Lessons learned

[gitmo234]

Okay folks so I’m posting this for two reasons: 1) get it off my chest and not have any anxiety over it and 2) so maybe someone will get something out of it.

lessons learned on my 6 hour x-country today:

1) do the f{*}+# pre-flight right. No matter how caffeinated you are or ready to go, do every god damned step and thoroughly.

2) seriously consider the options when doing VFR over the top. 

3) when you’re re flustered... stop and relax.

 

So at 10:30 am today, right on schedule, I pop the panel, pull out the dip stick and look briefly. It says just over 4, so I drop it in and go. The rest of the preflight was complete. I buy 4 quarts of oil for the road, just in  case, and hit the air.

im headed west and over the mountains. So I go VFR over the top at 8500, next stop KDCY in 3.5 hours. 

It quickly becomes totally overcast below me but that’s okay. For once in my life I had this urge to give flight following another try.  So I’m on flight following since I departed northern Virginia. 

About an hour and fifteen in I get this hunch. A literal voice said “check ALL the instruments” I had been scanning my 6 pack but decide to check it all a bit more in depth. I notice the oil pressure is lower than normal.  Not bad, but low. I keep an eye on it. 

I’m watching and it’s slowly dropping. I call flight following and ask them how far this cloud coverage goes. They gave me a hole about 100 miles away, I didn’t want to go that far so I asked closet. Another pilot game on and said there was some in the area. I found the nearest airport, 48I, and was determined to find a hole. I did some circilling, explained the situation, and oil pressure was getting close to the red line at 25. 

I found a hole and saw the layer was very thin and I headed for the hole. Couldn’t get it 100% but remembered my training. Eyes on my artificial horizon, keep it level. Even descent. It lasted about 30 seconds of IMC out the front windshield but my wife told me after that she could see the ground through side window the whole time. Punched through and booked it to the airport.  Called that I was inbound and needed immediate access to the runway. 

Got on the ground and called the manager, he said said that the approach had called twice asking if I made it. He sent someone out to help me out and my dipstick ready around 1 quart. I filled her up and and ran it up to make sure it wasn’t a leak. It checked out.

we took off and I was flustered. After a bit I couldn’t get the engine working right. So I turned around and told my wife we were headed back. On the way back I realized I was working the RPM and manifold pressure backwards. All out of being flustered and frustrated.

 The rest of the trip was uneventful. Less  learned. Don’t skimp. Actually wipe down the dipstick, and check the oil. Be very careful in going VFR over the top. Afterwards, take some time and calm down. Don’t get flustered. 

 

 

[Hank]

Glad you made it alright! I also had one experience getting "stuck" with undercast, I was very happy to get in the ground. Left the pla e there for a week until I could get back to fetch her on a clear but very windy day.

On your preflight, unless I was warming the oil to change it, I won't fly with less than 5 quarts. It only takes a second to top off the oil. I prefer to start trips with 6 quarts, and always carry a full quart in the back (even if I already have a partial quart there, I add another one).

Take this to be motivation to work on your Instrument rating. 

[gitmo234]

Just now, Hank said:

Glad you made it alright! I also had one experience getting "stuck" with undercast, I was very happy to get in the ground. Left the pla e there for a week until I could get back to fetch her on a clear but very windy day.

On your preflight, unless I was warming the oil to change it, I won't fly with less than 5 quarts. It only takes a second to top off the oil. I prefer to start trips with 6 quarts, and always carry a full quart in the back (even if I already have a partial quart there, I add another one).

Take this to be motivation to work on your Instrument rating. 

Motivation it is. The controller asked if I was IFR equipped, but I had to explain that I was, but not trained. 

 

[RLCarter]

Good ending to a bad story. Years ago getting ready for me PPL check ride the DPE asked if I doing a preflight or an annual. We've all rushed a flight and generally its uneventful, but shit can go south in a hurry as you just saw

[MIm20c]

Taking off with 4 quarts is questionable imo. However, taking off again when you just burned off 75% of your oil in 3.5 hrs...please be careful. 

[DXB]

Yikes, scary stuff. So glad you and wife are ok! Let us know what the A/P finds.

[gitmo234]

7 hours ago, MIm20c said:

Taking off with 4 quarts is questionable imo. However, taking off again when you just burned off 75% of your oil in 3.5 hrs...please be careful. 

I don’t think it burned. I think my reading was wrong when I checked. I didn’t wipe down the stick and re-insert, etc. on the next stop the burn was within the normal range and pressure was normal.

