I could have titled this “What the hell are flight instructors teaching?”

Or perhaps “Hey FAA, why don’t you focus on really important stuff like improving primary flight training instead of wasting time with pilot’s neck size?”.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday I dropped my 185 at my mechanics so he could remove the tail and replace the worn out stabilizer bushings, and every other fastener and bushing since everything will be apart anyway.

Needed a ride back home and a young man offered to drop me at my airport which is close to his. He had his young son along. The plane was a 177RG. I usually don’t like flying with pilots I don’t know and in planes I haven’t checked out myself, but it was take this 20 minute flight back or wait a couple of hours and catch a hour and a half car ride. I opted for the flight. I mean what could go wrong?

I watched this young pilot do his preflight, exactly like his instructor taught I’m sure. I wondered if he really knew what he was looking at. He did check the oil level.

Once he was done I grabbed my headset and iPadMini from the 185 and climbed down into the 177 right seat (only bumping my head on the wing a half dozen or so times - damn trikes are sure low to the ground). Avionics were original and horrible. Some boxy intercom thing had been hacked into the wiring and sat on the floor - at least we could communicate with each other, although I couldn’t hear the radios.

I then witnessed the strangest cold start sequence - throttle all the way out, mixture all the way out, run the boost pump for about 5 seconds (did I say mixture and throttle all the way out?), boost pump off and crank the engine. Off course it didn’t start. I asked him about this procedure and he told me the engine flooded easily. I thought WTF it’s a fuel injected engine, it doesn’t flood easy, and it certainly doesn’t flood with the mixture all the way out no matter how long you let the boost pump run! Oh well, not my plane.

He went through the same sequence again with the exact same results. Then the third time he pushed the mixture in with the boost pump running just enough to get the smallest possible fuel flow reading. This time it started.

As we warmed up the young pilot gave me a safety briefing and explained if we ran into weather we would divert to either Austin or Georgetown. There were a few small thunderstorms in the general vicinity but nothing near our line of flight. He then told me he had forgotten his iPad (he did have an ancient Apollo GPS though-older then the one in my 185). I held up my iPadMini with Garmin Pilot loaded, the direct route displayed, along with the weather radar. I could tell he was really concerned about the weather so I reassured him it would not affect our flight.

We taxied to the runway, he put the 177 into the wind for the run-up, then explained he would do a 270 degree spin for a final check for traffic, just like his instructor had taught. He pushed the throttle forward very gradually and wasn’t at full throttle until we’d used up half the runway, something his instructor had no doubt taught him - come up easy on the power. I was watching the air speed the entire time - just in case. After a 3,000 foot run we lifted off. I placed the iPadMini on his glare shield and pointed at the route.

I should mention here that the overall weather was mid MVFR, 2,500 msl (2,000 agl), with localized, scattered thunderstorms, the closest of which was 15 miles away and mostly stationary.

The direction for our route was NW, wind was 15 out of the south so we used runway 18. As we climbed out and cleared what I consider the pattern we continued south. I thought okay, he learned from one of those monster pattern instructors. Finally he turned to get on course.

As we made this gradual turn he engaged me in conversation asking how long I’d been flying. I told him and he volunteered that he’d been flying since he was his sons age, this was a one family plane that had belonged to his Dad (let’s see he looked to be about 30, assuming he got his license when he was 16, he’s been flying for 14 years).

As we pass through 1,500 msl I glance at the iPad and see that he never completed the turn to get us on track, and we are now headed directly at the thunderstorm. I gently point this out and he makes a small correction. We continue to climb and as we do the visibility lessens significantly as we approach the bottom of the cloud deck. We continue off course. I point this out and he makes a correction. Just as we enter the wispy bottom of the cloud deck he levels off. 2,500 msl (2,000 agl). Visibility 2 miles - maybe. This is the minimum altitude his instructor told him to fly, I thought to myself, that’s why we are here. 500 feet lower visibility was 5 miles, 1,000 feet lower 10+.

