Do you know what's under the cowl?

[ahramin]

I've got a box that's been sitting in the garage for years. I kept a selection of parts from the last overhaul in case I needed them to teach an Air Cadet class, but with some of the questions and particularly the answers I see on this forum it's got me wondering if perhaps the AvCanada community might benefit.

If there's enough interest and we can get a group to agree on a date I'd be happy to put on a short class at the Nanaimo airport on what the bits of metal under the cowl look like. We could also talk about how they go wrong.

Maybe some of the Vancouver students need cross country practice going across the water? We've probably got 2-3 weeks of good weather left before the June rain hits.

[1000 HP]

You bet I do. I change my own oil and assist the mechanics with the annual inspections as much as I can.

But your idea sounds good. A lot of folks don't know what the parts do. 20 years of helping the bush mechanics out on the Otters and Beech 18s plus doing aircraft salvage tuned me up.

I am curious about crossing from Nanaimo to Vancouver. I'm assuming that you can't stay within gliding distance and thus have to carry a raft and lift jackets? I know my Mooney only glides about 9:1

[photofly]

I would attend for sure, but it's a long way from Toronto.

[Colonel Sanders]

[Strega]

not to pick at nits.. but there is no master rod in your engine model/animation

[photofly]

not to pick at nits.. but there is no master rod in your engine model/animation

What about the pink one attached to the top piston?

[lownslow]

The number one piston (top one) is on the master rod, you can tell by the way that pentagonal doohickey at the heart of it all rocks back and forth, always staying aligned with the top rod. It just isn't very well illustrated.

LnS.

[ahramin]

I am curious about crossing from Nanaimo to Vancouver. I'm assuming that you can't stay within gliding distance and thus have to carry a raft and lift jackets? I know my Mooney only glides about 9:1

Rafts are only required beyond 50 miles. You certainly want to have and wear good, manually inflatable life jackets. When I was much younger I used to fly across in the middle of the night in the middle of winter, with a crappy life jacket. It's like flying close to mountains. Seems crazy the first time, but you quickly habituate and it feels normal. I've swallowed a valve a long way from gliding distance, and it isn't fun. I'm perfectly comfortable going across in my plane, but I don't fly across at night anymore. If you go in the drink in the daytime, the odds are very good that there's going to be a floatplane landing right beside you as you ditch.

[CpnCrunch]

Rafts are only required beyond 50 miles. You certainly want to have and wear good, manually inflatable life jackets. When I was much younger I used to fly across in the middle of the night in the middle of winter, with a crappy life jacket. It's like flying close to mountains. Seems crazy the first time, but you quickly habituate and it feels normal. I've swallowed a valve a long way from gliding distance, and it isn't fun. I'm perfectly comfortable going across in my plane, but I don't fly across at night anymore. If you go in the drink in the daytime, the odds are very good that there's going to be a floatplane landing right beside you as you ditch.

Rafts are required if you're over 100 miles or 30 mins from shore:

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/r ... 2-2436.htm

You just need a life jacket if you can't glide to shore when an engine fails or you're more than 50 miles from shore (presumably in a twin).

[photofly]

I never really understood that. Presumably you're expected to swim, but only the first 50 miles?

[triplese7en]

I never really understood that. Presumably you're expected to swim, but only the first 50 miles?

The further you are from shore the longer you can be expected to be out at sea before rescue arrives - that's the general concept I believe. You can't count on a ship happening to be right where you land in the water. Rescue comes from dry land!

[ahramin]

Rafts are only required beyond 50 miles. You certainly want to have and wear good, manually inflatable life jackets. When I was much younger I used to fly across in the middle of the night in the middle of winter, with a crappy life jacket. It's like flying close to mountains. Seems crazy the first time, but you quickly habituate and it feels normal. I've swallowed a valve a long way from gliding distance, and it isn't fun. I'm perfectly comfortable going across in my plane, but I don't fly across at night anymore. If you go in the drink in the daytime, the odds are very good that there's going to be a floatplane landing right beside you as you ditch.

Rafts are required if you're over 100 miles or 30 mins from shore:

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/r ... 2-2436.htm

You just need a life jacket if you can't glide to shore when an engine fails or you're more than 50 miles from shore (presumably in a twin).

That will teach me for trying to remember a reg I learned 18 years ago without looking it up

[Beefitarian]

I am curious about crossing from Nanaimo to Vancouver...

Just go a little north, cross over Lesquiti and Texada and you should be able to stay gliding distance to trees the whole time.

Or better yet fly to Seattle, buy some lifejackets there then you're good to go later.

[ahramin]

If you want to stay within gliding distance from land there is a VFR route from Point Roberts to Victoria. Doubles the crossing time (and thereby the exposure to engine failure), but it does ensure that you have some trees to crash into if you do lose the engine.

[ahramin]

Frankly eating that valve over the water annoyed me. Long flight across the rocks, going the long way diligently staying within gliding distance of good landable roads all the way, and then the thing has a hissy fit in the only 5 minutes out of 4.5 hours that I didn't have any options.

Oh well, didn't name it Rosinante for nothing.

[CpnCrunch]

Frankly eating that valve over the water annoyed me. Long flight across the rocks, going the long way diligently staying within gliding distance of good landable roads all the way, and then the thing has a hissy fit in the only 5 minutes out of 4.5 hours that I didn't have any options.

Oh well, didn't name it Rosinante for nothing.

Reminds me of the time I undid my harness in flight and forgot to re-do it, flew through the mountains without any problems, then 5 minutes from home (in the middle of the prairies above the Red Deer valley) hit a patch of mechanical turbulence and hit my head on the roof. As the Colonel says, you have to always assume that your plane is plotting to kill you.

