As I begin to transition from spending money tweaking my first plane to spending money flying my first plane I'm starting to get into the practical considerations. Lightening the interior and adding a slightly heavier engine and a big 3 blade prop I know I'm going to need a bit of weight aft and I'm wondering how best to add that weight.

I like to feel prepared when I venture out and my truck is a rolling warehouse of useful stuff. Chains, come-along, tow straps, snatch block, air compressor, plug and patch kit, tire levers, tool kits, axe, firestarter, first aid, rain gear, jump start battery, gun, knives, radios, snacks, water etc. etc.

I'm wondering what people like to carry with them to ensure their peace of mind when they fly alone to remote places. Survival kit and first aid supplies not included.

Here is the rough list I'm working with now:
- tire levers and plug kit, extra 8.00 tube (works with 8.50 tires in a pinch), handheld pump.
- a few wrenches, pliers, vice grips, hacksaw blade
- zap straps, hurricane tape, bailing wire, hose clamps, two part liquid epoxy, two part putty epoxy
- perforated aluminum angle iron for tie downs.
- 100 ft of light kevlar rope
- ultralight backup battery (I don't know how to jump start a plane yet, but I can't help but think this is a good thing to have.)
- two sparkplugs, alternator belt
- two quarts of oil

I'm wondering about including a small come-along with light synthetic line. My mechanic showed me a ding in his prop from a rock sucked up while powering out of a hole. Would a come-along come in handy to move airplane across sand or other soft surfaces?

What else am I missing? I'll have a DeLorme to call a friend but I hope to be in very inconvenient and remote places where asking for help is really calling in a favour.

Check out the rope comalongs, unlike the cable type you could have a 1,000' length of rope and because it passes through the winch rather then wind up on a spool, you can just keep just pulling until your arms falls off. You do need a somewhat specific type of rope for best results, but it's just plain old 3 braid poly, nothing exotic. I use mine so much for other things, it's hard to keep it in the plane.

My go to tape the last several years is "pipe wrap tape", sold only at wholesale/jobber type plumbing supply houses. Made to hold wiring to well drop pipe, 2" wide, good strength, super sticky, while at the same time even after several months of being on my (for instance) hor stab, covering up a grapefruit sized hole, it will still peel off cleanly. I never fly without it, it's the best fabric repair tape I've used, plus whatever else.

Throw in a small lightweight shovel

I carry a small collection of basic hand tools, specific to airplanes. For example, spark plug socket and ratchet, but don't forget you also need a large open end (usually 3/4) to get the nut off the plug. I carry a small set of sockets and combination wrenches, plus an extra of a couple common sizes. A couple of straight and Phillips screwdrivers.

As to the tire/tube you're carrying....how do you plan to inflate it? Small pumps are cheap and can run off battery.

More important, learn to SAFELY hand prop your engine, before you actually need to.

I assume since you specifically excluded survival gear from your question that you have that covered. Don't forget one of the most important pieces of survival gear: a good book or two. Helps pass the time when you're waiting on weather.

Lots of other "stuff" you could carry, but a lot of it is just ballast.....like a come along. If our that stuck, you may do more damage trying to yard that thing out of the swamp than you think. Not many good places to attach a tow on most planes. Better to just use your head to not get stuck.

MTV

Great suggestions above. I've found that a set of Knipex pliers actually negates the need for most wrenches. They work great. As far as boosting goes, I pack a lightweight lithium boost pack. Mine is 900 amps, something like a pound and a half, and has started a 182 with a dead battery 3 times and still had half a charge.
David

Neat technology if you were already considering an antigravity battery.

https://shop.antigravitybatteries.com/n ... accessory/

I bring tools to fix tire problems, battery problems, but I don't gear up for full on maintenance. My stuff is more geared toward survival. First aid, shelter, communicate. I keep a 1.5 lb REI tent in the extended baggage at all times. All other stuff (aircraft related) it's a sat phone and the number to the local bush pilot air service. Then just build a fire, chop wood, fish, read a book. Try not to die of boredom or embarrassment.

Bill

I agree 100% with MTV - loose the spare battery (replace it with a jug of water) and learn how to hand prop. I lost my battery on my way to HSF this year - popped fuse on generator and did not notice. I stopped at a mountain airport for fuel - and the place was a ghost town. After I refueled could not start, spent 1.5 hours trying to hand prop my plane from what I had read on the interwebs, a lot of that time was huffing and puffing after about 10 pull throughs on a O-470 you need some recovery time! After a while a local pilot showed up and showed my his technique - and the damn thing started on his first attempt.