At least we are finally on track. Oops, no we are not. We are now too far right and just about to penetrate Austin airspace. Before I can get him back on track he tells me he thinks something is wrong with the prop. I glance at the tach and it’s just above the redline. MP is 22. He pulls the prop back VERY SLOWLY (I’m sure his instructor taught him this - small movements) but the rpm doesn’t change. I take off my headset so I can hear the engine better. We pass by Austin while just inside their airspace (without permission). Engine sounds okay I tell myself, but then I’m not used to how this engine should sound.

I glance at the CHT gauge, in the green. I glance at the oil pressure gauge, in the red. I ask him if his oil pressure gauge works. He says yes, glances at it, and says it’s showing low.

Okay here is where I screwed up. I should have immediately taken control of the plane, turned directly to Austin and had him declare an emergency while I set up for a downwind landing and landed the plane. But I didn’t, in part because I was processing what was going on and moving from a passenger to pilot mindset, and in part because this wasn’t my plane and I wasn’t the owner pilot and I didn’t want to intrude. In hindsight I wonder how many crashes with two pilots aboard actually occur for this very reason?

Another minute or two go by as I’m gradually taking over checking the prop myself, checking the throttle myself, checking all the gauges, and directing the pilot to the nearest airport which is now Lakeway, five miles ahead. I tell him to pull the throttle back until the prop is at redline, about the lowest manifold pressure that will maintain altitude.

I make sure we are pointed directly at Lakeway. I give him the radio frequency. I point out the airport to him. I tell him to fly directly to the airport (assuming he knows he needs to get right over the top in case we have an engine failure). As we near the airport he turns away and enters a monster standard pattern (stupid flight instructor!). Okay, I think, we can still make the runway. We are downwind, adjacent to the runway end, now make your base to final I think. Nope, we continue on downwind out over the lake. STUPID FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR!

I tell him to start base to final NOW. I’m now directing the landing, ensuring airspeed, gear down, flaps down. Everything is looking acceptable. On short final, a little hot, okay a lot hot, but we have the runway made. Then he raises the flaps! WTF! We sink within 50 feet of the houses below I call him to add power and I drop full flaps. All I can think is he thought we were getting slow because of drag from the flaps, so he raised them to reduce drag. I say this because he was reluctant to drop the gear before we entered downwind because that would cause too much drag and the plane would sink quickly (I wanted gear down to reduce his workload during the landing).

We land safely and then taxi around a bit looking for the perfect tie down spot, rather then taking the first one we come across. Why not? We are only out of oil. We get out, I tie down, and the bottom of the plane, nose gear, main gear, all are dripping oil on the tarmac. Pull the dipstick and nothing shows. He thanks me for helping him through the situation.

So time for some Monday Morning Quarterbacking (even though it’s Friday).

What I did right was I kept calm, and used a calm voice with the pilot, and encouraged him. I also verified all the steps he took, and kept an eye on airspeed and altitude, and calmly called things out as needed. That kept him from going into a panic.

What I did wrong was although I did watch him preflight the plane, once I boarded I took on the role of passenger (to show respect), not second in command, so it took longer for me to engage then it should have. From now on when I ride with someone I don’t know, or in a plane I’m not familiar with, before I get in the plane I will assume the mental position of pilot-in-command. And when things go bad I’ll take over the controls and deal with the situation if I have any doubt as to the pilot’s capability.

As for our young pilot, he was clearly being as conscientious and thorough as he knew how. But he was obviously parroting everything his flight instructor had taught him, without a real understanding of why he was doing what he was doing, other then his instructor told him to do it a particular way (and obviously not deviate under any circumstances).

I remember my primary training back in 1981, I was also taught enormous patterns and to fly by the numbers. So I’m heaping a bunch of fault on the FAA for not requiring instruction as I know is/was done by some of those on BCP that are/were instructors. And that is, among other things, flying with the ASI covered so the student learns to keep his/her eyes outside the cockpit and feel the airplane, as opposed to flying the numbers and as a result being scared to death to deviate from those numbers. And of course becoming proficient with dead-stick landings, something that was never part of my instruction and quite obviously not for this young pilot either. Safe low altitude flying should also be taught so the pilot doesn’t feel that anything less then pattern altitude constitutes immediate peril. And upset training, and spin training.

