Walk around

[Big Pistons Forever]

Trematode

I stand by my statement about CPL walk arounds. My observation is they, in general, appear to only know one way to do a walk around and do the same actions before every flight regardless of the circumstances.

Some examples

-they drain the fuel on an aircraft that has just landed

-they level the prop on a hot engine to check it for dings

-for the first flight of the day on a cold morning they turn on every exterior light and then walk around the whole airplane looking to see each light is illuminated

When I see this I can only conclude that the DI is be coducted as a series of rote actions with out any real understanding. Now at the PPL level the guy/gal is already drinking from a fire hose so I am going to cut them some slack and say reverting to the full meal every time is probably a good idea, but at the CPL I think we can aspire to a better understanding of what matters and what doesn't and that better understanding should be taught.

To you CPL students out there here is a challenge

What are the important things to look for when doing a walk around under the following circumstances:

1) The airplane had been sitting outside in the weeds for the last 30 days

2) The aircraft had just come out of an annual or 100 hr inspection

3) The first flight of the day for a flying school aircraft

4) You are looking at an aircraft that has just landed with another pilot flying it (ie you were not in the aircraft)

5) You have just landed to drop off a person and are about to set off on the next leg of your flight

This is not a troll just an attempt to get people thinking. I encourage answers on this thread as a way to generate a discussion and a learning opportunity. I promise I won't bite, TK, SSU and Cat driver excepted

[Beefitarian]

I might play, you should almost have made a new thread with just your scenarios to make it easier to find and quote them.

[Beefitarian]

To you CPL students out there here is Big Pistons Forever's challenge

What are the important things to look for when doing a walk around under the following circumstances:

1) The airplane had been sitting outside in the weeds for the last 30 days

2) The aircraft had just come out of an annual or 100 hr inspection

3) The first flight of the day for a flying school aircraft

4) You are looking at an aircraft that has just landed with another pilot flying it (ie you were not in the aircraft)

5) You have just landed to drop off a person and are about to set off on the next leg of your flight

[Grantmac]

To you CPL students out there here is Big Pistons Forever's challenge

What are the important things to look for when doing a walk around under the following circumstances:

1) The airplane had been sitting outside in the weeds for the last 30 days

2) The aircraft had just come out of an annual or 100 hr inspection

3) The first flight of the day for a flying school aircraft

4) You are looking at an aircraft that has just landed with another pilot flying it (ie you were not in the aircraft)

5) You have just landed to drop off a person and are about to set off on the next leg of your flight

I'm not a CPL student, I don't play one on TV and I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night; but I will kick this cat.

1) Things to note with a plane parked over a month in the weeds:
Bring a flashlight regardless of the time of day. Do a standard daily walk-around (#3) except pay particular attention to any opening for animals/insect nests (flashlight). If in doubt don't be afraid to open a few inspection covers and take a look at the control linkages. Check for corrosion (everywhere). Give the plane a tug by hand to ensure the brakes aren't stuck and it'll roll on what grass there is. (this is controversial) pull the prop through a few times safely with the aircraft tied down. Be extra vigilant about fuel condition, I've seen a full cup of "100LL" which was actually water come out of tanks. Check the battery before you use anything electrical, maybe you could get one start out of that juice you just used to lower the flaps and check the lights?

2) I do owner assisted annuals, so I see everything get taken apart and put back together. But if I didn't I'd take a long look at what they said was serviced and then make sure it was rerigged/assembled correctly. This is especially important for people that just sign checks. Look for the stupid stuff: everything tight and lock-wired.

3) Take a "50 foot look" when you approach, obvious damage etc. Otherwise its just controls, tires, fuel, engine and crap in the cockpit.

4) Fuel, oil, obvious damage and junk left behind.

5) Fuel caps/quantity, doors/windows secure, did he bang the seatbelt in the door?

-Grant

[Beefitarian]

I'll have to agree with Grant Mac I R Not CPL... Today my plane is a rental C-172 N.

Big Pistons Forever's challenge

What are the important things to look for when doing a walk around under the following circumstances:

1) The airplane had been sitting outside in the weeds for the last 30 days

Well here in addition to a full check I'm actually looking for signs of wildlife taking up residence. Has the sunshine made anything extra crispy or otherwise damadged? How soft are the tires? Do I notice anything filled with water that should be dry, lights etc.? Is there skid mark leading to the spot something bumped in to the poor thing?

2) The aircraft had just come out of an annual or 100 hr inspection

I'm paying particular attention to the parts of the plane worked on. Missing screws in covers, missing covers. Obvious things like finding a tool or if I notice something is working backwards, I'm possibly going to miss it also but I'll try not to.

