System Awareness
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- čas přidán 9. 01. 2023
- How often do you look at your ammeter when you're in cruise flight? How about your oil pressure gauge? If you're honest, your answer should probably be "not often enough." Situational awareness requires being aware of your aircraft systems, too. In this webinar, Mike Busch discusses two recent lightplane flights that were cut short because the aircraft's Lycoming engines lost oil pressure, lost power, and seized. One of the pilots made it to an airport, the other didn't. Mike will deconstruct both flights and talk about some important lessons all pilots can learn from them. Savvy Aviation offers Professional Maintenance Services to owners of General Aviation aircraft, such as: SavvyMx (Professional Maintenance Management), SavvyQA (Expert Consulting), SavvyPrebuy, SavvyAnalysis (Engine Data Analysis) and Breakdown Assistance. Savvy also publishes a monthly newsletter with lots of interesting information for the general aviation enthusiast; subscribe to it at www.savvyaviation.com or text the word "Savvy" to 33777. This webinar was hosted by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA).
- Auta a dopravní prostředky
Many years ago, I took my girlfriend and her kids on a cross country in a 172. Fifteen minutes after departing, I notice high oil temp and low pressure, both still in the green but right at the edge. I decreased power and landed at a nearby airport. Oil pump was worn out and and rings and pistons were done. Lost three quarts in 15 minutes. If something doesn’t look right, it isn’t. I love engine monitors.
A couple of comments. It's one thing to practice emergencies and memorize emergency procedures. What this does not take into account is the immediate shock and disbelief when a real emergency occurs. Until it happens to you, you just don't know how your brain is going to function. The stress can easily overload your thought process. I once watched a woman almost drown and couldn't move to help her. I just froze. This experience taught me to MOVE, do something, when a serious emergency begins. My early experience helped train my brain to continue to function in a stressful situation. Hopefully this will be the case for the young CFI.
After I built my homebuilt plan I started putting my inflight checklists together. I looked at checklists from similar aircraft and quickly realized they all had the same flaw. They all reference total failures of some kind. "Loss of Oil Pressure", "Engine Failure", etc.. What they don't do is provide guidance on what to do when things START to go wrong. Things like "my voltage seems a little low", "my oil pressure is a little low" , "what does it mean if one CHT is high?". The checklists don't address the onset of issues and provide guidance on what to do at that point. I ended up creating a series of checklists that addressed these initial signs of a problem. For each problem I made notes about how serious this issue is, when do I need to land (right now, nearest available airport, ok to fly to home airport). I did this for every gauge and warning light in my plane. The whole process was an eye opener for me. In a stressful emergency it can be hard to think clearly - especially when you are also worrying about passengers on board. An incorrect initial response can turn a manageable problem into a serious accident. We see this quite a lot in aviation accident reports.
that pre-emergency checklist idea is great.
I programmed a timer on my G430 to remind me to scan engine instruments every 10 minutes. Helps me keep an eye on those at least that often.
It’s always good to hear and see these real world incident videos. Oil is the life blood of our reciprocal aircraft engines. We need to monitor it more religiously.
Another great webinar/video from Mike - keep doing them!
Re Oil Pressure.
You have to remember that the type of lubrication in use in our GA engines is Hydrodynamic rather Hydrostatic. HS requires an external pressure source to maintain oil pressure between the journal and bearing surfaces. Hydrodynamic bearings generate pressure within the bearing due to the viscosity of the oil and the wedging action of the journal in the bearing. It's like aquaplaning if you brake on water - pressure builds up in the water film and lifts the tyre off the road surface - or like water ski-ing. It starts off at zero and builds up with rotational speed. So as long as there is still oil getting to the bearings to allow that film to separate the surfaces, the pressure of that oil in the oil system in general is not so critical - it's the pressure generated in the bearing itself that counts and that is not what you're reading on your gauge in the cockpit! Clearance between the surfaces/shaft eccentricity plays a role in this too.
Obviously low oil pressure on the gauge is bad news - less volume of oil in the system means the oil temperature goes up and the viscosity goes down - which reduces the pressure that can be generated in the bearing to keep the surfaces apart.
Full respect to Mike Busch knowlege, thanks for one more apresentation!
man so much of this needs to be taught as required info in the PPL training. I never would have known that fluctuations in the green for oil pressure was a very serious thing. I think i'd continue flight then call a friend, vs land first.
Never forget you are flying a single engine airplane and the life of you, and your passengers, are constantly at risk. Scan ALL the gauges every minute or two. So many pilots don't seem to accept the real risk of dying or killing someone. It's like this theoretically "thing" that happens to other people. I've known 7 people who have died in 5 separate aircraft crashes -and all, but one, completely avoidable. Pilots who don't fly with this awareness and discipline are general aviation's biggest problems. As Scott Purdue says, "fly intentionally", meaning a true awareness of the seriousness and the responsibility of being a pilot.
Well said.
It’s always baffled me why light aircraft never had, what most old cars have had in the old days, an oil pressure switch to a light on the dash. Pretty simple thing, small parts count to add, cheap switch and light……
Pipers do
Yes, in addition to a good scan, a master caution light is a great thing. Many (most) larger aircraft have an alert system including master caution and emergency lights in addition to a slew of indicators for every system on increasing levels of urgency: white, amber, and red.
