Pinch Hitters Emerg Checklist for wives, spouse, non-pilot for Mooney's

[mooneygirl]

I emailed Trey to ask about Homecoming which is April 10-13 at Kerrville. 

[RocketAviator]

I emailed Trey to ask about Homecoming which is April 10-13 at Kerrville. 

I visited with Jan Maxwell's today while at Don Maxwell's shop having some flight  control adjustments made.  I hope we can encourage her & YOU & possibly a lady she mentioned who like Jan is involved in the 99 group >>>> to put on a Pinch Hitters seminar during the upcoming Mooney Spring Homecoming! .... I think it would be great!

[mooneygirl]

yes, I talked with Jan today too. She said you were there. It sounds like it should be a GO for MAPA Homecoming April 10-13.  Jan is an excellent instructor and so is her friend that she is asking to co-present.

Mitch and I will be busy with the premiere of Boots on the Ground: the Men and Women who made Mooney.

[RocketAviator]

yes, I talked with Jan today too. She said you were there. It sounds like it should be a GO for MAPA Homecoming April 10-13.  Jan is an excellent instructor and so is her friend that she is asking to co-present.

Mitch and I will be busy with the premiere of Boots on the Ground: the Men and Women who made Mooney.

Sounds great and thanks for your encouragement and involvement!  Please let me know what I can do and how I can help.  I will touch base with Jan again shortly.

Thanks again. 

[pinerunner]

I think some training is a great idea for anyone who is a frequent passenger, like a spouse. Trying to bring a complex aircraft down with no experience at all using a checklist strikes me as unlikely. Its hard to put myself in their shoes since I knew what ailerons were at a young age (dad was pilot; I couldn't get enough of it). The idea of franticly reading a checklist when even an experienced pilot needs their attention out the window to get the visual ques needed to stay right side up seems unworkable to me. If they're completely clueless about the controls I figure a death spiral will ensue pretty quickly after the pilot goes unconsious. On the other hand its hard to be completely clueless.

 

A couple hours with an instructor would make such a difference.  Even a half hour. But just a checklist? I shudder to think of how that would work.

[RocketAviator]

I think some training is a great idea for anyone who is a frequent passenger, like a spouse. Trying to bring a complex aircraft down with no experience at all using a checklist strikes me as unlikely. Its hard to put myself in their shoes since I knew what ailerons were at a young age (dad was pilot; I couldn't get enough of it). The idea of franticly reading a checklist when even an experienced pilot needs their attention out the window to get the visual ques needed to stay right side up seems unworkable to me. If they're completely clueless about the controls I figure a death spiral will ensue pretty quickly after the pilot goes unconsious. On the other hand its hard to be completely clueless.

 

A couple hours with an instructor would make such a difference.  Even a half hour. But just a checklist? I shudder to think of how that would work.

Pinerunner, as you can see from my earlier posts I completely agree with your thoughts.  My wife and I assume any person who regularly flies has some idea of what the elements of the plane are in a general sense.  What I intend to do is both of the items you suggest but the purpose of this forum topic is to exchange and develop a checklist that could be used in the event of a frantic time such as an emergency.  It would be our additional responsibility to provide instructions to the frequent passenger in addition to the checklist.  I hope this clarifies the purpose of this forum and our intentions and furthermore I hope you will join in with your suggestions and exchange.

Thanks, fly safe

Lacee

[Joe Zuffoletto]

This is a subject that weighs more heavily on my mind with each passing year. I'll be 50 soon and I have (in my wife's eyes) an enormously complex airplane. Until I can get her trained I need to focus more than ever on maintaining my own health as I get older.

 

I recently purchased a G1000 TouchTrainer, which is an FAA-certified simulator that very closely matches my Mooney. I'm going to spend some quality time with my wife on that machine to see if there's any hope of making her even minimally comfortable with the G1000 and the autopilot. If that works out, I'll try to develop a recipe for her to get us safely down... and then we'll try it in the Acclaim someday.

[RocketAviator]

This is a subject that weighs more heavily on my mind with each passing year. I'll be 50 soon and I have (in my wife's eyes) an enormously complex airplane. Until I can get her trained I need to focus more than ever on maintaining my own health as I get older.

