Pre takeoff Vital Actions
As our pupe is approaches the holding point she must decide how to park. There are many conflicting priorities.
- To face into wind
- To face away from the sun
- To have the prop over a hard surface,
- Have good engine cooling,
- To see circuit traffic
- To see ground traffic
- To see both L&R base legs and final approach
- To see if there is an a/c behind you at the holding point
- Know the brakes will hold against the run-up
- Room to turn on to the runway.
This is where airmanship shows. You have covered these points in your preflight briefing, so let her decide where to stop and which way to face.
Low-wing aircraft have great viz on the ground and are far more tolerant of strong winds.
VITAL ACTIONS
There’s no right or wrong way to do vital actions. It’s great to use a written checklist, but if you have a good one in your head – that’s fine. The one in the aircraft handbook is not adequate – it doesn’t deal with things like setting frequencies, getting clearances, crew/pax briefings or checking the DI and compass.
I like this checklist; it is a modified one used by the RAF and the SAAF.
Hatches, Harnesses, Electrics, Trim, Throttle-Friction, Mixture, Pitch, Fuel, Flaps, Gills, Gyros, Autopilot, Altimeter, Controls.
Follow this with departure clearance and briefings. Your pupe should nominate lift-off and climb speeds, and say what she will do following an EFATO at various stages. (We will cover this when we do forced landings.)
Engine runup-up
There’s no ideal time to do it. If you do it before the VAs, here are your problems:
- The engine may not be warm enough. Continentals like the temp to be in the green – Lycomings don’t care.
- Once you have checked that everything is fine with the engine, it’s stupid to fiddle with things that can make it not fine.
- You can easily gather carb ice while you do the other checks.
- The plugs may have time to foul while you do the other checks,
And if you do the run-up after the VAs:
- You may sit for a while with the hatches closed on a hot day.
- You may blow a stone up and jam the elevator hinge, after you have checked controls free. Jeff Towill crashed an Aeronca at George this way.
- You may blow stones and sand into the flaps.
Make your own decision about whether to do the run-up first or last. I do it last, but that’s just my choice.
Now let’s look at each of these checks:
HATCHES
Make very sure she understands the mechanisms and the dangers of not latching them properly, as well as the dangers of not being able to unlatch them quickly. Remind her to do it herself – and not to trust it to a pupe or pax.
Cherokee doors are notorious for popping just after takeoff. It recently happened to one in England, killing both people. They had been so busy trying to close the door that they forgot to fly the aircraft and sailed into the ground.
Generally, a popped door is a non-event. It usually trails open about 15cm. It makes a hell of a wind noise and it may turn your maps and paperwork into a young whirlwind. Ignore it. Do a normal circuit, land and fix the problem.
Not all aircraft are this kind – a popped door on a Bonanza gave me grief while taking off from a riverbed in the Northern Cape. And I keep reading about Mooney baggage doors causing crashes.
Some light twins can dump your luggage into the prop. Not nice.
I like to make sure that baggage doors that open into the cabin, are unlocked – in case you need to get out that way.
HARNESSES.
Put them on snugly, especially shoulder harnesses – they are literally life-saving. One pilot I was testing told me that he found the shoulder harness uncomfortable, but he would put it on if he needed it during an EFATO. Really?
There is nothing on the checklist about seat locks, so this is a good place to do it. Plenty of Cessna pilots have died when their seat lock failed.
Again, don’t trust pax to lock their seats properly – check them. I had a passenger in a C182 whose seat slid back after takeoff. What did he do? He grabbed the stick to pull himself forward. Some mother’s children… Actually it was my fault for not briefing him properly.
Finally, make sure you can reach everything, including the fire extinguisher, with your harness on. Some Cessna fuel selectors can be difficult
ELECTRICS
This covers: circuit breakers, rows of switches, mags on both, alternators charging, avionics on and frequencies set.
TRIM
This means all the trimmers – some aircraft have three. Trim seems such a minor thing – just a little add-on to take pressure off the stick. Let me tell you of two crashes caused by poor trim setting.
The first was a Dak that crashed at Wonderboom on 21 August 1997. Here are some excerpts from the CAA’s accident report:
Final power checks were carried out on the aircraft’s engines on the morning of the accident. The AME trimmed the elevator to the full nose up position to reduce the stick forces required to hold the tail down during the power checks but he did not set the trim back to neutral afterwards.
The pilots did not carry out a pre-flight inspection. At 1646 the aircraft crashed during takeoff from runway 11.
The PIC, who did not wear a shoulder harness, sustained fatal injuries and the co-pilot, who did wear a shoulder harness, had serious injuries.
It appears the accident was a result of the PIC taking-off with the elevator trim set to the full nose-up position. This resulted in the nose of the aircraft pitching up after rotation, causing the pilot to lose control.
If the aircraft had been flown according to CAA’s approved Flight Manual, the elevator trim would have been checked five times before takeoff. First by the captain during the cockpit preflight check. Then by both the captain and the first officer during the after-paperwork checklist. And finally by both of them during the pre-takeoff checklist.
Then there was a low-hour, newly converted, Baron pilot on the Natal south coast. They became airborne prematurely, drifted off the left side of the runway and crashed, injuring all four occupants. Investigators found it trimmed nose-up – presumably from the landing. And the rudder was trimmed to the left
If you don’t trim properly you have to be wide awake – and sometimes extremely firm, or you will crash.
THROTTLE FRICTION
Another silly little thing to fiddle with. Why worry about throttle friction when you will have your hand on the throttle anyway? Well, because it often controls the friction of the mixture and pitch levers as well, and if one of them creeps back during takeoff you can be in serious trouble. It happened to me in a Twin Comanche at Kimberley and I came within a milli-frac of dying amongst the hot desert rocks.
MIXTURE
Refer to the POH about when and how to set it for takeoff.
MAGNETOS
If you did your run-up first, then simply confirm the mags are both on.
PITCH
Pitch – fully fine.
FUEL
Don’t fiddle with the fuel selector at this stage – stay on the tank that has proved itself during the taxi and run-up. If you want to confirm the other tank is working before setting off across the desert – do it at 3,000’. You don’t only need to check tank selection, also check that the pump is on (or off on some aircraft) and the fuel pressure or flow is where it should be
FLAPS
Another tricky one. If you select flap now you might blow stones into them during the run-up. If you put them on standby, you might forget them.
GILLS
Open. That’s it.
GYROS
You should have set the DI before taxying, perhaps ten minutes ago – see how far it’s wandered. This gives you an indication of its health. Then confirm that the suction is where it should be. Make sure the little aircraft on the AH is vertically set, and there is no warning flag on the turn coordinator.
AUTO PILOT
Off, but set for your initial heading. Remember that immediately after takeoff is a very bad place to test the autopilot – particularly at night or when climbing into the muck.
ALTIMETER.
Set to QNH. But note that the airfield reference point and the runway thresholds can vary. At Rand, runway 17/35 has a difference in threshold elevations of 136’.
CONTROLS
Full and free movement in the correct sense. Whichever way you move the stick – that control surface should move up.
INSTRUMENTS.
This is a stupid check – it’s far too vague. If it’s on your checklist then scratch it out. Whenever I see someone coming to “instruments” they gaze vaguely round the cockpit wondering what to check.
You should check engine instruments during the run-up. Then you do the gyro instruments under “Gyros”. And the pressure instruments have been checked during your round-the-cockpit check at start-up.
TAKEOFF
This is one of the worst taught exercises in the book. Instructors – please make sure you will be proud of the way your pupes take off. It’s a lifetime skill, and it’s sooooooo easy.
It’s taught badly because immediately after takeoff you are both too busy to have a meaningful discussion about what went wrong. And later – well it just gets forgotten.
I blame the advent of passenger jets for our crappy takeoffs. We have all seen how Boeings and Airbusses thunder down the runway until someone yells ‘rotate’. The captain hauls back and the thing heads for the stars.
That has nothing to do with the correct way of flying piston engine aircraft. Watch a Dakota take off and you have a role model. Just before the correct liftoff speed for our aircraft’s weight, we should gently ease the nose up and wait for her to fly off the ground. Now we come to the important part – we must lower the nose just enough to let her accelerate in ground effect until we reach climb speed.
When I say ‘we’ I am talking about us good, competent, sensible pilots.
Years ago, when I was a 50 hour hangar-rat working for Placo at Wonderboom. Zingi, my boss, sent me to Rand to collect a 140 Cherokee. It was the first of the super-powerful 150HP four seaters.
At Rand I bumped into three guys who wanted to go to Wonderboom. No problem – I loaded them all into the little aerie and off we went.
Now, if you have flown a 140 out of Rand you will be sucking air over your teeth at the thought of such foolishness. However my training in a J3 Cub had taught me that you determine the number of people an aeroplane can carry by counting the number of seats. And to takeoff you accelerate, without watching the ASI, until the lightest touch causes the ground to gently recede. You then fly a foot or two above the runway until she feels like climbing.
I have seldom seen Zingi so red faced and infuriated as when as he saw four of us clamber out of the little aeroplane. I admit he had previously had cause to question my ancestry and my IQ. However he soon turned my crime into a selling point. He would say to potential customers, ‘You see that great, gormless oaf? Well he was stupid enough to fly a 140 out of Rand with four up – and the Cherokee wing saved his life.’
I claim no credit, the little yellow Cub had taught me how to take off.
You, dear instructor, must try to do the same without the aid of a Cub.
OK, so now we are ready for takeoff. Check the approach and both base legs for traffic. You may have turn your high-wing aircraft to see the approach and base legs.
Tell the tower you are ready – and bloody be ready – because when they clear you it means NOW. They will get very cross if start faffing and re-checking stuff.
As you turn on to the runway check the windsock and look for other traffic on the opposite approach and the cross runway.
I came this close to hitting the fire engine, Foxtrot Tango One, at PE after I had been cleared for takeoff on runway 17. Someone on another frequency had cleared him to do a runway inspection on 26. ATC were quick to tell me it was my fault. But it doesn’t really matter whose fault it was, it taught me a valuable lesson.
Stop for a maximum of two seconds to confirm the DI and compass roughly agree with runway heading.
Not stopping is as bad as stopping too long. If you don’t stop the fuel can surge to the outboard end of the selected tank and cause it to unport. This means it moves away from the outlet and the engine will hesitate or stop.
Release the brakes and smoothly apply full power, using enough right rudder to keep the nosewheel on the white line. Confirm you have full power with the temps and pressures in the green and the airspeed increasing.
When she wants to fly, gently ease her off the ground. Level off in ground effect and accelerate to best rate of climb speed, then raise the nose into the climb attitude.
COMMON FAULTS:
- Having your seat too low or too far back.
- Opening the throttle too quickly, causing the engine to splutter, and possibly die.
- Opening the throttle too slowly, or not fully.
- Taking your hand off the throttle.
- Not using enough right rudder to stay on the centreline.
- Trying to steer right using the aileron.
- Rotating too abruptly.
- Over rotating and running out of airspeed.
- Not using an extra bit of right rudder as you lose nosewheel steering during liftoff.
- Climbing with the right wing down – still not enough right rudder
AFTER TAKEOFF CHECKS
At about 400 ft AGL do the following as appropriate to type.
Brakes – toe brakes on and off to stop the wheels spinning.
Undercarriage – selected up. Keep your hand on the lever and watch the ammeter, or hydraulic pressure. Only release the lever when you have a red light.
Power – on some aircraft reduce to 25” – or whatever the POH says.
Pitch – on some aircraft back to 2,500 RPM – or whatever the POH says.
Mixture – set for the climb.
Fuel – switch the pump off but keep your hand on the switch for a few seconds and confirm the pressure, or flow, stays in the green.
Flaps – confirm you have climb speed and smoothly retract the flaps. Watch the ammeter or hydraulic pressure. Then confirm visually, and from the gauge, that the flaps are fully up. Adjust the attitude to maintain climb speed.
FINIS. That is the takeoff completed. If your pupe does it like this you are amongst the elite few. She will impress those who fly with her, and those who watch from the ground.
Pat yourself on the back – few instructors take the trouble to teach this exercise properly.