IMHO... Effective periodic panel scanning equates to a desirable habit pattern developed via training, experience, and distraction management awareness; regards the A&P oil hose issue, any items serviced/repaired deemed critical to safety of flight should ideally be accomplished by one individual and inspected or checked independently by another, in order to enhance precluding an ensuing failure as discussed in this video re the PA-28. TY for considering my comments...
A lot of engine failure stories start with "Well I felt like I was losing power, so I gave the engine full throttle." This gut reaction for the average pilot worries me, because if your engine is actually having issues this is probably the worst thing you can do.
My home turf. I wonder if he was heading to Monterey Bay Academy airport which is a few miles down the coast from Manresa Beach where he eventually landed. It is a small semi-abandoned airport near WVI. I am glad it happened the way it did.
Easy to second guess someone from behind a podcast microphone. This CFI passed the ultimate test. Kudos to him.
Someday we will have a female (or male) animation pop up on a screen and call you by name and say there has been a 10% fluctuation in oil pressure in the last 3 minutes. I recommend you start planning for emergent landing. We will be able to ask it questions in full sentences. Likely not far off. At least for experimentals.
You can lose a lot of oil in a 172 (or 152) in a big freaking hurry if one of the oil cooler hoses fail.
Happened to me once.
Not all oil loss results in a slow oil pressure decline. Flying a 1960 Cessna 182, 25" square climbing at 7,000 foot. Was looking at the gauge in it went from normal pressure to zero in less then 10 seconds. Went to idle power, engine never sized. Cause loose oil filter adapter.
It is indeed a shame we don't get aural warnings by default. When I'm flying my main concern is typically avoiding a mid-air, so I don't wanna to be wasting time with my eyes inside the cockpit.
The stratus is connected via Wi-Fi.
Do mechanics, other than shops, carry professional liability insurance to cover mistakes like you mentioned?
Some do; for many the cost of prohibitive and they don't have enough assets to worry about being sued.
Those old PA28 annunciator lights are junk. They're black with lit text that is hardly noticeable in daylight. The 90s+ pipers use new annunciators that are far more noticeable, but clearly an engine monitor with very noticeable warnings is ideal.
How do I gain access to the live video??
Most of Mike’s live sessions are through EAA. They send me emails announcing upcoming webinars.
Alarms can be good but in human subjects engineering/ergonomics sometimes too many alarms can overwhelm operators. For example, in the discovery flight if the entire aircraft started alarming after the engine failure may have overwhelmed the CFI causing a different outcome. That said this is an interesting discussion to have.
I don’t think Mike was suggesting multiple alarms. He was suggesting one alarm: namely low oil pressure.
Basic mechanical knowledge is sorely lacking in the younger generation. People don’t work on their cars or any other engines. Younger people don’t have mechanically related hobbies. It’s not surprising that this guy didn’t recognize a seized engine.
I thought something similar, but I think that has more to do with the average age of CFI’s, not the average age of mechanically-inclined people. CFI’s, on average, are basically children. Most older adults (>30), I find don’t have any real mechanical understanding.
You are correct, kids don’t know much about engines. My friend a CFI-I and airline pilot and I, just PPL, were flying my Arrow. He is not a gear head, I have built a supercharged Chevy LS, I like working on engines.
The voltage dropped. He did not know that lead acid voltage drops slowly unlike his jet the NiCd battery stays at high voltage then dies fast. We just shed some power but left radio and nav and strobes on along with xponder. I knew I could drop the gear by pulling circuit breaker select gear down then dump the gear using the emergency down.
We did a debrief after the flight and I explained why I did not worry about the failure. We were only 60 miles from home and I pushed up the power to 75-80% took it to yellow line and flew home.
When we parked the Arrow we found the alternator belt broke and was stuck in the cowl.
@@DWBurns there is a guy on youtube who flies a cirrus. On one flight he started having odd systems readings. Rpm, voltage and other things, all un related, started giving crazy readings. The actual engine rpm was stable. It was a clear day, he had coms, good vis, full power, good flight controls, yet he decided to declare a mayday. He was convinced that the electrical system was going to catch fire. He landed with no issue. All these sensors are independent and are all based on voltage readings and carry micro amps. Their only common link is ground. Obviously he had a bad ground on his EICAS (or cirrus equivalent). How he concluded that there was a risk of fire is beyond me. The worst part is that all his youtube fanboys were telling him attaboy you did the right thing. Clearly he did not. He did not recognize the true nature of his problem and the risk to himself and his aircraft and he did not make the appropriate call. An unscrupulous A&P could have easily taken him for $$$ for new alt, regulator or who knows what else vs tightening or cleaning a connector.
Who has money to continue flying these days...?
I can’t stand this guy sometimes. The whole oil pressure not recognized is bs. As a professional ace car driver I’ve had 2 engine just die/lock up with no oil pressure issue prior. Every scenario is different but unless you can say how the engine failed your opinion is bs and that’s a fact. Dropping a valve won’t show decaying oil pressure and can be a simple lock up, throwing a rod won’t show decaying oil pressure always too. I agree monitoring oil pressure is a thing but to say he didn’t look is bs. Plus the training for a CFI isn’t that great. Y’all don’t realize how shit really works like someone who’s worked on it or done it for years. This old man bs is getting old.
BTW watch this on 1.5x. Talking about wasting time this guy is wayyyy too slow. I can only imagine in plane how slow he will be too.