 

I recently purchased a G1000 TouchTrainer, which is an FAA-certified simulator that very closely matches my Mooney. I'm going to spend some quality time with my wife on that machine to see if there's any hope of making her even minimally comfortable with the G1000 and the autopilot. If that works out, I'll try to develop a recipe for her to get us safely down... and then we'll try it in the Acclaim someday.

Sounds like you have a great plan Joe, keep us posted,  Any input or suggestions would be appreciated.  My wife and I are about to depart on a 3 hr 600nm flight and this will be her first "get acquainted with the elements of the plane".  

Good luck,

Fly safe,

Lacee

[Awqward]

Seems like teaching the basics of an approach capable Autopilot offers the best chance for a non-pilot passenger.....this is what I will do

[Jamie]

All the focus so far is on the non-flying spouse. There's more to it, imho.

 

If the scenario is "pilot goes inop", WHERE and WHEN make an enormous difference to survivability.

• Daylight VFR? Extremely short check list. Key the mic, ask for help (vectors to nearest airport), land.
• Nighttime VFR? Getting dicey... finding the airport is harder, landing is more difficult.
• IMC? lol. You can talk about autopilots all you want... she's probably just going to die scared, frustrated and confused.

My point is: You can increase her chances of survival a LOT by not putting her in situations where she can't reasonably be expected to survive. This may mean limiting the types of trips you take together, or it increases the training she'll need to have, or both.

[Joe Zuffoletto]

My point is: You can increase her chances of survival a LOT by not putting her in situations where she can't reasonably be expected to survive. This may mean limiting the types of trips you take together, or it increases the training she'll need to have, or both.

 

 

Quite true. My personal minimums with the wife onboard are much higher than when I fly solo.

[Awqward]

I've had a go at a set of instructions that would give a better than even chance of survival in most scenarios:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ca6e56ahimfinol/N60GZ%20Non-Pilot%20Landing%20instructions.docx

 

Probably needs a few tweaks and would still require some training / familiarization....what do you all think?

[Jamie]

I like the list of equipment. Even I can't remember the model numbers of what I have.

I'm assuming this list is to serve as a reminder of what she's already practiced. As such, it's probably pretty good. Still, maybe consider putting some circles and arrows around the controls to help her quickly locate which ones the text is discussing?

Not specific to yours....

I'm not a fan of conditional check lists. What's the current thinking? I'd rather provide a check list that, regardless of the current configuration, puts the system in a known state. I don't care what it is NOW, just push this. If it's set it won't hurt, and if it's not it'll set it. (Obviously, for things that toggle, this won't work quite this nice.)

Also, I stared at your xponder for 30 sec and still couldn't figure out how to set the squawk. wtf.

If you have a second radio, I wonder if it would be easier to just have her "if no answer..." change the audio panel to comm 2. 99% of the time I'm monitoring guard. otoh, if you die while getting atis, I guess that doesn't help...

(I'm not picking on your checklist, just thoughts that occured to me while reading it.)

I keep coming back to the feeling that there's simply no substitute for the wife unit at least soloing in the family airplane. Anything else is just not good enough.

[Awqward]

Thanks Jamie....picking is what I wanted! yes good point about conditional checklists...however some switches will change to the opposite state...eg the AP will prob99 already be on...just writing press AP ENG may result in it getting turned off....prob not what you want....and you're right about the radio....very good chance that Com 1 or Com 2 will put her in touch with someone useful...and my transponder....it's just too difficult to expect her to change the code I think (hell, I struggle with it!)....at best just press IDENT...that will get the controller's attention in any case

[mike_elliott]

MooneyGirl,

 

Would you consider doing a pinch hitter course at the Mooney Summit Feb 7th to 9th? That would be the finishing touch to this event! Almost all of the attendee's are bringing their wives or S.O's. Jan and Don probably cannot make it this year (however I plan to ask them again soon, as I am weathered in at Richardson Tx for the next couple of days and need to get a Bravo back to Fl. he has)

 

I am sure everyone would absolutely love to have you and Mitch

[aviatoreb]

Not to squak "hail marry" again, but this problem can in large part be solved with technology.

 

This is THE main valid reason for a parachute in my opinion, but I didn't buy a Cirrus since I didn't want a Cirrus for the rest of the time I am not incapacitated - knock on wood.