Good maintenance will go a LONG ways towards not having to make bush repairs. I've never needed to change a single spark plug...ever. I change them ALL, before they're worn out. I also do things like change my tail springs every 500 hours...there's no record of 170 tail springs breaking before 500 hours, but they do (very) occasionally break after that. On one hand it's a waste of money. On the other hand, it's incredibly cheap compared to having one break in the field. I think that a backcountry bird needs to be maintained to a much higher standard than a pavement pounder, since the cost of field repairs can be astronomical.

A come-along seems like a lot of weight for the application, but you do need some way of pulling on a rope. If you know how to rig them you can pretty easily get a 32:1 with five pulleys and Prusik loops...but you have to know how to rig them. Providing there are trees and you can process them a flip-flop winch will pull a couple thousand pounds with little effort.

If you're stuck, you need to have something to pull against...how you going to make an anchor? Your aluminum tie-downs won't hold that sort of weight.

Some ideas for general airplane tools in addition to what you have...these are NOT part of the emergency survival kit, though of course they'd get utilized in a survival situation.

Mechanic tools specific to repairs you can actually do in the field with your skills. How you going to get the tire off to repair it...how you going to lift the gear leg...do you have the right tools to split the wheel? You can't split a Cleveland Wheel with any old wrench or socket set. Do you have to pull your prop to change the alternator belt...and if so, are you really going to do that in the field??? Make sure you have the specific tools for what you want to be able to do and leave the rest at home.

Dedicated HIGH QUALITY LED flashlight with lithium batteries, plus spare lithium batteries.

Glock E-tool.

Folding bow saw or large pruning saw.

Good FIXED BLADE knife and sharpening stone.

Work gloves.

Axe…if you know how to use one. Single bit, around 2.5 pound head, on a 26" handle. If you're not an experienced axeman, learn. No other tool will do so much for so little weight and bulk, and no other tool will ruin your day as quickly if misused. If it doesn't shave hair off the back of your arm, it's not ready to go in the airplane.

Sleeping bag, sleeping pad, food, water, distractions (pipe, cigars, coffee, whisky, book, inflatable comfort doll...whatever winds your watch). Make it easy to decide to spend the night rather than push weather. A night without food won't hurt you, but a growling stomach is a damn big fulcrum in the balance of a stay/go decision. I cary a couple pounds of almonds...they last forever and I like them.

Deck of cards. When things get to where you can't fix them alone, just start playing solitaire. Within ten minutes someone will be looking over your shoulder saying "you can move that red five to the black six..."

There's an unlimited number of things that could come in handy, but very few of them are worth the trade off in weight. The rope, shovel, knife, saw, and (especially) the axe allow you to utilize natural materials, but you have to have the knowledge, imagination, and skills, too. The single best thing you can bring into the bush with you is cleverness.

Thanks all, thoughtful replies.

I didn't get into survival kits because that has been discussed before and I have a pretty good sense of what is required. When that is packed I'll post the list for comments. Similarly, I'll detail my tool kit when complete and ask for comments. I'll check into those pliers that David suggested.

Forgot to list shovel, but bought one after Hammer's recommendation and have it set aside for that purpose.

I will put 'Learn to hand prop Pponk' on my long list of things to learn but I'll leave the spare battery in there to charge cell and DeLorme and flashlights as needed.

Learn to change belts and spark plugs will go on that list too.

How best to get the plane weight off the wheel if you need to change a flat? I'm thinking I could rig something with the come-along if need be, and I really like the mechanical advantage they offer in numerous situations. A flat tire seems to be the most likely form of incapacitation that can be repaired in the field. Those tires don't need much air so I'd opt for a light handheld bicycle pump.

You can lift a gear leg with a come-along or other mechanical advantage if you can build a suitable tripod to lift from. This is not as simple as it might first seem.

The tripod has to be of sufficient strength, height and stability. The damages associated with a loaded tripod collapsing into the side of your airplane or wing are worth considering. Assuming there's a stand of lodgepole pine right there and you have the tools to cut them, I'd recon it's going to take around 4~6 hours to build a proper tripod and rig a lift. If you have to travel any distance to collect the timber...well, hopefully you brought the sleeping bag, whisky, almonds, and LOTS of water.

The tripod has to be tall enough to accommodate the lifting mechanism, the attachment rig, rope stretch, gear flex, and tripod settlement/flex.

The tripod has to be strong enough to cary the entire load on any of the three legs, and positioned in such a way that it doesn't interfere with the wheel once it's lifted, and doesn't come into contact with any part of the airplane as the gear leg stretches outward.

It must be impossible for the tripod to collapse, slip, or splay. In addition to being heavily bound at the top, the legs need to be bound at the bottom so they cannot open past a specified point. The ends of the legs should be cut at angles to dig into the soil as they are weighted. The tripod binding alone will eat up a surprising amount of rope.