3) The first flight of the day for a flying school aircraft

My flights I usually treat this way, then I don't need to know who checked the plane before me. Full deal also to keep me capable of doing a walk around.

Check the journey log for time until next inspection and to make sure the last guy didn't snag something that grounds the plane. ( I probably get complacent because it has not happened)
Open the door, grab the sample cup and dip stick. Remove the control lock. Switch the battery half of the master, move the flap switch slightly to make sure the limit switch stops the motor, then select full flap, once they're down turn off the master. Close the door. Put a couple hundred pounds on the tire with my knee, look at the brake pads to make sure there seems to be lots the grabby stuff more than a quarter inch seems good. Everything is dry because there is not a brake fluid leak and no flat spots on the tire. You're not really reading this are you? It's only going to get worse. I poke the valve to fill the cup with around an ounce and a half of fuel to see if it's light blue top to bottom with no visible bits in it. Start looking for cracks in all the plastic parts to see if they have a hole drilled by an AME to stop them from continuing. Wiggle the flap, look to see that it is in the tracks straight and the rod is attached nicely and is free at the attachment point. Look at the underside of the wing to make sure nothing looks damaged. Go to the aileron lift it up make sure it goes up smoothly, check all three hinges, look for the hinge pin locks, either tiny cotter pins or they have a loop that is secured by a locking nut. Make sure there are three counter weights firmly attatched. Check for a red light on the end of the wing and look for any damadge. Pull the flap down make sure it goes all the way smoothly, look at the top to see if there is any damadge, look at the flap and check for wear where it contacts the wing as it goes up. Make sure the luggage door is closed and latched. Look at the tail section, check the antena wires have tension but are not too tight or broken. Look at the vertical stabilizer, peek under the horizontal stabilizer and check the cables so they appear attached with all the lock wires looking tidy and in good condition. Feel the front of the horizontal stabilizer for gravel dings. Check the elevator hinge points, nut and bolt with slightly dirty lubricant on them smooth quiet movement. Now's our chance to gently wiggle the rudder. You could reef on it to see if any of the springs attatching the system to the rudder are weak enough to stretch or break but I don't like that plan much. Repeat everything on the other side. Now check the front of the wing, hop up on the strut or step, look at the top of the wing, take off the filler cap and put the stick in to check the fuel level in the tank. Trying to memorize it for weight and balance later. Open the cute little access door to pull the low spot fuel valve. Try to be strong enough to unscrew the oil level dipstick, check the oil level. Close it firmly but gently so it will not fall out but can be opened easily next time. Now I feel the prop checking for rock chips. I look in at the cylinders for birds nests, squirrel nut caches etc. Reach in and check the alternator belt, no I don't know if it's slightly too tight but I can tell if it's too loose. Look at the air filter, lights/filiments, overall appearance of the front including olio and tire, pull down and see if things move nice and the tire looks inflated right. Finish the second wing top and fuel dip. Sorry, did I miss anything?

4) You are looking at an aircraft that has just landed with another pilot flying it (ie you were not in the aircraft)

Depends, if I know and trust them I check the fuel and oil. Quick visual for obvious damage from the flight adjust the seat.
If I don't know then it would be a bit more possibly up to a full check.

5) You have just landed to drop off a person and are about to set off on the next leg of your flight

Fuel, oil, look for flight damage. Should be good.

[Colonel Sanders]

The airplane had been sitting outside in the weeds for the last 30 days

Good catch on the bird's nests in the cowling and tail, but ..

Any airplane that's been sitting outside for that long - and
not flying - should be expected to have considerable water
in the gas tanks.

This is a common problem with old fuel caps. The seals dry
up and allow rain to enter the tanks. Look at the caps and
see if the seal is old and dried out, or young and perky.

When you drain the sumps, there may be enough water
in it to entirely fill your sampler. No bubbles at the bottom!

This has happened to me. Be sure that it's gasoline - it's
easy to get fooled on this.

Always do your fuel sampling before the aircraft is moved
or otherwise disturbed, which stirs up the stuff which you
want to be at the bottom.

[Shiny Side Up]

Always do your fuel sampling before the aircraft is moved
or otherwise disturbed, which stirs up the stuff which you
want to be at the bottom.

Or do it before and after if you got something that needs the old rock and roll test. The 180/182 comes to mind, though there are probably others.

[767]

On the subject of lowering the flaps on the walk around. I lower to 10 deg, especially during winter. After starting up the plane, I check for full defelction. This would be on the Cessna 172. When the flaps are operated manually (for example on the piper seminole), then I lower flaps full down on the walk around. I prefer to save the battery as much as possible. I never switch on all the lights and walk around the plane to check if they are working, instead, i get in the plane, and after start i test the lights if required ( i can see through my window). At night, when I need to test the lights, I do it quickly, one switch on at a time, and stand by the door, and see the reflection off the ground if the selected light/beacon is working.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Always do your fuel sampling before the aircraft is moved
or otherwise disturbed, which stirs up the stuff which you
want to be at the bottom.

