Fuel management... Probably one of THE top reasons for accidents is pour fuel management... All of those fancy fuel computers, flow instruments and engine analyzers are great but nothing is as good as knowing your fuel burn and a watch...

I also have to second, third of fourth the comments about what is behind you when maneuvering on the ground... Being a shop owner and A&P, I have met a lot of customers with a broom.. You filled it, you can sweep it out... That lesson has stuck with a lot of pilots over the years and they learn real fast to shut it down before turning...

My 2C on this thread... The bashing is counter productive... There is a lot of great information in here for low time pilots that are starting out and have no idea what to expect in getting into back country flying or just flying in general.. The negative posts are detrimental to the thread and IMO would cause some people who would love to read informative information turn the other way and leave the group and maybe even flying in general.. We need to foster young pilots, NOT shut them down with an inferiority complex..

Brian.


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What Brian said.

I would like to add: “Always shut down for passengers boarding and deplaning, even when it’s a PITA to do so”.

I wince when I read of propstrikes on people; it’s on the PIC to prevent that.

$22000 night of leaving my door flapping would be the end my aircraft ownership. Hell $22000 would have the 185 fixed and flying. Thank god for trust funds....

I am not sure where the beef between Renna and PIlotryan started but I see benefit from this thread. It will help the community and there are many thickheaded pilots - myself included. This will become a BCP classic thread on safety.

I will re-read Kurt's post over and over again. Just awesome.

I want to make a huge plug for the Garmin-In-Reach. Keep it charged to 100%, mounted on the pilots side, have an air activation preset, test it regularly, turn it on in flight, keep a back battery available to charge the unit, and carry the search and rescue coverage.

Never let anyone touch your airplane without establishing trust and clear guidelines for the work to be done.

Stay proficient and never stop learning!


Josh

I’m glad you find some value in my post Josh. Thank you

Kurt

RKTX wrote:

Zzz wrote:RK, I'll be the first to admit I don't have a ton of solid rivet experience but I have done some shop experiments while chipping away at my Bearhawk, which has a lot of riveting tasks. One thing i tried was putting a little blue painter's tape around the area to protect the paint, but also a little right on the rivet head or the set to protect the alodined layer. It seemed to work ok and kept the rivet head looking a little nicer.

Experiment off the plane with scraps

Thanks Zane! I'll have to try that! I guess I should have practiced before hand but I just got excited. I feel like someone might need to start a "What else should I know about shooting rivets" thread. Here is my last try for the night. Still got a ways to go but its getting there.

Also @Ryan I'll definitely take you up on your offer if you ever make it down to Texas. Pretty cool to have a Delta Mechanic offer to help me out. Thanks man!

Well Riley, I’m only a support mechanic, but it's close enough. At least only for a couple more months that is. Like I said, we all have to start somewhere! Even master mechanics like some of our friends here on BCP have probably shot rivets just like those when they first started dabbling with the craft. I know I did and I'm still learning. Honestly, riveting is an art, and this form of art really takes some practice and not only that, but it also takes some patience. Just yesterday I was hanging out at the shop on my field and I was watching some guys buck some rivets into the spar of a Cardinal. Maybe it was because of the added pressure of having to perform, but there were some rivets that had to be drilled out and reshot. Regardless, I’ll make sure to pack my sheet metal bag next time I fly down to the Ranch. I’ll let you practice on my airplane even. We’ll get it down in no time!

corefile wrote:First off Bravo Kurt - that was a great list. Did you already have that written out some where?

Second I don’t know how I missed Ryan’s original 185 thread (was a period of time where I wasn’t visiting very often) but it sounds like I missed a doozy!!

Ryan - best of luck with the new plane, bummer about the door. My pilot side popped open during an over night in Chandler, AZ. Wind was from front pilots side so was not swinging around in the wind and had no damage. That is when I learned about the difference between latching it from the inside vs. outside on those older doors. Up till that point no instructor or anything in the POH called that out. Sometimes people forget they got some of their knowledge from experience..

Paul, you missed out on a bunch! There were two early 185 build threads going on about the same time. Alex’s 185 and mine. Both of our project’s had similar scope to your 180’s project, but the surgery was not as intensive with our projects. Thinking back about it, everyone all cheered Alex on with his project while everyone questioned what I was doing with mine. Oddly enough, both threads also disappeared at the same time. My thread was closed because there was a huge misunderstanding that took place between what I wrote in my last entry and what the community read. I had tried to explain that I had received authorization from the tower (per 91.215) to operate without the altitude encoding portion of the altimeter functioning and people misinterpreted what I said as the shop that was doing the work approved my flight. Greg - Bigrenna of all people called and told me to close the thread and just stop talking about the airplane, so I did. Not sure what happened with Alex's thread or what has happened with his airplane since. Regardless, I commend you for sticking through with your airplane. Kyle is going to build you an awesome machine! Unfortunately, we ended up choosing a shop that ended up costing us greatly in the long run. I’ll be getting an A&P certificate and have gotten a new career out of it, but the airplane only flew once when it got home. Since then I have barely touched the tip of the iceberg with the airworthiness concerns that were raised. Mark’s estimate of 22,000 is a little on the low side. I have to replace an engine, replace landing gear and a tailspring and replace an engine mount that is showing signs of corrosion under the powder coating. The shop that was doing the work also took an angle grinder to some of the skins to remove the sound deadening and the glue in an attempt to prep for the utility interior. Looks like I will need a couple of new skins to accomplish that repair. Thankfully they gave up on that endeavor, otherwise I would have never known that my skins were ground past the 10% loss of material thickness limit that is widely regarded as the gospel. Not only that, but I should really replace the copilot’s door sill. It was deformed quite badly before my ownership of the airplane and a scab patch was made with no regards to edge distance or rivet pitch. It’s not right and it’s bugging the shit out of me. There are definitely other things wrong with it, but I just can’t remember off of the top of my head right now.
I’ll say it again. I owe it to the airplane to get fixed the right way. The Skywagon will fly again, it’s just going to take a little while. Besides, if I had a trust fund like everyone here thought I did, don’t you think that the airplane would have already been fixed by the crew at Beegels and that I’d be driving a new E63 AMG with my hot gold-digger girlfriend who’s only with me for the money? But I digress.

