We have brought back the famous article, As the Wrench Turns. This can be seen below in the newsletter and a big newsletter high five to Kevin taking the time out of his busy schedule to write this article every month. Our goal is to focus on items that we are seeing pop up frequently that are causing excessive squawks, either false or real, and/or excessive wear and tear. This month’s article on engine starting is aptly timed as winter arrives and we see the number of flights missed due to difficult starts goes up.

An early heads up - the Holiday party will be on Saturday, December 8. Christine will be taking over the planning of the event. Please mark your calendar for this annual and very fun event. As usual, there will be free food, libations, the CFI of the year and, possibly this year, a live band. Additionally, on November 11 we are celebrating our two year anniversary down in South County with our business partners Magnum Aviation. There will be an Open house from 11-4 at our South County facility which will include free food, drink, display aircraft and all the fun you can have on a November Saturday afternoon. We appreciate your support.

Since the Holidays are upon us, I like to send out a reminder that there is hardly a better gift than the gift of flight. WVFC has gift certificates available for that someone who has everything, or someone for whom you know this gift is the perfect thing. WVFC gift certificates can be used for aircraft rental, member dues, pilot supplies, demo flights, etc. Gift certificates are available at all four locations during normal business hours, or by emailing accounting@wvfc.org.

As the weather changes so does our propensity to fly. I would encourage everyone to stay current, which requires one hour of flying and three take-offs and landings. Not only is it good for our safety and our soul, it helps keep the club rolling.

Stay safe out there.

It is that time of the year when Jack Frost may start turning up on our airplanes.

Now I have never taken off with frost or snow on my airplane’s lift producing surfaces and I learned to fly in the snowy northeastern USA. I’ve never met a pilot who admitted to taking off with rough frost on the wings and other surfaces. I have had pilots tell me they knew of other pilots who admitted to doing so, and as the story goes, those anonymous pilots have never had a problem. All I can say is that those anonymous pilots are playing with fire.

Per the NTSB’s website, “Research results have shown that fine particles of frost or ice, the size of a grain of table salt and distributed as sparsely as one per square centimeter over an airplane wing's upper surface can destroy enough lift to prevent that airplane from taking off.”

Lifted from the FAA texts we are told that, "Wind tunnel and flight tests indicate that frost, ice, or snow formations having a thickness and surface roughness similar to medium or coarse sandpaper on the leading edge and upper surface of a wing can reduce wing lift by as much as 30 percent and increase drag by as much as 40 percent."

You can surf the NTSB aviation accident website, http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp, and see for yourself the Safety Board comments on the hazards of frost and ice accumulation some excerpts from these reports follow:

The National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause(s) of these accident as follows:

• The pilot's failure to remove frost from the airplane prior to departure. A factor in the accident was the tall wet grass.
• The pilot's failure to remove sufficient ice/frost from the airplane prior to flight, and his failure to maintain adequate clearance from trees and terrain. A factor associated with the accident is the reduced climb capability of the airplane due to the existence of frost/ice on the airframe.
• The pilot's failure to remove frost from the airplane which resulted in an inadvertent stall/mush during the takeoff/initial climb, and an in-flight collision with trees. Contributing to the accident were the rough and uneven airstrip, and degraded aircraft performance due to frost on the wing.
• The pilot's failure to adequately remove frost/ice from the airplane which resulted in an inadvertent stall/mush during the takeoff/initial climb.
• The pilot's failure to adequately remove ice/frost from the aircraft and to maintain airspeed during the initial climb after takeoff. An inadequate preflight was a factor.
• The pilot's inadequate pre-flight inspection, which resulted in a decrease in airplane performance due to ice, and a subsequent hard landing.

Engines need 3 things to run: compression, fuel and spark. Fuel's the only variable controlled by the pilot. The proper fuel air mixture is the key to any good/quick engine start. Getting the right amount of fuel to the engine is partially intuition and partially technique. The primer on a carbureted engine is really the only way to enrichen the mixture for start. To work, the fuel must reach the primer assembly (fuel valve must be on)… the primer must be in working order, this includes two small steel check valves, two check valve springs, and a primer rod with two O-rings attached. If all this is good, the primer lines must be attached to the nozzles and the primer nozzles themselves mustn't be clogged. Sound complicated? It isn't if you pay attention to how the primer sounds and feels. It should take a few seconds to fill with fuel when it's drawn back... be patient and wait... you can hear it fill up. After the chamber fills with fuel you should be able to feel it flow to the engine as you push the primer in. If the primer is too easy to push it means it's not working properly and the fuel is bypassing the O-rings or it never filled properly in the first place. If it's too hard to push it probably means the primer nozzles are clogged. In either case the engine will be hard to start due to fuel never reaching its intended target, the cylinder. If it is hard, then stop for a moment and think - what could be wrong? If you have primed it correctly and the throttle is in the correct position it should start in 2-3 cranks of the blade. More than that and something is not right. Continuing to crank is not the solution. Continuous cranking puts excessive wear on the starter, and over drains the battery which can lead to further electrical problems. Besides, continuous cranking really only resolves a flooded engine, one should not use the starter to prime the engine.

