoff and starts to yaw and decelerate, it's no
time for deer in the headlights:
[youtube][/youtube]
Similarly, with old hoses, an oil or fuel leak is quite
probable. And with a twin, an engine fire melts the
spar. And, everyone on board is quite dead after that.
And I won't mention any names, but recovery from
unusual attitudes in piston twins doesn't exactly have
a very good record, either. It's something that shouldn't
occur, and is quite recoverable from an aerodynamic
standpoint, but most pilots just don't have the skill.
Watch your ass, ok?
-
Colonel
- Posts: 3450
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:31 am
Hoses. Time to talk about some boring-ass
stuff that can kill you.
Hoses in an aircraft are broadly two types:
1) flexible
2) rigid metal
Most people focus on the flex (eg Aeroquip)
hoses which are often made of cotton and
rubber and are used for fuel, oil and hydraulic
fluid.
The lawyers tell you to change them every 5
years, but they are very expensive and 99%
of people don't. There is no regulatory requirement
to, and since they're legal they must be safe,
right?
Depending upon how many hours are flown
and how much heat they are exposed to, you
can probably take a flex hose out to 10 years
if it leads a gentle life.
A couple months ago, I changed the left mag
on a tube & fabric taildragger (not mine) and
I had to move the oil cooler out of the way.
The flex hoses from the engine to the cooler
were dated 1973 on the metal tags, and they
were hard as a rock. No legal requirement to
ever change them, but suicide not to.
A friend of mine, Gary Ward, used those shitty
Nascar lightweight hoses on his homebuilt MX2
and across the Gulf of Mexico, he lost 10 quarts
of engine oil when one of them sprung a leak.
Freddy Cabanas had an oil flex hose spring a
leak in an S-2C, which wasn't very old at all.
I've seen plenty of fuel flex hoses in old biplanes
dry up and completely fail, and pee 100LL all
over the floor, at quite a rate.
A few years back, an antique twin I flew sprung
a fuel leak on the right engine. Popped the cowl,
it [b]wasn't[/b] a flex hose. Over the decades, a clamp
mount on a rigid metal fuel hose had worn through.
Easy enough to fix. But it could have gone very
badly.
I spend as much time wrenching as I do flying,
so I probably have a different perspective than
most pilots on this, but ... learn your systems!
What you don't know, can sure as hell kill you.
stuff that can kill you.
Hoses in an aircraft are broadly two types:
1) flexible
2) rigid metal
Most people focus on the flex (eg Aeroquip)
hoses which are often made of cotton and
rubber and are used for fuel, oil and hydraulic
fluid.
The lawyers tell you to change them every 5
years, but they are very expensive and 99%
of people don't. There is no regulatory requirement
to, and since they're legal they must be safe,
right?
Depending upon how many hours are flown
and how much heat they are exposed to, you
can probably take a flex hose out to 10 years
if it leads a gentle life.
A couple months ago, I changed the left mag
on a tube & fabric taildragger (not mine) and
I had to move the oil cooler out of the way.
The flex hoses from the engine to the cooler
were dated 1973 on the metal tags, and they
were hard as a rock. No legal requirement to
ever change them, but suicide not to.
A friend of mine, Gary Ward, used those shitty
Nascar lightweight hoses on his homebuilt MX2
and across the Gulf of Mexico, he lost 10 quarts
of engine oil when one of them sprung a leak.
Freddy Cabanas had an oil flex hose spring a
leak in an S-2C, which wasn't very old at all.
I've seen plenty of fuel flex hoses in old biplanes
dry up and completely fail, and pee 100LL all
over the floor, at quite a rate.
A few years back, an antique twin I flew sprung
a fuel leak on the right engine. Popped the cowl,
it [b]wasn't[/b] a flex hose. Over the decades, a clamp
mount on a rigid metal fuel hose had worn through.
Easy enough to fix. But it could have gone very
badly.
I spend as much time wrenching as I do flying,
so I probably have a different perspective than
most pilots on this, but ... learn your systems!
