Yesterday, I finished my piece about flying with Maurice by giving him thanks for a great flying lesson. It got me thinking about other great lessons I learned in airplanes with other flight instructors and I thought of another, with an instructor by the name of “Ed.” Yeah, that’s what we’ll call him, Ed.
One day, the company dispatched me to pick up one of our twin Cessnas from the paint shop. On the way back in, they gave me a call and asked me to divert to another airport to pick up Ed and his student, whose airplane broke down in the middle of their training sortie. When I found the two of them, they had terminated the training flight and now they were just passengers.
Since Ed was my senior, I deferred command to him. He settled into the right seat while his student strapped into on the seats in the rear of the airplane. “Naw, it’s your airplane,” Ed said.
We fired up, taxied out, and went through the pre-takeoff checks. While I was handling the flying, Ed was backing me up with the checklist and running the radio. I looked around and asked the student if he was ready and got a thumbs up and then asked Ed if he was ready. He nodded the affirmative and asked if I was ready. I nodded and he gave the call that we were departing Runway 5.
I eased the power on and swung out onto the runway. When I lined up, I squeezed on takeoff power and we started to roll. Gauges for the left engine looked good, so did those for the right. We rotated, I raised the gear, and then it happened.
At about 500 feet agl, one of the engines sputtered. Not a great sputter, just a little popping. Like something wasn’t quite right. I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I hesitated. I hesitated because it was something that had never happened to me in a multi-engine airplane and I found myself taking time, too much time, to think about it.
Now let me explain: in training, a multi-engine flight instructor can be a pain in the butt. He or she sits in the right seat doing dastardly things like easing back one of the throttles, or a mixture control, or doing something to make one of the propellers stop supplying thrust to the effort of flight.
Now, let me emphasize: the instructor usually takes away all the power. Now I was sitting in an airplane that was doing something…, well…, funny. There was a slight popping of the power, but there was no swing toward the inoperative engine.
This had never happened before. In the past, all of my experience with engine problems with a twin resulted in a loss of power and a determined turn in the direction of the engine that stopped running.
There was just that moment of hesitation… It was something I didn’t like.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the slight grin on Ed’s face. When I looked at him, and he knew I was looking at him, he gave up all pretense of being sly with the mixture for the right engine and busted out laughing.
He thought it was funny. And, it was.
But more importantly, it was one of the best lessons in flying twins that I ever had. It reinforced the idea that if anything happens, ease the mixtures forward, place the props full against the firewall, and open the throttles all the way. Then you can start trouble-shooting as to why it was making the funny noises.
The other great lesson for me, one I would like to pass on to others, is that hesitation can last a very long time, even if it takes only seconds. Surprise in the cockpit is never a good thing and recognizing when something is amiss can be a lengthy process, even if time is measured in seconds.
And that was one of the best lessons I have ever learned. Thanks, Ed.
-30-
© 2011 J. Clark
Hesitation!
I commented in one of my recent blog posts about the first time my instructor pulled a simulated forced landing on me without warning me in advance.
I remember it in slow motion.
I *saw* his left hand closing the throttle and mixture control. I *remember* the question that flashed through my mind: what’s John doing? And then, so help me, as the airspeed started to bleed off, I *waited* for at least 2 or 3 seconds before I asked John what he was doing.
He rewarded me with a well-justified broadside. “It’s an engine failure! Come on, do something!”
And even *then* it took me a good few seconds to get my head around the fact that we were in a simulated engine failure situation and I had better damn well do something about it. OK: carby heat on, mixture full rich, fuel pump on, switch tanks … and then I was away.
It was a great lesson. Hats off to you on this post, and to your instructor, Ed.