If it truly is flooded, please review the POH. There you will find that most manufacturers will recommend that the throttle should be moved forward to help lean the engine so it'll start. If you don't over-prime it in the first place it won’t be flooded. Again, each aircraft is slightly unique. Get used to your favorite plane’s requirements and modify your behavior until you figure out what it likes. A particular engine will always start the same when cold. Every plane can vary. It even varies between say C152s. Some planes have only one primer nozzle. Most planes prime three cylinders and some prime all four. Cessnas traditionally use a long stroke primer which will put more fuel into the engine with each stroke vs. a short stroke primer like a Warrior or Archer which will need as much as three times as many pumps on the primer nozzle for the same amount of fuel as a Cessna. Once you figure out a good technique stay with it. If it quits working suddenly contact maintenance as th primer system probably needs work.

Fuel injected engines are easier to start cold and harder to start hot than carbureted ones. Lycoming and Continental vary their start procedures based on using a static throttle and varying mixture, or static mixture and varying throttle to advanced fuel through the injection system into the engine. To start cold... in either case you will generally advance the fuel system to make sure a specific amount of fuel flow is indicated about five gallons per hour will usually do... some people count to five or ten... then fuel pump off, throttle to idle and crank over the engine. If you primed it right, within two or three blades it'll start. If it doesn't start right away, stop cranking and assess the situation. It's either flooded or needs more fuel. (Note, if you push excessive fuel into the system it will generally overflow onto the ground just below the engine. On aircraft with front wheel pants this will be noticed by blue staining. Please do not squawk blue fluid/staining on front wheel, as all you are noticing is someone who over primed the aircraft). If under-primed repeat above if flooded open throttle to full, mixture lean, hold the brakes & crank. As soon as it starts, switch the mixture to rich and the throttle to idle. The next time you're out to fly, modify your technique based on what happened the last time until you figure out what works the best. Once you get it down, stick with it!

Continuing to crank an engine without assessing the situation is hard on the starter, battery, charging system and can lead to a meltdown or possibly even a fire! There's just no reason for it.

A quick start is good for the soul. It's impressive to fellow pilots and passengers and builds confidence when flying far from home.

Next month – the hot start

Hello West Valley,

Kicking off the monthly events of November will be Wednesday, November 14. Catch Max Trescott presenting a safety seminar on the topic of Night Flying this will be a WINGS seminar and will be held at the Palo Alto location at 7:00 pm. This will be the last chance to receive WINGS credit for the year 2007 through the old program. If you are unable to attend, we will be continuing on with the new WINGS program, with at least two seminars a month starting in January of 2008. Next on the calendar, for those of you who haven’t had a chance to visit our South County location, your chance is here… on November 17 there will be a BBQ for the second anniversary of West Valley Flying Club and Magnum Aviation beginning at 11:00 am until 4:00 pm, open invitation, with dealers from Light Sport West, Cirrus, Columbia, an Eclipse jet, some of our own planes, including the two new glass panel cockpits at E16, the Cessna 172G1000 and the Cirrus SR22, and a lot more. Come see for yourself, November 17.

With winter coming on, we have planned a trip to Tahoe for skiing and a winter safety seminar for more confident flying in the upcoming season. Due to the lack of snow so early in the season we are moving the trip to the January 11 to 12 for plenty of snow on the slopes and time for advance reservation. With any luck, this will be a fly in, either way. The order of events will be the safety seminar, followed by night life in South Lake Tahoe, and finally a whole day to ski, snowboard and enjoy Tahoe. If you are interested in joining us on the trip please send questions or reservation information to Christine@wvfc.org.

Also, this season brings the much anticipated Holiday party, falling this year on December 8 beginning at 6:30, held at West Valley, Palo Alto. There will be a live band as well as free food and drinks. Hear who the CFI of the year will be for 2007, and get a chance to meet some of your fellow members before the year is through. There will even be a chance to enter your dessert into the Pot luck dessert contest, with prizes for 1st and 2nd place. We will need three volunteers for Christmas party setup on the 6th and 7th. Any interested members, please contact Christine@wvfc.org as space is limited.

With Christmas around the corner, we have some new items in the pilot shop you may want to see and everyone’s favorite, the gift certificate, available at all West Valley locations. Unfortunately, this season can also take the fun out of our weekend BBQ’s, so at this point they will be postponed until we have more user friendly weather. Look to the calendar on the WVFC website for more information on upcoming events and I hope to see you all soon. That is all for operations this month.

Most of my articles have been about some form of flight safety, but this one is about my recent experience at FlightSafety. Turns out (no surprise) they are related.