Edited November 23, 2017 by gitmo234

[gitmo234]

Oh good lord. I have my manuals with me and I read them again. I found one major error. My CESSNA is 4-6 quarts, the Mooney has 8 quarts. I was thinking the cessna level when I checked.....

[HRM]

11 hours ago, gitmo234 said:

Don’t get flustered. 

Yep. Absolutely. Ditto. Can't repeat it enough.

I think the other lesson might be "Don't fly Cessna's" 

[gitmo234]

Just now, HRM said:

Yep. Absolutely. Ditto. Can't repeat it enough.

I think the other lesson might be "Don't fly Cessna's" 

Yeah I’m learning a lot. On my cessna it was 4-6, fly it on 4 and land with 3. Fill it to 6 and fly the same flight and land with 3.

shes gonna get some love after this trip. Oil change, a full 8, and an A&P take a general look.

[Browncbr1]

Glad you didn’t get stuck with ice under you.  It was pretty thin layer yesterday though.  Glad you’re ok.   Just tell yourself to slow down when you get to the airport next time.

[PTK]

12 hours ago, gitmo234 said:

Okay folks so I’m posting this for two reasons: 1) get it off my chest and not have any anxiety over it and 2) so maybe someone will get something out of it.

lessons learned on my 6 hour x-country today:

1) do the f{*}+# pre-flight right. No matter how caffeinated you are or ready to go, do every god damned step and thoroughly.

2) seriously consider the options when doing VFR over the top. 

3) when you’re re flustered... stop and relax.

 

So at 10:30 am today, right on schedule, I pop the panel, pull out the dip stick and look briefly. It says just over 4, so I drop it in and go. The rest of the preflight was complete. I buy 4 quarts of oil for the road, just in  case, and hit the air.

im headed west and over the mountains. So I go VFR over the top at 8500, next stop KDCY in 3.5 hours. 

It quickly becomes totally overcast below me but that’s okay. For once in my life I had this urge to give flight following another try.  So I’m on flight following since I departed northern Virginia. 

About an hour and fifteen in I get this hunch. A literal voice said “check ALL the instruments” I had been scanning my 6 pack but decide to check it all a bit more in depth. I notice the oil pressure is lower than normal.  Not bad, but low. I keep an eye on it. 

I’m watching and it’s slowly dropping. I call flight following and ask them how far this cloud coverage goes. They gave me a hole about 100 miles away, I didn’t want to go that far so I asked closet. Another pilot game on and said there was some in the area. I found the nearest airport, 48I, and was determined to find a hole. I did some circilling, explained the situation, and oil pressure was getting close to the red line at 25. 

I found a hole and saw the layer was very thin and I headed for the hole. Couldn’t get it 100% but remembered my training. Eyes on my artificial horizon, keep it level. Even descent. It lasted about 30 seconds of IMC out the front windshield but my wife told me after that she could see the ground through side window the whole time. Punched through and booked it to the airport.  Called that I was inbound and needed immediate access to the runway. 

Got on the ground and called the manager, he said said that the approach had called twice asking if I made it. He sent someone out to help me out and my dipstick ready around 1 quart. I filled her up and and ran it up to make sure it wasn’t a leak. It checked out.

we took off and I was flustered. After a bit I couldn’t get the engine working right. So I turned around and told my wife we were headed back. On the way back I realized I was working the RPM and manifold pressure backwards. All out of being flustered and frustrated.

 The rest of the trip was uneventful. Less  learned. Don’t skimp. Actually wipe down the dipstick, and check the oil. Be very careful in going VFR over the top. Afterwards, take some time and calm down. Don’t get flustered. 

 

 

First and foremost I'm very glad you and your wife are ok.

Second I want to ask you a few stupid questions:

Have you read your POH? What does it say in regards to oil? How much oil does it specify for extended flight? What does the Cessna POH say about oil and extended flight?

If you have no concept of the basics, such as oil capacity in your engine, then clearly you have not read your POH. Why did you check the oil level? Just to go through the motions?!

I would not depart for any flight, let alone extended flight over mountains and with trusting pax, after having looked at the oil l level and confirmed it's ~4 qts. 

What were you thinking!?

Have a happy Thanksgiving! You have a lot to be thankful for!

(If I may offer a couple humble suggestions: Get your instruments rating. Spend some quality time with your POH and read it cover to cover. Make notes and then go back and reread to clarify any questions. Also consider that getting in the plane to fly somewhere is vastly different than jumping in the car to drive somewhere. Until you can separate the two and treat the plane with the respect it deserves it’s probably best for you to drive.)

