Category: listener-mail

We Entered A Spiral And Impacted The Ground

During Episode 57 – Bird Strikes, Flying Turtles, And Flight Simulators, Carl shared his experience and views on flying the increasingly popular, full motion, Redbird flight simulator for general aviation aircraft. He had a lot of good things to say about it’s capabilities and we’ve received some listener mail that supports how wonderful this training tool truly is.

CFI Russ writes in to tell us how he uses and enjoys the Redbird to keep his students safe:

Just listened to your episode #57 where Carl flew the Redbird. Thanks for the flying turtle visuals by the way.

I am an active part-time CFI and also teach in the Redbird FMX in a nearby community college’s aviation degree program. It is a GREAT tool for flight instruction. Most of the students we have in it are working on their instrument rating, as you’d expect, and in this capacity it’s a wonderful piece of equipment. The ability to simulate system failures realistically, establish a cloud layer at minimums with poor visibility below that, and not being limited to approaches at a few local airports is very conducive to effective instrument training.

I’ve also found it to be great for VFR training though. I had a student sign up for the Redbird course who was not an instrument student – he was actually a retiree working on his Sport Pilot license. So I had to develop a curriculum specifically for him. At first I was a little concerned that the device wasn’t going to be very appropriate, but quickly found ways to make it a very effective training environment.

Although the version we have is set up for a typical 6-pack Cessna 172SP, some of the things I was able to do were:

  • “Fail” all the instruments except what he’d have in the typical “Cub” type aircraft he intends to fly, and have him enter inadvertent IMC with absolutely no training or discussion beforehand. The FAA statistic is with no training, you have something like 178 seconds to live. He lasted about 120 seconds before we entered a spiral and impacted the ground. Pretty eye-opening. But then, with a little work and training on compass errors and how to keep the plane upright, he now can fly for plenty long enough to get out of it. Success!
  • Recreated flying at high density-altitudes and the effect on takeoff and climb performance. We even inadvertently flew up a dead-end canyon in Colorado where the ground climbed faster than the plane could, and there was no way to turn around – end up stalling it in while trying to turn. Again, eye-opening for the student!
  • Went over night-time illusions, black hole effect, and false horizons to expand his aviation knowledge.
  • Simulated pitot and static system failures.
  • We even recreated the Cory Lidle Cirrus crash flying up the East River – we were able to set the wind and visibility and such exactly by the NTSB report, and when he turned at the same point and direction they did, sure enough, we hit a building.  But when we ran it again and turned into the wind instead, we made the turn with room to spare. I was really proud of this one, the simulation worked out exactly right.

Many other things as well.  It was fun and educational for both him and me. It is a great tool for lots of training purposes, and certainly allows us to get things done on a rainy day.

I do really like that I can have the students fly instrument approach procedures anywhere in the U.S. and can therefore find approaches that exactly meet my lesson objectives for that day (need work on DME arcing approaches? No problem!) Of course, you can do that with most PCATD-type products too, but the visuals and motion are what sets the Redbird apart to me.

I’ve had students do an approach to closely spaced parallel runways in a crosswind and low vis, for example, to see if they pick out the correct runway. Stuff like that – keeps it fun and challenging. (Full disclosure – up until a few years ago I worked for the FAA developing instrument approach procedures, so I know lots of little remote airports with procedures that are unusual for some reason or another – like I said, keeps it fun and challenging!)

Well thanks for sharing all that Russ! It really shows the value of flight simulators in the training environment and also how capable and realistic the Redbird truly is.

But what about you? Have you flown a Redbird before? Tell us about your experience and what you liked about this full motion general aviation flight simulator. Leave a comment below!

Broken Throttle Cable In-Flight? Here’s One Outcome.

Today’s listener mail comes from the West Coast and was sent in by our friend Ron of RightSeatFlying.com. Ron share’s his story of a broken throttle cable that caused him to make an emergency landing in San Jose, CA.

