Emergency

Dan Luke wrote:
"Denny" wrote:


As soon as I got this far in your story, I thought 'carb ice!'
************************************************ ***********************

I have iced up, at least once, every carb I have flown behind and it
doesn't matter the brand of engine...

My son is learning to fly and I have been a casual instructor for him
in Fat Albert the Apache... In the Warrior he flies, his real
instructor makes him just pull the carb heat on to verify there is a
slight rpm drop and immediately shove it back in.. When he flies with
me I am constantly on his back about checking/using carb heat.. He
finally got exasperated with me one day and said to the effect: If you
are so smart why does Wally instructor make me keep the heat off...
My reply was two questions..
ME: Have you ever heard of an airplane crashing because of the pilot
failed to use carb heat?
HIM: Well, yeah, sure...
ME: Have you ever heard of a plane crashing because the pilot used
the carb heat?
HIM: Uuuh, let me think. pause No.
ME: I rest my case!


Good point. Rest assured my carb heat is going to be on a lot more in the
future. It rained on me almost the whole way home from Macon that night; I
had the CH on the whole way.


BTW Dan, ya did good!


Thanks.

I may be perpetuating a OWT but I seem to recall something about carb
heat putting unfiltered air into the carb and that was why it was not
always on in addition to the issue of the hotter air decreasing performance.

John

Hitting the ground in a nose low attitude tends to decrease performance
also...

denny

John Theune wrote:

I may be perpetuating a OWT but I seem to recall something about carb
heat putting unfiltered air into the carb and that was why it was not
always on in addition to the issue of the hotter air decreasing performance.

If you are flying who cares? Unless you are in a sandstorm or
volcanic ash downfall area my ASSUMPTION is that unfiltered air in
flight is not a hazard for the engine.

Ron Lee

Does the Cutlass have Lycoming in it?

Ross
C-172F
Lyc O-360

Dan Luke wrote:

It was the 3rd leg of an Angel Flight and I wasn't even supposed to be
flying it. I'd already flown the second leg from Natchez, MS to
Monroeville, AL, but the 3rd leg pilot had mysteriously failed to show--no
call, no nothin'. It was late, I was tired and I was mad. I had two pax
aboard.

We were in the clouds and in the dark in a Cutlass RG approaching Macon, GA
(MCN). The outside temperature was 13 C and moisture was streaming back on
the windshield. The throttle was fully open, the RPM was set for 2500 and
the mixture was leaned to 10.5 gph. The autopilot was holding course and
altitude. I was studying the ILS approach plate when I noticed the AP's
"up" trim warning light illuminate.

A quick scan of the instruments showed the IAS at 100 and falling; normally
it would indicate 125 at that altitude. I had detected no change in the
engine sound. I immediately hit the AP disable switch to prevent its
stalling the airplane. This was right and wrong, as I now had to do all the
flying while troubleshooting the problem. What I should have done was
disable the altitude hold and allow the AP to continue keeping us on course
and wings level.

Any attempt to lift the nose resulted in a sickening drop in airspeed. The
situation was now officially scary: we were going down on a dark, rainy
night over central Georgia.

I shoved the prop and mixture full forward, confirmed the throttle was wide
open and the primer was in. No improvement. There was no unusual
vibration. The engine still sounded good and was still making 2500 rpm, but
the prop was probably in flat pitch to do it. I tried the electric fuel
pump: no joy. I glanced at the JPI engine analyzer and saw that all four
cylinders showed roughly even EGTs. All this took much less than a minute;
maybe only 30 seconds.

Finally, I pulled the carb heat. Within a few seconds I felt a surge of
power and we began to climb. I don't know for sure what a death row inmate
feels like when the governor calls at the last minute, but I'm guessing it
feels something like that.

My heart was pounding in my chest and I was so stoked on adrenalin my hands
were shaking. The front seat passenger was looking at me wide-eyed--he
didn't know what was happening, but he had figured out *something* wasn't
right. I had wandered 40 deg. off course and Atlanta Approach was repeating
a frequency change instruction. In a few moments I had us back on course
and altitude but I was still somewhat rattled and blew the readback on
Atlanta's initial approach instructions. Got that sorted out and made an
uneventful ILS approach to runway 5 at MCN.

Not a totally satisfying performance. I ended up doing the right thing and
we lived; that's the good news. The bad news is that allowed myself to rush
things. A moment's thought would have prevented the autopilot mistake. A
calmer, more orderly flow through the engine controls would have led me to
the carb heat sooner and saved a few unnecessary extra seconds of high
anxiety. Next time I have an emergency (please: NO next time!) I'll try to
take it a little slower.

I'm still surprised that the carb iced up at full throttle. Conditions were
in the bad area of the carb ice chart, but my engine has never seemed prone
to the problem. In 650+ hours I've only detected carb ice once before, and
that was after a long taxi on a cool, rainy day.

"Ross Richardson" wrote:

Does the Cutlass have Lycoming in it?

Ross
C-172F
Lyc O-360

Yep. O-360 F1A6.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"Dylan Smith" wrote:

A quick scan of the instruments showed the IAS at 100 and falling;
normally
it would indicate 125 at that altitude.

As soon as I got this far in your story, I thought 'carb ice!' -


*Now* you tell me!

I was the same but then in the UK Carb icing happens all the time is the
first thing we look for.

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

Yep, you're right. I can't completely argue that point, but still, many
emergencies, especially those caused by the pilot, should be avoided. I
guess it was the examples given that rubbed me the wrong way. :-)
--
Jim in NC

Therefore the proficiency goal of all pilots should be to know both how to
avoid the situation and how to get out of it. This also has a built-in
verification check in that too much experience in one area means that the
other area probably needs more attention.

Marco



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Marco Leon wrote:
Therefore the proficiency goal of all pilots should be to know both how to
avoid the situation and how to get out of it. This also has a built-in
verification check in that too much experience in one area means that the
other area probably needs more attention.



There you a a succinct summation of the true goal of the proficient pilot.
The more tools we have to work with, the better the quality of our work.
Avoidance is always best but you better have an excape just in case you blunder
into something.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

Marco Leon wrote:

Therefore the proficiency goal of all pilots should be to know both how to
avoid the situation and how to get out of it. This also has a built-in
verification check in that too much experience in one area means that the
other area probably needs more attention.

Nicely put!

"John Theune" wrote in message
news:8obWf.14186$ES3.7989@trnddc02...
I may be perpetuating a OWT but I seem to recall something about carb heat
putting unfiltered air into the carb and that was why it was not always on
in addition to the issue of the hotter air decreasing performance.

I can't speak for all airplanes -- maybe there's one out there that uses a
filter with carb heat -- but yes, generally speaking carb heat means the air
is not filtered.

However, that is primarily a concern while on the ground, where all sorts of
dust and dirt can get blown up and into the air intake. Once you get aloft,
it's unusual for the air to contain enough stuff to cause harm to the
engine. Not impossible, but unusual.

A better argument against constant use of carb heat is that doing so can
take a non-icing situation and turn it into an icing one. I think this
would be very rare, but I don't believe you can rule it out. Of course,
carb heat also reduces performance, since it lowers the density of the air
coming into the engine. Better to wait for signs of carb ice and use the
carb heat as needed, rather than as a general prophylactic.

Pete