So what happened to the oil. Filter gasket blew out even though the filter was tight and safety wired. Happened once before apparently when his Dad flew the plane.

Oh, and for those who aren’t familiar with constant speed props, it redlined (actually went a fair bit past redline) when the engine ran out of oil. Default is for the blades to go best climb in case of a leak - which is a good thing.

Yikes, sounds like in the grand scheme of things it was a good thing you were in that plane... and how important it is to know what we don't know.

+1 on Monster patterns being taught.

I fly out of a small family owned airport with lots of flight instruction going on, as well as skydiving.

The company planes seem to go into the next county before turning base. If I am in reasonable trail to the plane in front on downwind and #2 to land I could turn base inside them, land and clear the runway before they landed, but don't do it. Just throttle way back and loiter until they are close to landing.

I asked the chief instructor why they were teaching this procedure and he answered that it reduced stress on the student (probably not as much as parking it in the field or river short of runway if fan stopped) and were teaching "standard" approach.

If my memory serves standard approach is a 2 degree slope, and if it is flown at the appropriate airspeed one would not be in the boonies on base. Obviously the instructors do not ask the student where they are going to land if if the engine quits on downwind, base, or final. Wouldn't want to stress the student too much with such trivia.

TD

Damn.... And my blood pressure was so good this morning.

Really makes me appreciate all the times I got smacked on the head with that greasy ball cap when my original CFI was sitting in the back seat of my old Super Cub. The number of times he saved my life in the 45 years since I flew with him is way too many to count.

Gump

Make you think twice (maybe three times) about how well you know the pilot you're getting into the cockpit with. There's a long list of pilots out there who've bought the farm due to this very scenario.

Barnstormer,

Great write up! I agree with just about everything you said except for your plan to take the controls the next time this happens. It's one thing if you've briefed this on the ground before flight and both parties are on board. However, if unbriefed and the owner of the plane isn't willing to relinqish control, the ensuing fight might prove to be counter productive. I think you did exactly the right thing by being directive and allowing the pilot to shed tasks by helping with the navigation and trouble shooting. Junior and/or unproficient pilot's mental "buckets" tend to fill up and overflow quickly in an emergency situation. If you can allow them to focus on the stick and rudder skills by taking over as many other cockpit tasks as possible I think you'll be pleased with the outcome more often than not.

Going to the 180/185 convention at Cody back in the early 90's, I spent the night at a ranch strip south of Newcastle WY with some other people heading to Cody also. It was pretty rough so I didn't want to go on a fly out to look at Devil's Tower and Mt Rushmore with two other planes, one a 180 from FL and the other a 185 from OH. The couple from FL asked if I wanted to ride with them but I turned them down when I saw all the bicycles and stuff in the back but for some reason decided to ride with the couple in the 185. Both needed gas so we went up to Newcastle and fueled---both planes had long range fuel. We took off pretty much together with the 185 leading and I was explaining where Devils Tower was when we looked back and saw black smoke that wasn't there a minute ago. We went back and sure enough the 180 was burning and had gone straight in. Kind of does something to you when you think you could have been along. The sheriff came out to the ranch that night and questioned us and said there wasn't much left except some of the steel parts. When I got out to McCall, I found out that a 206 took off from Bernard, just north of the Flying B in Idaho and cranked it around and went splat killing everybody.

scottf wrote:Yikes, sounds like in the grand scheme of things it was a good thing you were in that plane..

That was one of my first thoughts once we were on the ground.

TomD wrote:I asked the chief instructor why they were teaching this procedure and he answered that it reduced stress on the student..

Not surprised. I’m sure that was the motive in my day. Let the student have time to settle in to the “perfect speed”, the idea of which is utter nonsense, and quite frankly dangerous.

GumpAir wrote:Damn.... And my blood pressure was so good this morning..

Mine too.

Zzz wrote:Make you think twice (maybe three times) about how well you know the pilot you're getting into the cockpit with..