Or do it before and after if you got something that needs the old rock and roll test. The 180/182 comes to mind, though there are probably others.

The attitude of the aircraft is also important. If the nose oleo is a little low, particularly on the C 150 the drain will not be the lowest point. I once drained quite a lot of water out of a C150. After a few samples of clear fuel with the aircraft sitting level I held the tail down while the student drained another sample and got another 3/4 of the sample cup full of pure water.

The same thing will apply if the aircraft is on a significant slope. The lower wing may not be
properly tested and you may need to turn the aircraft around to get a true sample.

[cgzro]

Yeah, we found that problem out the hard way with one of our WWII trainers. The drain was not really far enough aft and was therefore in a tail low attitude not draining from the lowest point.

In general a good way to think about pre-flight checks etc. is what are the most likely things to kill you and what are the most likely things to go wrong. Then bias your checks to spend more time on the most likely/most dangerous items.

Since fuel starvation and weather are the biggest killers its probably wise therefore to spend a disproportionate amount of time on fuel quantity/quality validation and checking the weather and your nav/alternates/maps etc.

After that for me the next most important are the controls, hinges etc. Anything goes wrong with them it can be game over very quickly.

etc... working you way towards least likely and/or least dangerous. Obviously you can't check everything but by biasing your time towards the most dangerous/likely you improve your odds of not getting hurt.

Obviously the order you check things in is not necessarily related to the above (I go counterclockwise from right wing tip), I'm simply suggesting the amount of time you spend/focus should be ranked by how dangerous the item is if it fails.

[Beefitarian]

On the subject of lowering the flaps on the walk around. I lower to 10 deg, especially during winter. After starting up the plane, I check for full defelction. This would be on the Cessna 172. When the flaps are operated manually (for example on the piper seminole), then I lower flaps full down on the walk around. I prefer to save the battery as much as possible.

Unless it's been sitting for a while I consider dropping the flaps a battery test. Even in the winter if the plane has flown that week and can't start after the flaps have gone down and backup there's a problem with the battery. Maybe it just has dirty terminals but something is wrong. If it's -25 or worse I'm probably going to rebook and try to stay indoors. Unless I'm taking it out of a warm hanger to make a break for somewhere warm.

[cgzro]

Asymetric flap deployment or retraction has prooved fatal to many pilots so personally I include them with flight controls as things that kill quickly when not working.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Asymetric flap deployment or retraction has prooved fatal to many pilots so personally I include them with flight controls as things that kill quickly when not working.

Personally I think this is an urban myth. I have never seen a accident report where asymmetric flap deployment caused a light aircraft accident. The only accident in any class of aircraft that was caused by this problem I can think of was a crash of a float equipped Twin Otter in Vancouver harbour about 20 years ago.

Flaps are an optional control surface. They don't have to go down, but once down it is good if they come up again although a flap failing down is not a desperate emergency.

[5x5]

Yay - I love the way the last half of this thread has changed. No more FTU bashing and instead discussions of what you do and why you do it - true sharing of experience. That way readers can take in the info, learn more about the whys and wherefores related to walk arounds and in the end, be better educated. Then if there is something goofy or missing in the walk around at their school, they can have an intelligent discussion with their instructor and again, overall learning is improved.

Kudos everyone -

[iflyforpie]

I was witness to one assymmetric flap on a Cessna 172, but it happend in flight when one of the roller supports broke loose (a somewhat common problem on older 172s if Cessna SEB95-3 is not incorporated). This also resulted in that case of the offending flap jamming the aileron. Not a huge impact on operations, but still a good case for bringing flaps down at least enough to look at the forward rollers.

And a big +1 to looking extra carefully at planes just out of maintenance. Panels under the belly and the horizontal stabilizer are commonly missed; tools left in or on the aircraft; loose fasteners; fuel, oil, or hydraulic leaks that develop after the fact; and tape blocking pitot and static ports after correlations or pitot static tests.

[Beefitarian]

Omission #1 in my epic walk around novel.
Pitot, look for bugs and mud kips! Static port look for signs of something small crawling in there. Look at the stall horn, suck on it to make it work if that's your sort of thing. And the fuel tank vent tube, don't suck on it.

[cgzro]

Personally I think this is an urban myth. I have never seen a accident report where asymmetric flap deployment caused a light aircraft accide

Bd5j Carp few years ago asymetric retraction then roll into ground. Bd10 during testing 15 or so ago asymetric deployment and roll into ground but I agree its rare but since itll kill you without much of a way out it goes high on my list.

