{"id":4983,"date":"2025-01-19T16:41:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T21:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/?p=4983"},"modified":"2025-01-20T08:05:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T13:05:03","slug":"january-19-2025-just-say-no-nicely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/?p=4983","title":{"rendered":"January 19, 2025 – Just say No, nicely"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Trip Cancelations:<\/strong> For the second time this month, I’m rearranging my calendar to accommodate a canceled trip. The first time was a week or so ago to Atlantic City, and the client canceled that one. This time I was to pick up a passenger from Penn State University Airport and fly him to New Castle County. I canceled that one several days ago when it became clear that ICE would be a factor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’ve been watching daily before I canceled, while the freezing level bases varied from the surface to 7000′, with tops up to 18000′. We’d be flying in the low teens, where moderate icing has been the norm for the system as it moved west to east. The Cheyenne I is certified for known ice, but that doesn’t mean you take off knowing you’ll be in ice the entire time. There was little chance to fly under or around the ice either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was clear to me several days ago that this flight either wasn’t going to happen in a timely fashion, or would get hung up away from home when the weather was even worse than forecast. I knew the client was rearranging his schedule already; and that the flight most likely wouldn’t happen; so I let him know early that he should have a backup plan. I took a chance and canceled the flight several days ahead of time. The weather today proved me out. While I don’t think we’ll actually get much snow at our airport out of this, the bulk of the weather still lies between our home and our destination. I was lucky and it was a solid weather call based on consistent forecasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Canceling is hard!:<\/strong> The major factors are easy for me to understand. Icing in clouds at all levels to the destination and back; low ceilings and visibility; mountainous terrain; my low time in the aircraft; and icing systems I haven’t personally seen in operation, though they all test good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision to cancel can be a most difficult one. Clients are disappointed, and they sometimes don’t understand the risk assessment process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can tell you that I have canceled personal flights more than once, and then drove to Jekyll Island with my bride in bright sunshine and clear skies – kicking myself. Weather does that to you, you know. It is kind of unpredictable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Systems Review: <\/strong>For the most recently canceled flight, I invited my friend Mike along for the trip. Mike is an experienced turbo-prop instructor, as well as in the G280 program. I wanted him to evaluate my knowledge and procedures, and to make suggestions on what else I should be doing. I trust his opinion and his skill as a pilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After the flight canceled, I invited Mike to sit in the airplane anyway, and go over systems so he could get familiar. This was a very valuable 2 hours of my day. I learned a few things and remembered a few more from Mike’s talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He suggested I take a deeper dive into the multitude of electrical circuit breakers in this airplane, and then into each of it’s other systems. This had been my approach when I was instructing at FlightSafety, and makes even more sense now. He had a valid point, so I went back on my own the next day to begin that process, starting with the electrical system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few of the questions (and a few answers) I’ve developed that needs to be investigated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do I manage a Pitch Trim Runaway?<\/mark> After testing with external power on – the electric trim is de-powered by pulling the AP\/FD breaker at the rearmost left position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does the ATT GYRO Breaker Power?<\/mark> Open Question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What provides the attitude information to the autopilot?<\/mark> Open Question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can the Yaw Gyro breaker be pulled to disable the YAW Damper?<\/mark> Since the YAW Damper is defective, and I’d love to keep it from coming on until it is repaired. I’ll test that one on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can the RMI breaker be removed?<\/mark> Since there isn’t an RMI in the airplane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a general review of the panel layout, I thought it might be good for me to put the aircraft on external power, and walk through each checklist to ensure I could do it when it counted. Some of the references in the checklist are confusing, and some are just wrong for this model specifically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example, I noted that some of the emergency procedures called for opening circuit breakers in cases where there was only one breaker, and in some cases where that breaker was actually a switch. The FlightSafety checklists in the airplane actually cover several Cheyenne Models with the same checklist, so I can understand how this is so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inconsistencies can create confusion during an emergency, so I decided to write and refine the checklist within ForeFlight for just this airplane. I then ran each checklist and edited it in ForeFlight to improve the order of the actions as I went. I cleaned up the references, made the entries consistent, and put my fingers through the actions required of each step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is more to do there, and I’ll keep spending time in the cockpit – alone and in the hangar – for all of the checklists and all the systems. I’ll keep editing and practicing until it all makes sense and is second nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fly Safe!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trip Cancelations: For the second time this month, I’m rearranging my calendar to accommodate a canceled trip. The first time was a week or so ago to Atlantic City, and the client canceled that one. This time I was to pick up a passenger from Penn State University Airport and fly him to New Castle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-page","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4983"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5002,"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4983\/revisions\/5002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airdorrin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}