Well that advice is a little late in coming don’t you think?

Bender wrote:..If you can allow them to focus on the stick and rudder skills by taking over as many other cockpit tasks as possible I think you'll be pleased with the outcome more often than not.

That was one of the more difficult challenges, trying to determine what he was capable of and what he wasn’t. From the time I recognized the problem till we got near the Lakeway Airport I could see he wasn’t considering places to land if the engine quit now, so that became one of my tasks. I’m not convinced he actually understood a potential outcome to what we were experiencing. Once we were at Lakeway the proper thing would have been to stay high and set up a tight, dead stick type approach, including slipping the plane if needed to loose altitude to make the runway. But his earlier flying had already shown me he had none of those skills. So we had to fly what I hoped would be an abbreviated pattern. But once that didn’t happen and we were over the lake my thoughts shifted to taking the controls and doing a gear up belly landing on the water or landing on one of the sandy points across the lake if we had an engine failure. The only time I got really nervous was when he dumped flaps on short final and we fell to the houses, no option there if the engine chose that time to quit.

Tough judging another pilots capabilities (or lack there of) while in the middle of a crisis. And Bender I considered just what you said. If indeed I felt the only way to save our lives was for me to take the controls, and he objected, my only recourse would be an elbow to the head. But his son was in the back seat and that presented a wild card, last thing I’d want would be some crazed out kid going ape shit cause I cold-cocked his Dad. I hoped that my staying calm and giving directions in a non-confrontational yet authoritative way would be accepted, and they were.

In hindsight I think had I had the presence of mind early enough to go direct to Austin for an emergency, downwind landing, he would have accepted his new role of communicating with the tower while I landed the plane.

We got lucky that day.

You know, I’m left very frustrated that I don’t know how to address his, and other pilots like him, lack of knowledge. Certainly better primary training would help, but it seems like so many pilots don’t realize that, as we say, getting your private is really just a license to learn. And as scottf said they don’t know how important it is to know what you don’t know.

Bender wrote:Barnstormer,

Great write up! I agree with just about everything you said except for your plan to take the controls the next time this happens. It's one thing if you've briefed this on the ground before flight and both parties are on board. However, if unbriefed and the owner of the plane isn't willing to relinqish control, the ensuing fight might prove to be counter productive. I think you did exactly the right thing by being directive and allowing the pilot to shed tasks by helping with the navigation and trouble shooting. Junior and/or unproficient pilot's mental "buckets" tend to fill up and overflow quickly in an emergency situation. If you can allow them to focus on the stick and rudder skills by taking over as many other cockpit tasks as possible I think you'll be pleased with the outcome more often than not.

I agree. Unfortunately, this very scenario is one of the most difficult situations you can run into in a plane. And the accident records reflect that two pilots in one airplane can be a really bad combination. One of the reasons I don't like riding with other pilots unless our roles are well established.....and I've had a couple unpleasant experiences by doing so.

Seems to me that in this case Phil did a great job in "assisting" the gent in getting the plane on the ground without getting hurt. That said, trying to take the controls may or may not elicit a "good" response. I had a student lock up on the controls once, and he had a death grip, with full up elevator and idle power. As the instructor in that case, I didn't hesitate to give him a good backhand to the snout to "distract" him while I sorted things out. That said, a very frightened person can be really strong, so be careful taking the controls without at least having a conversation about it first.

But the point is, I think Phil did pretty much exactly the right thing, given the circumstances.

I too hate "B-52" traffic patterns. But, they're not all the instructors fault. At the school, I worked really hard on instructors and students to keep the patterns tight, but it was a constant issue. New pilots procrastinate in their patterns, putting off the inevitable.....landing. Takes a long time to go through that 172 checklist .

Ultimately the tool that worked best was to make it a point of pride.....our students knew they could keep it in close, but those other guys.......

Oh, and my policy as CFI that any time they were in the pattern and too far from runway resulted in a simulated engine failure. Students hate those. Of course, if they were forced out to follow traffic, they got a pass, but then we made fun of the other guys pattern discipline.

Anyway, good job, Phil, but I'd take that gent off my list of people to fly with in future.