 

 

[DXB]

59 minutes ago, gitmo234 said:

 I think my reading was wrong when I checked. I didn’t wipe down the stick and re-insert, etc. on the next stop the burn was within the normal range and pressure was normal.

 

35 minutes ago, gitmo234 said:

Oh good lord. I have my manuals with me and I read them again. I found one major error. My CESSNA is 4-6 quarts, the Mooney has 8 quarts. I was thinking the cessna level when I checked.....

You  don't need to wipe the stick and reinsert it to read accurately.  It will be easy to read and accurate if plane has been sitting at least a day or two on a level surface. If it was run recently, then the reading on the stick will be less clear but will tend to underestimate.  I think many of us (including me) fill our 8qt sumps to 6qts because more than 6 tends to blow out the breather quickly.  I add a full quart whenever it gets to 5.  However more makes sense in your case given your very high oil consumption (3 quarts in <3 hours?).  That is way too high - please consider investigating thoroughly with an A&P before flying much more.  

[TonyK]

I have been swapping between my 172 and my Mooney a lot lately due to some maintenance on the Mooney.  I have found that I have to be very diligent in all of the aspects of the flight.  Checklists for everything and no shortcuts.  Although I did forget to put the gear up on the 172 last time I flew it.    I'm very happy to read that it all worked out for you. 

[Skates97]

Just now, TonyK said:

I have been swapping between my 172 and my Mooney a lot lately due to some maintenance on the Mooney.  I have found that I have to be very diligent in all of the aspects of the flight.  Checklists for everything and no shortcuts.  Although I did forget to put the gear up on the 172 last time I flew it.    I'm very happy to read that it all worked out for you. 

Checklists are there to keep us from forgetting or overlooking things. If you're switching between different planes I think that they become even more important. 

[gitmo234]

I’m going to have an A&P investigate, but honestly it could’ve been anything, like the stick rubbing and getting oil on it, marking it to 4, or just my crappy eyeballing it. For the next 4 hour legs total the oil consumption was about 1 quart. 

EDIT: And if I have been reading this like a Cessna the whole time, this thing has been chronically low, and if it was at 4 it was pretty likely that reading wasn’t 100%. I have a feeling that low oil increases burn as well. 

Edited November 23, 2017 by gitmo234

[Bartman]

There is a minimum amount of oil that these engines can be run safely and you either exceeded the limitations or came very close to doing so. I would not take off with 4 quarts, and certainly would not depart again having just made an emergency landing that included VFR into IMC. The link below shows a thread started by you indicating you already suspected a problem with oil consumption. Think about how the NTSB report would read.

Lots of red flags here. 

 

[mike_elliott]

make sure you file a NASA report. While nothing should come of this action wise, you just never know with the FAA.

Glad you are safe and we dont have to write "the letter"

https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/report/electronic.html

 

[Tx_Aggie]

I don't mean to sound like the annoying Monday morning quarterback, but as a fellow IFR pilot, this is the typical set up for a catastrophic accident. I remember once upon a time being the optimistic VFR pilot thinking I could fly anywhere in any weather situation as long as I could find a hole in the clouds and torpedo my way through to safety, but if you think about it there are several unwise factors that you probably haven't thought about: terrain changes, surface elevations relative to the cloud bases, radio towers several hundred feet high, buildings, other "scud running" airplanes. Also why your family or whoever is riding with you gets increasingly anxious over your pursuit to find this mysterious hole, the rest of the air traffic control system can hear your frantic silly efforts that typically disrupt the approach path of everyone who is qualified to fly in those conditions. I don't mean to be cynical. I myself have been there, looking very foolish for getting into a messy situation, ultimately putting my wife and I in potential danger while illegally Descending into and through the clouds. We made it, as you did, but it wasn't until after I got my instrument rating that I realized that mindset is stupid, unwise and dangerous for cross country travel. After an IFR certification, which is the system all other airplanes travel by, layers of cloud flying is very straight forward, fun, and safe provided you're current and actively being proactive/ahead of the airplane. You're entire story could be avoided with a simple approach into whatever airport you landed at. Please do yourself and your family a favor and start your IFR training today. You won't regret it, flying and traveling in general will be exponentially more enjoyable and then when you hear that guy trying to find a hole in the clouds while your autopilot is capturing and holding the glideslope to the runway 5 miles out, you'll be able to chuckle to yourself thinking "dude, go get your instrument rating."