If you left your fuel gage on both, the wing you have to lift now has all the fuel, and all the weight. Allowing fuel to flow back to the other side as you lift will reduce the load. Verify whether you lost fuel out the vents before flying away and adjust your range accordingly.

As for the rest of it...really consider what's worth trying to do in the field and what isn't. Generator belts don't go from fine to broken in a couple hours...just inspect your belt and replace it before it's going to fail...in a hangar. Besides, you don't need electricity to fly. I can't think of a possible scenario where I'd be standing on a bush airstrip thinking that I had to replace a generator belt in the field rather than fly home or to a maintenance facility.

Do you have the tools/skills to identify which spark plug needs changing? Do you have a pretty good idea of what 60 foot-pounds of torque (or whatever your spark plugs are spec'd for) feels like, because if you have to pull all 12 plugs to find the bad one you want them snugged back up pretty close to proper. I think it's a lot easier to just pull your spark plugs every 50 hours for cleaning and inspection, replace them before they wear out, and learn to run the engine so they don't foul in the first place.

Two batteries? Well, if you want. But now you have two batteries to maintain and replace. I've always bought the best battery available and kept it in tip-top shape and never had a problem charging my various appliances off of it while in camp. As soon as it starts acting a wee bit weak, I replace it. There's a certain oddity to first spending money to lighten the interior, then installing heavy things that aren't necessary.

I don't know what your mechanical skill set is and I don't want to presume incorrectly, but it's frankly pointless to envision doing any sort of maintenance or repairs in the field that you don't regularly do at home. It's great to be prepared for the unexpected, but it's counterproductive to load your airplane up with tools and equipment you aren't ready to use.

And, let's see.......I've around 8000 hours on wheels, and no flat tires yet. And that includes a preponderance of off airport work.

As Hammer says, if you keep ahead of maintenance stuff, you really shouldn't have to do a lot of field repairs. My tires are replaced long before they're worn out, I buy best quality tires only (Goodyear for normal sizes) and new tubes every tire change.

If you REALLY want to prepare for tire changes in the field, get a bottle jack, a pad to keep it from sinking and an adapter to hold it in place on gear leg.

Better yet, buy good quality tires, and leave all that stuff at home.

But add a length of safety wire to your kit. You can fix a lot of stuff with safety wire.

MTV

I think MTV and Hammer have different levels of risk tolerance that comes from thousands of hours flying. As a new pilot I'm inherently not confident and the feeling of being prepared seems like a sensible offset. I recognize it is a personal choice. Some guys like to have vodka in their survival kit if their plane breaks down, some guys like to have tools;-)

I've had belts fail that shouldn't fail and had flat tires that had no business going flat. I would prefer not to trust my fate to my DeLorme as I have been in several situations where it simply couldn't pick up the necessary satellites.

I figure with an engine analyzer it should be fairly easy to determine which spark plugs need replacing and feel that changing one or two is within my mechanical ability. Ditto a tire, even if it takes me a while to figure out how to get the plane jacked up. I figure I've got nothing but time in that situation.

Sounds like I'm worrying about nothing though. I didn't realize the incidence of the things I was worried about were so low and that in itself is comforting. Still gonna carry an 'oh-shit' kit though.

albravo,

Stuff does happen, no doubt, and if you have the space, by all means carry some "equipment". Just give some careful thought to how you'll use that stuff, so that you don't turn a flat tire into something a lot worse.....and trying to jack an airplane with a come along is a great way to do that.

There are jacking adaptors for Cessna gear legs....get one, get a good bottle jack, and try jacking a wheel off the floor in your hangar. Before you cobble something up and actually need it....

I've had three "engine failures", only one of which was actually a mechanical failure of the engine. In one of the others, the throttle cable attachment to the firewall of a 185 came loose, rolling the engine back to idle. Some safety wire and a pair of safety wire pliers fixed that.

In another, the induction filter of a Beaver with the old style induction jammed in the "halfway" position, again reducing engine speed substantially. In that case, a pair of pliers and some safety wire again got me home.

I was fortunate to be assigned good solid airplanes to fly, and worked with really good maintenance folks. Not everyone is so blessed, but if you own the plane, you can eliminate a lot of "oopses" by insisting on top notch maintenance, and not trying to get that last little bit out of every component.

A belt is a problem? Again, if you know how to safely prop your engine, it shouldn't be.

Anyway, just be certain that your "equipment" won't put you in a worse pickle. Try the stuff out first in your hangar to ensure it'll work.

MTV

mtv wrote:Anyway, just be certain that your "equipment" won't put you in a worse pickle. Try the stuff out first in your hangar to ensure it'll work.

MTV

Amen Mike. I think that sums it up nicely. Thanks.

