Scudrunners

Witnessed the funniest thing at the airport yesterday. I won’t mention the aircraft type to avoid pissing off the RV guys.

So there is quite a gathering on the taxiway, possibly for a first flight? These two heroes in flight suits climb in and sit for a very long time, with the master on and playing with their fucking glass panels and thick checklists.

After perhaps an hour of these glass panel shenanigans, they try an engine start. Don’t even get one compression stroke. Yup, they killed the battery playing with their flight suits and checklists and glass panels.

It was still on the charger when I left.

These are the Cool Kids™ at the airport.

Sometimes I fear for the future of aviation.

You should have wandered over and offered to hand prop it. The alternator would probably fully recharge the battery while they did some after start checklists.

If they were normal people that would have probably worked as long as the alternator has 9V or so to excite the field.

You can always tell pilots in flight suits but you can’t tell them anything

I think the biggest engine I ever hand bombed was the R-985 in the Stearman. Probably the worst was an O-470 in a 180. Back of the blades cut into my fingers worse than the Lyc IO-540.

Being good at hand propping is like being the smartest kid in a special needs class.

I hand bombed the O-540 in the BN2 Islander was actually easy.
The starter solenoid had packed it in for the left side you know the side the pilot enters right by the prop.

So before I thought too hard about it on some Esker in the middle of nowhere Yukon. I set the throttle, chocked the nose and right side and gaver shit.
She caught on the first attempt, kicked the chocks out piled into the right door and dove over the seat into the pilot chair.

Got it back to Mayo. Then started to figure it out and realized I could swap the solenoid right to left to see if that was the problem.
It was so I put the left on the right and right on left and finished my last two hauls hand bombing the right at Mayo and hoping in the cockpit
starting the left then would leave the right running while kicking drums off the plane. Then fire up the left and head back.

I was then tasked to head to Dawson City but would have to wait until next tuesday to get a spare sent up from Whitehorse. Hmm get drunk for a few days in Dawson and wait or make some money.
I got drunk that night and the next day somehow found myself at a NAPA dealer who had a field STC Scud approved exact part probably 1/4 the price of one with a stamp on it.

Carried on for the weekend making hay while the sun shined and swapped the new part over when it arrived.
The spare went in my survival kit never had to pull it out again.

I can’t help but chuckle at GA pilot’s in flight suits. So dorky! I think the only time its acceptable is when you’re flying a warbird such as a Spitfire at Duxford. I have a close friend that had the privilege of flying for the Shuttleworth Collection for 30 years. The only thing he would wear that was “military issue” was the white leather RAF flying gloves. He said the white gloves made it easy to see hand signals when flying formation. He would also use said gloves for TIG welding!

I have an over-reaction to phonies and pretenders that I need to get over.

Dear Old Dad was in the bag for 15 years in the RCAF flying T-33, F-86 and F-104 and never, ever wore a flight suit (or any other pretend uniform) after he got out.

When we flew Airshows we wore shirts and shorts. I noticed that over time, other airshow pilots started to do the same.

I know I look reeeaaaallllly good in my flight suit… but… the only reason we wear them is for fire protection.
If you roll the sleeves up and don’t wear gloves (not those stupid British Airways driving gloves) you’re not wearing them for the reasons that they were designed for.

You’ll find that 0.01% of people that have to wear flightsuits , continue to wear them when flying for fun.

Why is that?



I very much agree, if I see a dude walking around the aerodrome wearing a flightsuit, I lump them in to the same pile I reserve for the Civil Air Patrol.