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[gitmo234]

Just now, Tx_Aggie said:

I don't mean to sound like the annoying Monday morning quarterback, but as a fellow IFR pilot, this is the typical set up for a catastrophic accident. I remember once upon a time being the optimistic VFR pilot thinking I could fly anywhere in any weather situation as long as I could find a hole in the clouds and torpedo my way through to safety, but if you think about it there are several unwise factors that you probably haven't thought about: terrain changes, surface elevations relative to the cloud bases, radio towers several hundred feet high, buildings, other "scud running" airplanes. Also why your family or whoever is riding with you gets increasingly anxious over your pursuit to find this mysterious hole, the rest of the air traffic control system can hear your frantic silly efforts that typically disrupt the approach path of everyone who is qualified to fly in those conditions. I don't mean to be cynical. I myself have been there, looking very foolish for getting into a messy situation, ultimately putting my wife and I in potential danger while illegally Descending into and through the clouds. We made it, as you did, but it wasn't until after I got my instrument rating that I realized that mindset is stupid, unwise and dangerous for cross country travel. After an IFR certification, which is the system all other airplanes travel by, layers of cloud flying is very straight forward, fun, and safe provided you're current and actively being proactive/ahead of the airplane. You're entire story could be avoided with a simple approach into whatever airport you landed at. Please do yourself and your family a favor and start your IFR training today. You won't regret it, flying and traveling in general will be exponentially more enjoyable and then when you hear that guy trying to find a hole in the clouds while your autopilot is capturing and holding the glideslope to the runway 5 miles out, you'll be able to chuckle to yourself thinking "dude, go get your instrument rating."


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Thanks and you don’t sound like the annoying quarterback at all. You provided the advice (which I now know) but also based on your experience, vs saying “I would’ve never done that”. I appreciate it, and it was more or less the intent of the posting. Mistakes happen, we all make them. Putting mine out in the public may help someone avoid it. When I want “that was stupid I would’ve never done that” I’ll go to a different forum.

oh and the NASA report was already filed.

[gitmo234]

Went out to the plane today. We may have a problem. At KDCY it was 5.5 quarts. After a 3 hour leg it was at 4 this morning. I’m not going to call the IA on thanksgiving but there’s some oil down the nose wheel, and all the way back to the rotating beacon. 

 

Caveat. A month ago I spilled 1/4 of a quart on accident when I dropped the oil while pouring.

 

good news is that I’m not far from Newell aviation and I could just drop it off for an overhaul and call it a day, if it’s that bad.

 

 

[Steelstring]

52 minutes ago, gitmo234 said:

Thanks and you don’t sound like the annoying quarterback at all. You provided the advice (which I now know) but also based on your experience, vs saying “I would’ve never done that”. I appreciate it, and it was more or less the intent of the posting. Mistakes happen, we all make them. Putting mine out in the public may help someone avoid it. When I want “that was stupid I would’ve never done that” I’ll go to a different forum.

oh and the NASA report was already filed.

Thanks for being brave enough to put this out there.  If nothing else, this gets each of us to revisit our personal minimums and evaluate our preflight procedures as we think through your experience. That is valuable in and of itself. 

I am half way through my instrument training.  I’ve not yet been in the situation, but I’m not doing VFR on top until I finish my instrument ticket.

 

[gitmo234]

Just now, bluehighwayflyer said:

Yeah, that oil all over the wing root is definitely not normal. It would also be hard to burn the oil all the way down to 4 quarts inadvertently with a healthy engine.  I would get it looked at by a professional ASAP.

I don’t have a problem with VFR over the top, personally, but with the availability of inexpensive ADS-B “in” equipment these days there is absolutely no reason to fly cross country without it.

Stick with it and thanks for posting.  It takes a lot of courage to admit mistakes around here.

Jim

 

 

Yeah the IA here on the field will take a look before we fly back, otherwise we’re driving. 

I’ve done VFR over the top quite a few times, but there’s really no room for error with it.

i have ADS-B in and out, and my flight briefings (I checked 1800wxbrief.com hourly almost for the 24 hours prior) was quite different than reality. 

[gitmo234]

The local IA in my old hometown took my call today. I’m #1 on Friday but he suspects based on consumption that I’ve either had a cylinder go bad and I’m blowing oil out based off some of the pics it looks like the prop (with the AD), both of which he’s handled before. He’s going to have a diagnosis for me tomorrow. 

It’s gonna be a fun drive back to VA

Edited November 23, 2017 by gitmo234
Fixing iPhone grammar bullshit

[Candy man]

Quick question. 

 

I am am also a VFR pilot working on my instrument, when I fly vfr trips I always try and get flight following. I think they're fantastic and have a,ways been helpful. What's the reason you seemed hesitant to use them, or did misunderstand?