MTV

Theoretically, the BFR requirement should address pilot shortcomings like this, but with it being so informal, I fear pilots do anything possible to get past it without realizing how valuable a process it can be.

But that requires us to be self-critical as pilots, and trust others to evaluate us and accept constructive criticism. That's a tough pill to swallow sometimes as we battle our own egos.

Use your BFRs to your advantage! It's not a checkride!

mtv wrote:New pilots procrastinate in their patterns, putting off the inevitable.....landing.

Ok I had to laugh at that one. When I got my tailwheel endorsement, went out and bought my first Stearman, it was the first time I’d been alone in a Stearman. The flight back lasted 2 1/2 hours and as I approached home I found myself wishing I could somehow get this thing refueled in the air cause, crap, now I’ve got to land it by myself.

mtv wrote:Oh, and my policy as CFI that any time they were in the pattern and too far from runway resulted in a simulated engine failure.

Mike that is absolutely brilliant! Why are all the good solutions simple ones?

Zzz wrote:Theoretically, the BFR requirement should address pilot shortcomings like this, but with it being so informal, I fear pilots do anything possible to get past it without realizing how valuable a process it can be.

But that requires us to be self-critical as pilots, and trust others to evaluate us and accept constructive criticism. That's a tough pill to swallow sometimes as we battle our own egos.

Use your BFRs to your advantage! It's not a checkride!

You are right on Z.

Best BFR’s I’ve had are from an instructor at my home airport. Begins by pilots gathering together a couple times a year in someones hangar while he and another of our instructors go over all kinds of topics. Very informal. The interaction between all the different kinds of pilots and the instructors makes the ground portion enjoyable and something we look forward to. Of course “stump the instructor” is also part of this.

The oil pressure and temp gauges are really the most important thing inside the cockpit to give a hoot about. Aside from instruction, I've only flown as a GA passenger with a handful of non-cpl's in 30 years. Most of those were pre-buy flights. Two of those made me wonder if flying with others was worth the risk. One was an oil temp issue that the owner irritatingly assured me was fine and just a quirk of the plane. The owner possibly reconsidered a couple days later in a dairy feed lot after a head separated.

lesuther wrote:...Aside from instruction, I've only flown as a GA passenger with a handful of non-cpl's in 30 years. Most of those were pre-buy flights. Two of those made me wonder if flying with others was worth the risk...

I've had the same kind of experience on more than one pre-buy flight. Combine the fact that certain sellers are probably a little rusty if the plane's being put up for sale, and that there's a lot of money and other distracting factors swirling around. And the plane may or may not have been getting flown regularly.

A transit guy (getting fuel) offered a ride to a friend out of airport S30 in a plans built RV-6. The generous pilot did a barrel roll and a wing parted the aircraft. Had just talked on the telephone with him, the day before the accident, and then he was gone forever. After many losses of close friends/aircraft I do not fly experimentals anymore or fly with inexperienced pilots as a rule. Seen to much crap over the years. Just me maybe? Your mileage may be better, I hope so.

mtv wrote:I too hate "B-52" traffic patterns. But, they're not all the instructors fault. At the school, I worked really hard on instructors and students to keep the patterns tight, but it was a constant issue. New pilots procrastinate in their patterns, putting off the inevitable.....landing. Takes a long time to go through that 172 checklist .

Ultimately the tool that worked best was to make it a point of pride.....our students knew they could keep it in close, but those other guys.......

Oh, and my policy as CFI that any time they were in the pattern and too far from runway resulted in a simulated engine failure. Students hate those. Of course, if they were forced out to follow traffic, they got a pass, but then we made fun of the other guys pattern discipline.

My instructor did the same thing, and I love that he did. I get really uncomfortable anytime that I have to follow one of our "friends" flying a 737-sized pattern.

The guy I had to take my bfr with got frustrated that I kept turning such a short base and final. He basically kept saying that I need to fly out further so I can have a nice, stabilized approach. I worry about the pilots coming out of his instruction if they ever have to fly into a Toledo or Oakridge state.