When you’ve been around aviation for any period of time, you will hear horror stories about the large simulator training organizations – places like FlightSafety, SimCom, Simuflight…. For example, one of our former Chief Pilots went to a simulator school for a light twin, and as all of us do when diving into an intense training program, read the materials before arriving at the school and had thoroughly studied the POH. Then when classes started, it was obvious that he knew more about the plane than the instructor did. Not the ideal learning situation. Or perhaps what you learn is not to go there again. I had heard stories of FlightSafety requiring students to remember such useless things as P1 bleed pressure (something you can’t measure in flight).

With that as a prelude to my trip to FlightSafety Wichita for the Citation VII initial training, I was a bit apprehensive about what useless information I was going to have stuffed into the seriously limited capacity of my brain. BTW, I have perfect memory – it’s the recall that doesn’t work as well as I might like. I can get the stuff in there I just can’t get it back out. Especially when the simulator operator is tossing spaghetti into the fan.

First, a bit about the plane and the course. This was a two-week initial type-rating course for a CE-650, which is a Citation with a body the same diameter as a Citation X (stand up in the cabin), club seating plus two in back, a side-facing bench opposite the door and a mandatory two pilot crew. The empty weight is about 14,000 lb and the gross is 23,000, plus it motors along at .84 Mach – which is pretty well hauling empennage, even against the wind. With a grand total of 33 hours of jet time going into the course, this is a LOT of airplane to be learning enough about in two weesk to qualify (according to the FAA) as Pilot in Command.

Preparation for a course like this begins weeks ahead of class start with a few (or more) hours of simulator training just to knock the rust off the old sim skills, since there’s no sense looking like a klutz the first day of class. In addition, I asked for some study materials and the POH – no sense looking like an idiot as well as a klutz.

The class began on a Monday morning and we spent the next two and a half days just going over the systems in detail. The instructors really knew the airplane and its systems, and they explained them well. Better, nothing we were expected to know was useless it all was relevant either to normal or emergency procedures.

Starting after lunch on Wednesday, we started working in the simulator. The first hour or so was just getting used to where everything is. And “everything” in a plane like this is a lot more than “everything” in my previous airplanes. The pre-start checklist consists of most of a page worth of switch settings and instrument checks. Then the starting actually begins, and there are significant variations on that, depending upon whether it’s a battery, APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) or EPU (External Power Unit) start. Merely starting the engines took the better part of 1.5 hours. By the end of the third day of sim work, we were down under an hour.

When you begin a training course like this one, the instructors usually say, “You already know how to fly, we’re just going to teach you how to handle the systems in this airplane.” I can tell you that neither my training bud nor I flew well enough the first week to show that there was any evidence of our supposed flight skills. Part of this is simply an order-of-magnitude issue. When you’re cooking along at 280 KIAS and go into “slow flight” at 90, it takes a LONG time to slow down. And when you do steep turns (ATP standard is 45 degrees of bank, within 100 ft, under simulated or actual instrument conditions), you do it at 250 KIAS, and use LOTS of time and real estate while doing them. The other part is that it takes me time to get really comfortable with an airplane that’s significantly different from any I’ve flow before.

Then, instead of letting us get comfortable, the sim instructor started throwing system failures, engine failures, and fires at us. Turns out it makes very little difference whether you’re the PIC or SIC when this stuff happens, you keep busy. And if anything, the SIC is busier, because “all” the PIC has to do is fly the plane and follow some of the steps the SIC reads from the emergency checklists.

As I was to discover, the SIC has more to do under normal operations as well. The SIC gets to do all the radio stuff, and when you’re romping at .8 Mach, that particular function never goes away. He also determines climb power settings every 5000 feet, which is about every two minutes until passing 30,000 feet, then it slows down a bit. In addition, the SIC reads both the challenge and the response for several of the checklists, and reads the challenge part of all the others. The SIC also briefs the passengers, and sets all the heading, and altitude bugs when the PIC flies the plane.

The PIC gets to do the takeoff and landing, and flies the plane when it’s on autopilot. Did I mention that I’m the SIC?

Finally a word about the simulator. The sim is so realistic that the type rating check-ride is actually performed in the simulator. On the first takeoff, the examiner blew both right tires, and it was so realistic I knew it was blown tires, and that they were on the right side. The only failure they don’t do realistically is depressurization. But runaway trim is frighteningly realistic! After I had finished the course and got to fly the real airplane, the plane handled and landed just like the sim. There are three major differences between the sim and the airplane. First, I’m pretty sure nobody has been killed or seriously injured in the sim (this, BTW doesn’t keep you from sweating like a pig in the sim). Second, the sim operator can fail systems at times of his choosing, and in ways no sane person would attempt in a real airplane. As a corollary, the operator can fix problems better than the world’s best mechanic. Finally, with the push of a button, you can be back to the beginning of an approach or back on the ground – fantastic for zero-zero approaches.

If you have the opportunity to get training like this, jump at the chance. I’m already looking forward to the 6 month recurrent training!

Please update yourself on the latest club activities by going to the membership calendar located at http://www.wvfc.org/b/calendar.php