Thank you all for the suggestions, especially yours Kurt. You have all helped me to understand of how I can operate my airplane better. The firsthand experience stuff is something you just can't really get until it either happens to you, or someone tells you. I admit that letting the airplane sit overnight unattended when the weather changes was completely my fault. How does someone know that a door and strut are going to cost 22k without having that happen to them? The airplane lives in a hangar and it was my first trip of all things, it's not like I've ever tied down overnight anywhere before. I'm not going to do that again, that's for sure.

I didn't come up with it, but one strategy that has helped me avoid bending anything in 22 years of flying (knock on wood) is the "three strikes" rule. You apply this on top of IMSAFE, personal minimums etc. It helps you be aware of factors that might lead to distraction, even if taken individually they're not enough to cancel a flight.

It's been well-established that accidents almost always result from a chain of preventable events, not just one singular thing. I try to always be aware of even little things that are not as I'd planned before a flight. If three of those things occur, then I'll more often than not cancel the flight.

This same strategy works well to help avoid distraction or tunnel vision in the air as well -- if surprises begin to "stack up" I'm more primed to re-evaluate my options early in the chain rather than just press on.

Fantastic list Kurt and others here too.

Here's my tip. Headsets, if they aren't on someone's head they should be stowed and unplugged. I had always done this just in the name of a tidy cabin and no loose objects but there is another reason that came to my attention on a recent flight. I had forgotten to unplug a headset and as I made my climb out at takeoff from a very busy international airport that headset slid around on the back seat. This particular headset had a hole in the mic muff and that exact spot came to rest and vibrated against a seat belt buckle, making an unbelievable racket over the intercom. This situation put me in essentially a NORDO situation during my initial climb out at a very busy airport. It all turned out fine and the tower guys were very gracious but it was a stupid mistake.

RKTX wrote:

pilotryan wrote:

Bigrenna wrote:

pilotryan wrote:Lay it on me!

Really?? After all these years of asking advice, not listening to it, and tossing hundreds of thousands of dollars away you are asking this now?

more popcorn please.

Great advice, shoulda known I would need to make some popcorn with this kinda thread.

Come on buddy, we all know I only got to fly the 185 1 time after it got home. If a one hour flight is supposed to make you an expert of all things ownership, then I obviously didn’t learn what I was supposed to while my attention was all tied up with an electrical fire.

Like I said in my opening statement, almost all of my flying time has been in rental airplanes with almost half of it being with an instructor while pursuing an added class/cat or endorsement. Maybe your CFI taught you everything you need to know plus all the nice to know first hand experience stuff, mine sure didn’t. It also doesn’t help that I took a nice long two year break from all flying after my 185 almost killed me. I literally just got back on the horse again with the new airplane. So by all means, enjoy the popcorn.

Bigrenna wrote:

pilotryan wrote:Come on buddy, we all know...

The only thing "we" know is that you had a year plus of advice on this forum, plus a lot of time in phone calls with folks trying to keep you out of trouble (including myself) of which you listened to pretty much zero. I just find it amusing you are asking. If past is prologue and all...

Man Greg that is kinda mean. Just because a guy asks for advice that doesn't mean he has to follow any of it. Learning about everything aviation is a is a long long road and I know all of us have made mistakes along the way but that's all just part of the process. Ive just started trying to learn about doing sheet metal work on airplanes and I know Ive got a long long way to go. (Pic below) In the mean time lets be nice to our less experienced friends and try and be mentors not critics.

Hey at least you didn’t charge someone for that lovely sheet metal work


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Just reread G44's response. I wish I could remember all of that great advice.

MW

I didn't see it, but that doesn't mean it's not somewhere in all this great advice, but - secure everything in the cabin. It's easy to toss a backpack or flight bag in the back seat and forget about it. Or stash that half empty mountain dew under the seat. That mountain dew might jam your rudder pedal or that bag may become a concussion during an incident.

That being said, what's the beef with tie down chains? I tend not to use them because I don't like the open hooks, but I use them for quick stops.

CParker wrote:That being said, what's the beef with tie down chains? I tend not to use them because I don't like the open hooks, but I use them for quick stops.

They pose the potential to shock load the airframe in gusts of wind since there's no stretch. Same reason climbers climb with dynamic (stretchy) rope.

CParker wrote:That being said, what's the beef with tie down chains? I tend not to use them because I don't like the open hooks, but I use them for quick stops.

There was an accident in Anchorage many years ago that started with the use of tie down chains on a beached floatplane over the winter. The frozen ground heaved under the floats and put more tension on the chains, which ultimately cracked the wing strut. First takeoff in the spring and the wing folded up. As asa noted, there is no stretch. I believe it may have been a PA-12, although the type of aircraft is pretty irrelevant.

Ross

Ross, that was a Super Cub. I was there and watched it happen. Airplane came down in the water, we tried to get the pilot out but were unable to. This left a huge impression on me. This is why I always say never tie down with chains.


Kurt

G44 wrote:Ross, that was a Super Cub. I was there and watched it happen. Airplane came down in the water, we tried to get the pilot out but were unable to. This left a huge impression on me. This is why I always say never tie down with chains.


Kurt

Wow, I can see how that left a big impression on you. I only heard about it from another pilot long after it happened.

Ross