No toolbox would have helped when your crank gave way, but the other two examples are precisely what I'm trying to prepare for.

Btw, I was talking about the little antigravity battery, not a bloody heavy second spare battery. I'm new, not dumb;-)

Thanks for all the contributions to this thread thus far. As a relatively new-to-backcountry flying pilot, I'm following the discussion closely.

Sometimes when I read these threads I wonder if I'm foolish to fly the places that I do, as my mechanical abilities are very limited. When folks talk about all of the tools that they'd carry for field repairs, it sometimes make me wonder if I'm in over my head. That said, I appreciate the notes from MTV and Hammer regarding maintenance and keeping things simple.

On my first off-airport landing I had my first snafu. It wasn't some crazy adventure, but being as it was the first time I had set down in the backcountry, I wanted to walk around a bit and snap some pictures to capture the memory. I shut the engine down and explored for 15 minutes, then got back in for the trip home. click....click.... Damn. I had some alternator issues going into this, so it was perhaps a bit foolish to shut down the engine in the first place. The battery was dead, so I spent some time trying to find a high point where I could capture a cell signal. I own an in-Reach, but wasn't carrying it that day (mistake #2). No dice. Thankfully, about 20 minutes later my mechanic flew overhead and I had enough power to hail him on the radio. He made a quick turn and landed next to me. Mistake #3 was quickly revealed to me upon his arrival. I had always flown a fuel-injected plane prior to switching over to the Cub, and I didn't remember that I shouldn't prime a hot engine. Oops. Anyhow, not only did he help get me up and running that day and thus save me from a night afield (which I was also unprepared for - mistake #4), but he taught me how to properly/safely hand-prop the airplane. The next day I went out to the local airport and practiced hand-propping my plane multiple times. I'm thankful I did, as that skill has come in handy twice more since then when more battery gremlins have cropped up. I think we finally got the electrical issues figured out, but still, I'm awfully glad to have gone through that when help was at hand and the burden of a longer stay would have been minimal.

All of that to say that, though I don't have a ton of experience to back it up, I've generally taken the approach that I think others are advocating here. I keep my tool kit simple (partially in recognition of my own lack of skills), I prioritize skilled, regular maintenance, and I prioritize survival gear over tools that others might use to fix the plane. I'd rather call for help and wait it out if needed than attempt to press things back into service. Better yet, I'd rather avoid things in the first place by having a good mechanic and inspecting things regularly.

Awesome reading from everyone. Lots to think about. I have a great survival bag packed, basic tools, but have never hand propped my plane... am going to learn and master that.
Thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Hammer wrote:


Axe…if you know how to use one. Single bit, around 2.5 pound head, on a 26" handle. If you're not an experienced axeman, learn. No other tool will do so much for so little weight and bulk, and no other tool will ruin your day as quickly if misused. If it doesn't shave hair off the back of your arm, it's not ready to go in the airplane.

.

Hammer, couldn't agree more...glad to see this so succinctly put.

Not to detour the thread, but I've really enjoyed your take on knives. If you have covered axes and sharpening please point me that way. Along with basic tools, small tent and bag, my Gransfors Bruks small forest axe never leaves the plane.

Bill

mtv covered it well...I will just add this...

if the equipment for surviving out there is less than the equipment for solving the problem, then the survival equipment is what you should use...

Having watched a few recovery teams deal with disabled aircraft...if you really need that, it isn't going to be in the plane. Have a way to call them if you need them, and a way to camp safely until they arrive.

But on the other hand...simple things, solve and go...but make sure you know how to do it in a hangar before you take on that assignment in the middle of nowhere. Performance rules for maintenance are good to be familiar with before you are performing it...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Satellite phone and a credit card. Good heavy coat, lighter (for wreckage) and some water.

I have to add one caution regarding axes: When I attended USAF Article Survival training, the instructors specifically prohibited taking an axe or hatchet to the field for the course field training (a three day, two night camp out at -35 in our case). Same went for the Army guys, who all brought their machetes....no go.

The reason for both was simply that at cold temps, wood is hard as iron, and a tool such as these can and will bounce or glance off. Which can cause VERY serious injury.....just what you need in the midst of a survival program.

I've never used an axe or hatchet in a survival scenario since, warm or cold. The Cool School instructors recommended carrying a small folding or collapsible wood saw. The Japanese pruning saws work great. These saws will help gather poles for shelter and wood for fires. Not quite as versatile as an axe perhaps, but much safer.

A major bleed in a survival scenario can turn a basic camping trip into a life or death event.

I've never missed an axe either camping or "stuck" somewhere.

I know, I know.....nobody here would ever hurt themselves with a simple tool like an axe.......till you're exhausted, hypothermic and dehydrated......

MTV