Flying Life: Mind your manners
Pilot lessons from childhood
As pilot owners and renters, we often get into the habit of being less than gentle with our airplanes, leading to higher operating costs and more time spent in maintenance. In the hopes of avoiding those unpleasant consequences, here’s a little reminder of the manners most of us learned as children but have forgotten somewhere along the way.
Always put your toys away when you’re finished playing with them. As kids, we learned the hard way what happens when we park our bike behind dad’s truck. It’s just as important to use proper securing procedures when we finish with our airplanes for the day. If the airplane is parked on the ramp instead of in a hangar, we have to master the art of effective knot tying—the important thing is that the knot is secure with no slack in the lines. The flight school where I work once lost three airplanes in a single storm. One of them was flipped upside down. The other two collided, causing wing and tail damage. In addition to a proper tiedown, don’t forget the gust lock and the pitot cover. Your favorite airplane will thank you.
How many of us have walked out to an airplane, excited for an early morning flight, when our plans were foiled by a bald spot on a tire or a burned-out light?No hitting your friends. During checkrides, just prior to takeoff, it is not uncommon for the applicant to ask me to beat on the inside of my door to make sure it’s locked. But rather than possibly damaging the door panel and wearing out the latching mechanism, why not simply open the window and run a hand along the frame where the door meets the fuselage? If it’s flush, you know the door is closed. Another option is to look at the inside seam around the closed door. If you see blue sky, then you know you’ve got a problem. Rough handling of the airplane during preflight is another common practice that seems unwise. The flight controls check should simply consist of smoothly making a box by turning the yoke or stick all the way to the left, then full aft, then full right before moving it forward again. You don’t need to roughly turn the wheel back and forth numerous times as if you’re trying to test the strength of the cables and pulleys. Likewise, when checking the security of hinges and bolts on the walk-around, use a gentle touch when manipulating control surfaces. Vigorously shaking the flaps to test the integrity of the bolt is counterproductive at best, and could, over time, cause the very damage you’re trying to prevent.
When playtime is over, clean up after yourself. An airplane should be treated no differently than our own homes. Picking up used water bottles and trash is an easy task and will go a long way toward enjoying a clean, well-maintained airplane, rather than one that looks like it’s been abused and neglected. Another frequently forgotten item is a postflight walk-around. How many of us have walked out to an airplane, excited for an early morning flight, when our plans were foiled by a bald spot on a tire or a burned-out light? The problem could easily have been addressed after the last flight, if only someone had noticed the issue.
If you play roughly, your toys will break. My son loves crashing his little plastic trucks into one another, or into the brick fireplace, or generally into anything that will make a loud noise. Much to his dismay, most of the wheels have fallen off or broken. In an effort to get the best performance, we pilots sometimes treat our engines the same way. We run the rpm right at the red line during cruise, or abruptly slam the throttle to full or yank it back to idle. Whether these things actually cause shock cooling in an engine is debated, but regardless, rough handling will cause all manner of issues over time, including more frequent overhauls.
While I don’t think any of us would intentionally cause harm to the aircraft we love, we sometimes get so focused on the business of preflighting and flying that we forget the manners that would usually come naturally. So here’s hoping we can all take better care of our aircraft, and in doing so, enjoy more time
in the air.
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