[Beefitarian]

So I don't know if you noticed or care but I started my "Full walk around" with,

Check the journey log for time until next inspection and to make sure the last guy didn't snag something that grounds the plane. ( I probably get complacent because it has not happened)

This is not my idea, it was something the Calgary Flying Club told me to do. In fact I am sure I get complacent because,
a) I fly rental planes and the FTUs do a pretty good job of keeping up with that stuff. Which leads to..
B) I never found an issue so far.

I have two real life examples of things to be looking for. First, I rented a plane for a very long trip once then realized on the way home, I was going to run out of time before the plane needed a Fifty hour inspection. I don't even know if they still do those but I had to find a guy to do one. Best part was I was in the US&A so they did not even have 50 hour inspections. Partially due to luck and circumstance I found a really good Airframe, Mechanical, Engines guy at a small town airport that did the job and even made labels for the maintanence log which of course has to stay at home base.

The second is here on the forum, ahramin went to pick up a plane and found the papers expired that day.
viewtopic.php?f=54&t=81819

[Big Pistons Forever]

Personally I think this is an urban myth. I have never seen a accident report where asymmetric flap deployment caused a light aircraft accide

Bd5j Carp few years ago asymetric retraction then roll into ground. Bd10 during testing 15 or so ago asymetric deployment and roll into ground but I agree its rare but since itll kill you without much of a way out it goes high on my list.

CPL students do not fly BD 5 jets, ever, and they are not going to be doing new aircraft "testing" . The walk around should be appropriate to the type. I will be flying a T 28 Trojan again soon and the walk around will be a lot different then when I am flying my little 2 seat Grumman AA1.

But my point remains. The walk around should be conducted in a way that concentrates on where the likely risks are appropriate to That flight without obsessing about about extremely low probability events or neglecting areas that will always pose a flight safety risk if they are not right.

For example if I am inspecting an aircraft that just had a bunch of work done on the flight controls I am going to spend a lot of time making sure that they move fully in the right direction without binding, all the hardware is there etc etc. However if I am now on the 5 th flight of that same aircraft dropping off a passenger and then taking off right away, the extent of my walk around "inspecting" is going to be a brisk trot around the aircraft looking for caps on, doors closed, and nothing hanging and nothing dripping.

CPL students are not born with the knowledge to make these kinds of determinations it is a knowledge area which can and should be taught as part of the CPL training. From my observations it doesn't seem to be very often and so I think this is one area where us flight instructors can collectively do a better job. That is the only point i am trying to make.

[GyvAir]

Any airplane that's been sitting outside for that long - and
not flying - should be expected to have considerable water
in the gas tanks.

This is a common problem with old fuel caps. The seals dry
up and allow rain to enter the tanks. Look at the caps and
see if the seal is old and dried out, or young and perky.

Don't forget the possibility of the shaft o-ring leaking - the one you can't see without disassembling the cap.
Good article and photo: http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/c ... 05-435.htm

We saw this exact problem recently with a Jet A powered aircraft that had sat idle outside for a rainy month. There was approximately a gallon of water in one wing. When disassembled, the cap's shaft o-ring was pretty much non-existent and the shaft fit very loosely in the hole through the cap due to wear and corrosion. Though, with the spring tension masking the slop, you wouldn't notice unless focusing on it. This was an old cap of course. Looked like it may have seen 15 years and 15,000 hours, with the outer o-ring no doubt replaced several times.

When you drain the sumps, there may be enough water
in it to entirely fill your sampler. No bubbles at the bottom!

This has happened to me. Be sure that it's gasoline - it's
easy to get fooled on this.

I mention Jet A, because without 100LL's distinct blue to look for, it's easier to miss that you've just taken a sampler (or 2 or 3) full of water instead of kerosene.

[Grantmac]

And a big +1 to looking extra carefully at planes just out of maintenance. Panels under the belly and the horizontal stabilizer are commonly missed; tools left in or on the aircraft; loose fasteners; fuel, oil, or hydraulic leaks that develop after the fact; and tape blocking pitot and static ports after correlations or pitot static tests.

I just picked-up my personal aircraft from a hugely extended rebuild. There were no cotters in the rudder pivot pins. Goes to show you regardless of how meticulous the work was (and it was) that people are always human and an aircraft has a lot of parts that all must be present, even the simple ones.

-Grant

[cgzro]

ouch! That means two mechanics missed it as there is a dual inspection requirement when controls are disturbed.

[Grantmac]

ouch! That means two mechanics missed it as there is a dual inspection requirement when controls are disturbed.

Not required in the US, but there were two mechanics.

We have a saying at my work: "Trust but verify"

-Grant