As we were exchanging emails with him, we found out he later had a mixture control cable break on him as well. Two different flights, one common clue. Read more  to learn what Ron believes is the dead giveaway to an impending cable failure!

I had more of an emergency landing with a twist. To set the stage when I started the flight the throttle in the Warrior we were flying was rather stiff. It was a friends plane and I got to fly it a lot as the part-owner wasn’t a pilot. So it took two hands to rotate the throttle back and forth and it loosened up after a bit. Yes, I ignored that big clue!

So the flight goes fine for an hour or so and we come back to our departure airport, I do a few landings for some practice and as I’m turning to downwind and reducing power the throttle cable breaks. Fortunately it stayed in the full power position.

I declare an emergency and continue climbing while I have power to do so. The airport was KRHV (Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County, CA) and the runway is about 3,000 feet long. However, I was a newish private pilot with about 100 hours or less and I wanted more options. So I went over to KSJC (San Jose International Airport, CA) and, even though it was the Monday night of a closing holiday weekend, I shut them down and the airliners scattered and I got the big 9,000 foot runway (or so it was back then).

After climbing up to about 5,000 feet so I can make the 6 mile flight over safely, I pulled the mixture to kill the engine and deadsticked it in. The controller asked while I was on short final if I would please make the high speed taxiway so they can get the airliners in. I said I’d try.

As I flared the prop stopped windmilling and we were committed but I made sure we were going to land a little long as that was the point of going there to not have to put it on the numbers and then find myself short a little. So we touched down and the high speed taxiway is coming up and I make it and coast off the runway and past the yellow lines and tell the tower were are safe and we need a tow.

A police car came out to meet us and I don’t think we got the fire trucks at all. After giving a statement that was it. No other paperwork or repercussions from declaring the emergency.

And here was our reply:

Wild story! To be honest, I don’t know if a stiff throttle would have been a big enough clue for me to consider a pending cable issue. Obviously it’s easy to see the relationship after it broke, but that’s an interesting point that perhaps truly was indicative of a cable issue. Did you ever ask a mechanic if that is a typical clue in such a malfunction?

You were definitely fortunate to find yourself with full power versus the other way around. I’ve often though what I would do if I wasn’t able to regulate or reduce the throttle for landing and all I can come up with was what you did, pulling the mixture. Although, I’m honestly curious if you can manipulate the power setting enough through minor mixture reductions to slow the engine and still keep it running down final.

It would be an interesting experiment in a simulator to reduce the mixture as if you were reducing the throttle to slow the engine before flare and full mixture cutoff.

And then we learned this wasn’t the first time Ron has experienced a broken cable. In his followup response, he explains the second time he experienced a broken engine control cable.

To prove that lightning does strike twice, a few years ago a friend and I were flying to KOSH (Oshkosh, WI) in a Mooney. Departing KPAO (Palo Alto, CA) my friend was flying the rented Mooney and during the prop cycle said the prop [lever] seems stiff. He was referring to the same push-pull on the cable. All seemed fine and we flew to KWYS (West Yellowstone, MT) 5 hours away for our first stop.

I flew the second leg leaving KWYS and during the runup and prop cycle the rpm’s never came back up. We could never get it above 2,000 rpm at full power. [We] Taxi back and shut down and called a mechanic. 2 hours later, as he had to be called from Billings, he pops the cowl and we start it up and he sprays lube on the cable. As I cycle it many times the prop never really goes to flat pitch. After cycling it 15-20 times the cable sheared off at the end of the blue knob and I pulled it all the way out. I raised it to show him the BLUE and he finally understood. [I] Shutdown and he wired it to flat pitch and we went on our way with a mostly fixed pitch prop except in descents.

So the moral is a stiff cable is something indicative of impending failure. I even have that part on audio as my buddy says the prop is stiff. Kinda ominous to go back and hear that.

So there you have it! Moral of the story is a stiff engine control is very likely the onset of an impending cable malfunction. Hopefully these stories have helped educate you of the possibilities of losing engine control and how to cope with it.

Have you ever experienced an incident like this? Leave us your stories and comments below!