What you don't know, can sure as hell kill you.
-
Liquid Charlie
- Posts: 524
- Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 1:34 pm
Flying old piston twins is similarly high risk. The probability of something going wrong at 100 feet after takeoff is very high - and here's the rub - precisely NO ONE practices that emergency in the aircraft, so they have no training for the most serious emergency that could occur.
After being away from airborne training for years and then coming back to it I was appalled to the extent that training had degraded. Back in the day when one would get an engine failure at 3 feet off the ground with gear and skis still extended to what we have today. As the colonel stated here "no one gets that type of actual training any more. There is a complete loss of the most important thing you need to deal with in any emergency. The startle factor!! None of that training now. The heavy twins like the CV44 and the HS74 where we would get V1 cuts on the runway. The one area where a failure taxes you to the point of putting you into survival mode is gone. The first time you will now experience it is when it has actually happens and the is no backup or a way out there. Yes there have been accidents because of this but there needs to be a better solution, not the typical knee jerk solution, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Solve it, don't sweep it under the mat.
-
Colonel
- Posts: 3450
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:31 am
reformatted:
After being away from airborne training for years and then coming back to it I was appalled to the extent that training had degraded.
Back in the day when one would get an engine failure at 3 feet off the ground with gear and skis still extended to what we have today. As the colonel stated here "no one gets that type of actual training any more". There is a complete loss of the most important thing you need to deal with in any emergency. The startle factor!!
None of that training now. The heavy twins like the CV44 and the HS74 where we would get V1 cuts on the runway. The one area where a failure taxes you to the point of putting you into survival mode is gone. The first time you will now experience it is when it has actually happens and the is no backup or a way out there.
Yes there have been accidents because of this but there needs to be a better solution, not the typical knee jerk solution, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Solve it, don't sweep it under the mat.
LC said:Flying old piston twins is similarly high risk. The probability of something going wrong at 100 feet after takeoff is very high - and here's the rub - precisely NO ONE practices that emergency in the aircraft, so they have no training for the most serious emergency that could occur.
After being away from airborne training for years and then coming back to it I was appalled to the extent that training had degraded.
Back in the day when one would get an engine failure at 3 feet off the ground with gear and skis still extended to what we have today. As the colonel stated here "no one gets that type of actual training any more". There is a complete loss of the most important thing you need to deal with in any emergency. The startle factor!!
None of that training now. The heavy twins like the CV44 and the HS74 where we would get V1 cuts on the runway. The one area where a failure taxes you to the point of putting you into survival mode is gone. The first time you will now experience it is when it has actually happens and the is no backup or a way out there.
Yes there have been accidents because of this but there needs to be a better solution, not the typical knee jerk solution, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Solve it, don't sweep it under the mat.
-
Colonel
- Posts: 3450
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:31 am
I started flying long enough ago, that I flew with
some cranky old guys that would actually pull throttles
in piston twins at 100/200/300 feet, to see what
you would do.
The lessons that taught me are still with me today,
and I try to pass what I learned on to the new guys.
I don't recommend anyone else try it, though - that
skill has been bred out of the pilot population.
I'm no genius in the cockpit. I just:
1) have been flying for a long time
2) got some really excellent training from some
incredibly skilled pilots
3) am totally paranoid about everything breaking
and going wrong
The sad thing is that the really skilled, knowledgeable
pilots are almost all gone. They're all retired, and
really old (or dead) and we're kind of left with fluff.
some cranky old guys that would actually pull throttles
in piston twins at 100/200/300 feet, to see what
you would do.
The lessons that taught me are still with me today,
and I try to pass what I learned on to the new guys.
I don't recommend anyone else try it, though - that
skill has been bred out of the pilot population.
I'm no genius in the cockpit. I just:
1) have been flying for a long time
2) got some really excellent training from some
incredibly skilled pilots
3) am totally paranoid about everything breaking
and going wrong
The sad thing is that the really skilled, knowledgeable
pilots are almost all gone. They're all retired, and
really old (or dead) and we're kind of left with fluff.
-
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