 

The Avidyne digital autopilot seems as if it is stalled in STC for Mooney like they suggested they would eventually give us - hope they do since it does all sorts of nice things, notably envelope protection.  But on this topic of pilot incapacitation - a digital autopilot should and could eventually be programmed to auto land.  Eventually, eventually, autoland will come to GA.  Maybe the new bill that just past congress can help?

 

It is this topic why a little bug inside me regrets that I have a high speed, handful of a high performance airplane. On the topic of sending my wife, or my sons, out to train and eventually solo in the aircraft I fly, we should all be flying Cessna 172's.  Or my previous plane was a Diamond DA40 and that is an appropriate primary trainer too.   I would worry that the probability of bending metal is high trying to teach a 5hr student pilot to land a Mooney rocket or any of the other higher performance mooneys.

[Ricky_231]

My wife has no interest in learning how to fly a plane. She's agreed to take a pinch hitter course but we haven't found one yet. Now even though I'm in very good health, and plan to keep it that way, it's always best to be prepared for an emergency.

With that in mind, I decided to create a simplified, "let's avoid immediate death" checklist for her. This is not designed to teach her how to land the plane, but rather to buy her (and other eventual passengers) some time to talk to ATC, work out a plan, and hopefully find a way to wake me up. Basically if she follows at least the first item, plane will stabilize in straight and level flight and that is a big win already.

I also realized it might be helpful to put some pictures in there so there's no doubt which buttons to push.

So here's what I came up with - I left blanked out the tail number in case anybody wants to type in their own, although I realize every plane will have slightly different configurations, so the pictures probably won't work for anyone else. I can send you the .ppt file if anyone is interested.

Hopefully bit by bit I'll be able to teach her some basics - how to turn to a heading with ap on, how to descend, how to slow down and bring the gear down etc.

Incapacitated Pilot Emergency Checklist.pdf

[mooneygirl]

This is a great thing to have. The only feedback I would have is that the first thing to do is to secure the "passed out" left seat pilot.  If they have become a Slump-o-Matic which is what we call them in Right Seat Ready! we need to make sure that they are not on the controls. 

It looks like we will be teaching a Mini RSR at all three AOPA regional fly-ins.

[Ricky_231]

13 minutes ago, mooneygirl said:

This is a great thing to have. The only feedback I would have is that the first thing to do is to secure the "passed out" left seat pilot.  If they have become a Slump-o-Matic which is what we call them in Right Seat Ready! we need to make sure that they are not on the controls. 

It looks like we will be teaching a Mini RSR at all three AOPA regional fly-ins.

Makes sense - although I'd still think "engage a/p" first, then go about trying to pry me from the yoke. I'm 200lbs and she's under 150 - that way at least she'll get some help from Otto who'll be fighting me as well. 

One thing I do is I never take off the shoulder harness  - and I keep it tight enough so it'd be very hard for me to slump over the controls just in case. 

At any rate - I'll add some language around that. Better safe than sorry, right?

I think we can probably make it to Rochester in September - it's a shame we missed FDK last year. It's so close to us. I'm also going to check if there's anything of the sort at SunNFun

[mgtrevor]

May want to consider revising the instructions to hold the "flip-flop" button down until 121.5 appears in the top Com window.  No needless knob cranking that way.

[Ricky_231]

1 hour ago, mgtrevor said:

May want to consider revising the instructions to hold the "flip-flop" button down until 121.5 appears in the top Com window.  No needless knob cranking that way.

good call.

but maybe I need a set of other basic operations on the backside of this page. things like how to tune in a frequency (if ATC gives you one over guard), how to ident, how to read fuel quantity, current altitude etc.

i believe a lot of this will she'll learn as we fly more and more often, but in a pinch, might be good to have a quick reference card

[Hank]

1 hour ago, Ricky_231 said:

good call.

but maybe I need a set of other basic operations on the backside of this page. things like how to tune in a frequency (if ATC gives you one over guard), how to ident, how to read fuel quantity, current altitude etc.

i believe a lot of this will she'll learn as we fly more and more often, but in a pinch, might be good to have a quick reference card

At least she can reach your fuel selector if necessary! Mine is between my feet, not in the middle of the floor . . . .