With all the airplane drama dealing with the radio issues I’ve had, Bev and I decided to fly down to Tampa on Avelo; rent a car from Hertz; and fly back on Avelo from Orlando. The Avelo experience was excellent, the Wilmington based crew experienced and polite, and the airplane comfortable. The Hertz counter was quick and efficient, the counter rep (Jeremy I think he said), was polite and easy to deal with. The entire process was easy to accomplish.
I had signed up for recurrent training in simulators with the RTC company in Trinity, Florida to align with our planned week in our Orlando timeshare. I felt I needed to do this because I’d become lax in record keeping and complacent in my training. I’m going to fix this, and I am going to start here.
I began my training on Friday, July 12th, and completed the training requirements by the end of the day. I decided to continue in the SIM this morning (13th), since I’d paid for it and was learning quite a bit from my instructor; an accomplished Army Aviator. The techniques I talk about in this post come from him. I gained new confidence in my own abilities, and can clearly see the rust that came off.
I’ll note a few of the things we worked on below:
Brief Every Takeoff: If you don’t brief what you’ll do for loss of control on the runway, etc., you won’t be ready to do it. I practiced briefing quite a bit these two days and will do it more often going forward.
Brief Every Landing: Same as above. I should be doing what I did at the airlines and briefing the plan. It gets you mentally ready.
Engine Failure in the Pattern: There are times when it makes sense to just continue to the landing without doing the drill or feathering the prop on the failed engine. We talked about various points in the pattern entry where a failure might occur; saving altitude if the aircraft is clean and/or traffic is heavy; and delaying the gear down movement. We practiced this in the sim repeatedly.
Additionally, we talked about reducing power in the single engine turn and energy management down to touchdown. We also emphasized the not doing the drill means definitely landing / no go-around once you start down.
Gross Weight Take-offs: I told the instructor that I’d been doing a bit of gross weight flying with 4 people as an almost routine. I could see and hear the concern in his voice, so we spent some time talking through it. He encouraged me to seriously consider the takeoff distance over a 50′ obstacle with regard to changing weights and temps. Basically be very aware of how things change as the variables change.
We flew out of a very limited field with obstacles repeatedly – failing an engine at rotation. It was awesome practice, the way the instructor managed it. I’m better now for having done it.
In order to better accommodate this renewed analysis, I translated the spaghetti charts in my POH into digital data. I took that data and made an app for the iPad to accept TEMP, PRESS ALT, WEIGHT, and HEADWIND, and spit out ACCEL/STOP; T/O over 50′; and Landing Distance.
Engine Failure Immediately at Rotation: Engine failure right at rotation caused me some challenges with holding the climb-out heading. I saved the airplane on every instance, but it wasn’t pretty for the first ones. I was often 30 degrees off (or more) of the departure heading during the recovery, and using all available altitude to establish a climb. I was rushing it, and it showed. After re-training to fly the airplane first (pitch and heading) – THEN proceed with gear up and feather, I nailed it repeatedly.
The instructor was very good at cleaning up my responses in stages. He refocused my attention on holding heading and attitude (flying the airplane) first; then doing the VFR Feather Method or the DRILL, as appropriate. This practice alone was solid work and greatly increased my confidence.
BTW – This segment of our work came out of a discussion where I’d been flying out of a short field with obstacles when I had a flight control problem. I arrived ready to discuss all the phases of my operation that concerned me or kept me close to an edge. We hit it all.
Torque Runaway; Over-Torque; Fuel Failure and Uncommanded Power: This one was a real surprise. I was used to engine failures and managing those, but this failure had the power go to full on one engine, and stay there regardless of power lever setting.
What it taught me was that I should take the time to analyze the instruments when the opportunity was there. The resolution in this case is pulling the mixture, which could be used for a broken power lever cable or some failure in the fuel servo.
Engine Failure in VFR: This is a new technique for me, and we’ll call it the VFR Feather Method. I plan to use this instead of doing the drill for expediency. Basically, when you lose an engine on takeoff, the nose will either slew to the left or to the right. If it slews RIGHT, Feather The RIGHT Engine. Conversely, If it slews LEFT, Feather The LEFT Engine. Of course, remember to follow up with the remaining steps of the drill that will ensure Gear Up and Mixture OFF for the dead engine. When you think about it, you are identifying and verifying in one fell swoop.
It was recommended that I don’t do this in IFR conditions, but to do the DRILL instead. In IFR, it could lead to spatial disorientation.
Engine Failure in IFR: Do the drill and be smooth.
Energy Management on Approaches: I took some tuning up here. I’ll practice power off landings in my airplane when I get it back and Wilmington isn’t busy.
Remember DA and MDA: You can dip below DA on the missed, but now MDA.
Opportunity for Beverly: My instructor offered to have Bev come in and learn at least how to land. She wasn’t interested, as I expected her response to be. I very much appreciated the offer though, and mention it here for you to know.
Path Forward: I’m planning on doing this approach to recurrency, coupled with training in my airplane, at least once per year. This was worth doing!!
Fly Safe!!