Emergency

"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

And what became of the 'no-show' 3rd leg pilot? I hope you called
your dispatcher and mentioned it.

"MaulePilot" wrote:

And what became of the 'no-show' 3rd leg pilot?

Never heard from the guy, despite several messages left on cell & home
phones.

I hope you called
your dispatcher and mentioned it.

I did. I also mentioned it in the remarks on the mission report.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

Dan, I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. Sounds like you did a great
job with the situation. Found the problem. Fixed it. Got the plane
down. Kept your cool. I'd say you were successful. Thanks for the
report. Helps all of us who never have been in this position, yet.

My only input. Carb heat is the #2 item on my emergency checklist.


Alan Bloom
Dogs can fly.
www.flyingmutts.com




On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 18:21:40 -0600, "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.

Alan wrote:

Helps all of us who never have been in this position, yet.

Perhaps "a subset of us" would be a more accurate than "all of us." I fly
an aircraft with a fuel-injected engine. No carb heat.


--
Peter

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.

I had carb ice in the =runup= in a Dakota that had never had any kind of
carb ice problems before. It was warm and humid, ideal conditions, but
the engine hadn't been running for ten minutes yet. I applied runup
power and checked mags and such, no issue. Then I pulled the power all
the way back and the engine died. Tried it a few times, then took it
back to have it looked at. Nothing amiss. Final conclusion is that it
was probably carb ice.

Never happened before, or since.

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote:

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.

I had carb ice in the =runup= in a Dakota that had never had any kind of
carb ice problems before. It was warm and humid, ideal conditions, but the
engine hadn't been running for ten minutes yet. I applied runup power and
checked mags and such, no issue. Then I pulled the power all the way back
and the engine died.

In my case a couple of years ago I could not get the engine to rev past 1,000
rpm for the runup. That time I immediately suspected carb ice because of the
long taxi in the rain. I applied carb heat and finished the runup ok.


Never happened before, or since.

Not to me, either--until that flight to Macon last week.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

Jose wrote:
I had carb ice in the =runup= in a Dakota that had never had any kind of
carb ice problems before. It was warm and humid, ideal conditions, but
the engine hadn't been running for ten minutes yet. I applied runup
power and checked mags and such, no issue. Then I pulled the power all
the way back and the engine died. Tried it a few times, then took it
back to have it looked at. Nothing amiss. Final conclusion is that it
was probably carb ice.

Never happened before, or since.

Jose

In beautiful MN in the winter months I occasionally get carb ice while
on the ground checking ATIS. It's just like in the textbook ... an
unexplained loss of RPM. Usually the dew point spread is at least a few
degrees, so it is odd (and memorable) when it happens.

This has happened in both C172s and a Piper (can't remember if it was
the Archer or the Warrior).




Mike

Dan, this is one of those "for what it's worth" stories.

About 30 years ago I flew a Mooney ranger that was pulled around by a
normally carberated engine that loved to develop carb ice. The first
clue it was happening was that the EGT began falling really fast. Carb
ice drives the engine towards a richer mixture.

The same thing may happen in your airplane. If it does, include the EGT
in your instrument scan when you're at cruise. I was amazed when I
started doing that how often a 50 degree drop in EGT happened, and how
often it was recovered by yanking on the carb heat knob.

I'm glad it turned out OK -- angel flights should get lots of second
chances.

I can't find anything in the discussion of carb ice in The Lycoming Flyer to
make me think that full throttle somehow obviates carb ice when conditions
are conducive to icing. If ice is forming on the interior of the venturi,
the position of the throttle plate won't make much difference. Lycoming does
say that ice is more likely at low power settings, but I think we all know
that.

Bob Gardner

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...
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.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM