The Oracle @ Delphi #6 6/27/2006 - Are you looking for trouble
(J.R. Rises upon his soapbox)
When you complete your pre-flight (you do preflight your aircraft don?t you?), are you looking for any possible excuse to cancel your flight. How many times have you taxied out to the run up area and called the tower to return to your parking spot because something wasn?t right? How many times have you thrown the throttle to the firewall, obtained Vr. and then aborted your take off? Done an in-flight magneto check? Are you looking for trouble, or are you waiting for it to find you?
My faith has been shaken . I don?t want any maintenance performed on my aircraft unless I?m there to see it done, understand what?s going on, and I order the parts to fix it. What?s that famous line from the Strange Days? ?The issue's not whether you're paranoid?the issue is whether you're paranoid enough.? Let me pause for a moment and clearly say that I do not believe that most mechanics out there are trying to do shoddy work or that they don?t believe that the craft is safe, but on the other hand it?s you trying to keep your shorts clean while the world goes quiet and you search for that emergency procedures checklist: the mechanic never leaves the ground. . How many issues will they defer for next year you without telling you there is an issue? I?ve seen this happen. Nightmares of ?The owner won?t / can?t / doesn?t want to pay for IT.? Dance through their heads. Or they put some part in/on my craft that isn?t the correct part just so that it can get back in service sooner and figuring it work good enough until it can be fixed it later. Is he looking for trouble?
How about telling your mechanic that you?ve got a big trip scheduled for just after your annual and that you need your bird back on line. Will he fix every little thing that is wrong, defer it, or not even find it in the rush. Is he looking for trouble?
Maybe you built it and do your own inspections. Do you know what to look for? Are you sure? Do you have a plan to make sure that you look at everything? Will you know a problem that is staring you right in your face, or are you blinded by you familiarity with the plane? Are you looking for trouble?
How about the pre-flight? It was fine last year and I?ve only flown it X times? It doesn?t need a good going over. I?ve flown it every day for the last month and there wasn?t anything wrong. Right? How about the birds nest in your gear well? Familiarity leads to assumptions and false confidence. A friend of mine who is owns a P210 and I were about to take off, from Southern California. When his dad asked what was that pointing to a three-inch crack in the spinner. We both are CFI?s and we both did the preflight, however, we were not looking for trouble.
Regardless of who looks at your craft, I?m not talking about some ink in the logs. I?m talking about having lots of experienced eyeballs looking, over and over for something. Knowing that there must be something wrong, and to keep looking until you find it. And then look some more just to be sure that IT is all that?s wrong. Only then will you have looked for trouble.
And then when you have found IT, you must FIX IT. Little things have a way of becoming large things especially when you are in hard IMC.
I use the following checklist to know that I?m not doing something wrong. All of these questions are based off of mistakes that I, or someone close to me, has made in the past. .
(J.R. Flees from said soap, no longer in box, but instead flying through the air)