Another thing you might want to consider when flying over water is how many doors your plane has. I've been flying an Archer for the last little while, and it's a bit of a pain just having one door. I don't think I would ever fly it over water though - that's just a bit too much of a risk for me.

[Old Dog Flying]

I could cut and paste 1000HP's opening paragraph and it could describe me as well. We just finished replacing a cylinder that only had 300 hr TTSN because it was making lots of tiny shiny things..aluminum from the piston pin plug. There was a .015" ridge on the cylinder wall of #1 and it was eating the plug. We caught it on an oil change thanks to the ADC oil filter. The exhaust guide was also chewed up. So much for Lycoming technology

We installed a new cylinder assembly yesterday and now for the fingers crossed break-in period..Yes I know the procedure for that!

Barney

[ahramin]

Another thing you might want to consider when flying over water is how many doors your plane has. I've been flying an Archer for the last little while, and it's a bit of a pain just having one door. I don't think I would ever fly it over water though - that's just a bit too much of a risk for me.

Like I said, it seems crazy at first, but you habituate fairly quickly. Fact is we have one go in the drink every couple years around here and I can't remembering it ever ending up in fatalities. Not much point in owning an aircraft on an island if you won't fly over water .

Two of our club members ended up going for a half hour swim last summer and are none the worse for wear. And one of them can't swim . But that engine was rebuilt by the pilot .

[1000 HP]

Well I'm looking forward to moving out to Nanaimo to do my first x-water flight. It might be good training for my trip to Indonesia. I'd sell the airplane but times are tough and buyers are rare so I'll end up taking it to work eventually.

[Colonel Sanders]

I love flying over water. When I get over water, I relax because
I know I'm safe now.

Your engine has no eyeballs. It cannot tell if you are over farm
fields or water, or if it is day or night. If your engine is good, fly
it everywhere. If your engine is sh1t - as so many of you assert -
then don't fly it anywhere including day VFR, because it might
fail shortly after takeoff (for example) which is generally fatal for
most pilots.

I am puzzled when some pilot will happily fly over the Rockies
but is terrified to fly over warm water. WTF?

The ocean is generally at sea level. It's really good for that. There
are no towers to hit, no rising terrain, no problem with density
altitude, no downdrafts that are going to smack me into a mountain.

Weather generally subsides over water - many times I have flown
out over the Atlantic ocean to get away from the CB's which kick
up over land due to daytime heating, which is non-existent over
water.

Less traffic over water, so your likelihood of a mid-air just went
to near-zero.

Water is home. Water is safe. I don't get it.

Story time - I've told this here before, so skip over it if it sounds
familar/boring.

Airshow in central america. I fly to Key West, meet up with Freddy,
we fly two Pitts across the Gulf of Mexico to Chetemal, Mx for gas,
then onto Honduras. Nice flight.

Days later, the "world's best pilot" shows up in his Sukhoi. Multiple
WAC winner. Is terrified of flying over water. Had a horrible flight
over land, dodging CB's. Barely made it there in time for the show.

He could have had a really nice flight across the water. But maybe
he doesn't trust his airplane or something.

I know I was dropped on my head as a child, but if you don't like
your engine, fix it. Don't fly sh1t. This is not complicated.

Pilots, for some reason, have absolutely no knowledge of previous
aviation accidents. This is not good from a "closed loop" standpoint.

Pilots are terribly worried about internal engine failure (broken
crankshaft, etc) which are responsible for less than 1% of all
aircraft accidents.

And, pilots are completely unconcerned about accidents caused
by pilot error, which are responsible for 99% of all aircraft accidents.
Examples include loss of aircraft control during takeoff and landing,
VFR into IMC, running out of gas, etc.

Pilots are completely unconcerned with optimizing out 99% of
accidents, and instead focus entirely upon less than 1% of accidents.

Does anyone here see how silly pilots are?

[CpnCrunch]

There are 3 potential issues with ditching:

- Can you get out?
- Can you get your lifevest on?
- Can you get help?

The 3rd one shouldn't be an issue around Vancouver, but the other 2 might. Quite a few floatplane pilots/passengers have died either because they couldn't get the door open, or they couldn't find their lifevest. TC's campaign to get float-plane pilots to wear their lifevests for the entire flight seems to be having some impact.

[photofly]

There are 3 potential issues with ditching:

- Can you get out?
- Can you get your lifevest on?
- Can you get help?

The 3rd one shouldn't be an issue around Vancouver, but the other 2 might. Quite a few floatplane pilots/passengers have died either because they couldn't get the door open, or they couldn't find their lifevest. TC's campaign to get float-plane pilots to wear their lifevests for the entire flight seems to be having some impact.

Having done Bryan the dunker guy's training, one of the surprise lessons for me was that finding a life-vest and getting out was much harder than putting the life-vest on. Putting it on could be done after exiting the aircraft under water. You don't need to do the straps up for it to work, just slip it over your head and pull the toggle. It doesn't slip off. You can do the straps up after you're comfortable and breathing, at the surface.

[ahramin]

Actually, the Harper government is doing an excellent job of cutting Coast Guard rescue services out here. Getting help is going to depend on who happens to be around.

Getting out is rarely a problem for the pilot. Different story for passengers. A good briefing can help (and I'm not talking about the TC mandated one given by the local float operators), but a dunk course really makes the difference.

As for life jackets, they only help after you've survived, but wear it when you're flying over the water anyway.