Forgetting to use pitot tube cover

Ed Haywood

Ed Haywood

Final Approach
Joined
Jul 12, 2020
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Tampa FL
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Ed
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FD77
Ok, I think I need a trick for this.

About 25% of the time, mostly after an aggressive acro flight, I hangar my aircraft and leave in a hurry without remembering to put the pitot tube cover on.

I am in central Florida, which is a highly "bio-active" environment in the summer. Lots of bugs, frogs, lizards, birds, snakes, mice, and various other critters everywhere, especially at a grass strip in a rural area.

About 3 times a year, some unknown creature decides my pitot tube is a really good place to stash some leaf cuttings for a later snack.

The material is not enough to affect ASI on takeoff. But when I get up to cruise speed, it gets jammed back in the bend and plugs the tube. Several times I have been on final and noticed I had zero airspeed indicated. I know how my plane feels so this is not a major stressor, but it clearly is something to be avoided.

If I have an acro flight and I notice during pre-flight that I forgot the tube cover, I blow the pitot tube out from the cockpit with compressed air.

So what do the rest of you do to remember to replace the cover after flight? Hang it from the panel or something?
 
Yeah, put it by your wheel chocks if you use them, or hang it by your hangar door (knob, switch, whatever), or put it on your car keys (or car seat) as part of preflight. That way you’re forced to see/touch it as you are finishing up.
 
If I forgot it enough, I'd add it to my shutdown checklist as a reminder. If you look at the psychology behind checklists all the way back to the Flying Fortress demo flight crash, that's really their purpose.

Replacing covers is just part of my SOP so it's a habit I don't forget, but I have equivalents. A club airplane I fly has a G1000. Once shut down, you have to turn the battery back on and let it reboot to get the tach numbers. If I have to do that one more time, it's going on the checklist. Yeah, not a safety critical item, but nice to avoid the annoyance.
 
Final walk around the plane before leaving the hangar. All lights off? Nose wheel chocks in place? Pitot cover on? Battery tender plugged in? All doors closed and locked? No weird leaks?
 
Ed Haywood said:
About 25% of the time, mostly after an aggressive acro flight, I hangar my aircraft and leave in a hurry
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Maybe this represents an opportunity to make a change to your routine that will solve this problem and prevent others.

I always always always make certain that I have enough time to do a thorough post-flight inspection after every flight. Perhaps it could be thought of as a pre-flight inspection for the next flight. It requires about 15 minutes, during which I pretend to be an eagle-eyed IA or a particularly motivated FAA inspector looking for anything that might be amiss. This approach has a couple of advantages that I think are important: it avoids a potential human factors trap inherent in the conduct of pre-flight inspections, in which my overwhelming eagerness to aviate might cause me to overlook, underestimate, or rationalize a defect; and If I find something post-flight that needs fixin’ I can get started on it right away and usually have it resolved before the next flight. I haven’t forgotten a pitot cover etc. since I adopted this method.

Your time constraints and priorities are different from mine, but if you can make time for a thorough post-flight, the local critters will have to find lodging elsewhere.

*I should add that I also do a pre-flight inspection, with a focus on items that may have changed since the previous flight, such as tire pressure, fluid leaks, sump the fuel, etc. And of course, remove the pitot cover.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
About 3 times a year, some unknown creature decides my pitot tube is a really good place to stash some leaf cuttings for a later snack.
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Related note: for a similar reason, I also plug my vent tubes. A mud dauber in a fuel tank vent can choke off fuel flow. I use pipe cleaners with “Remove before flight” streamers attached.

I do have an item on my shutdown list, FWIW. The suggestions about clipping the cover to car keys or the tow bar would work at home, but not so much when away. I might start tucking my wallet into the pouch that holds my pitot cover and vent plugs, though.
 
We have a lot of bugs in Texas. Part of post-flight is to clean them off the leading edges of the wings. I leave the pitot cover on the hangar floor under the pitot tube on pre-flight, where I'd step on it if I didn't put it back on while cleaning off the bugs.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Yeah, put it by your wheel chocks if you use them, or hang it by your hangar door (knob, switch, whatever), or put it on your car keys (or car seat) as part of preflight. That way you’re forced to see/touch it as you are finishing up.
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Pretty good idea. I'll start hanging it from the hanger light switch.
 
Last item on our post flight procedures is to "put the aircraft to bed", if it's not going to have immediate maintenance done. It means that the canopy get closed, intake and tailpipe covers go in and all other required covers get installed. Also known as "Putting the red gear on".
 
Ed Haywood said:
About 25% of the time, mostly after an aggressive acro flight, I hangar my aircraft and leave in a hurry without remembering to put the pitot tube cover on.
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That is what checklists are for.

Do you have a “post-flight” check list?
 
Years ago the airport manager warned us about birds nesting in our planes even when opening the hangar door.
So I keep my cowl plugs and pitot cover in the cargo area it’s the first thing I do getting out of the plane. I take them with me and use them every where I stop like at a restaurant.It’s a habit now.
My wife does it when she is with me while I chock a tire.
 
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My wife posted a big sign, complete with hand drawn graphics, right next to the light switch by the hangar door:

KEYS?
PHONE?

I see that right before I leave. I will leave it to you to figure out why she felt it necessary to put that sign there...
 
midlifeflyer said:
If I forgot it enough, I'd add it to my shutdown checklist as a reminder. If you look at the psychology behind checklists all the way back to the Flying Fortress demo flight crash, that's really their purpose.

Replacing covers is just part of my SOP so it's a habit I don't forget, but I have equivalents. A club airplane I fly has a G1000. Once shut down, you have to turn the battery back on and let it reboot to get the tach numbers. If I have to do that one more time, it's going on the checklist. Yeah, not a safety critical item, but nice to avoid the annoyance.
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Yes, exactly. I would add that the very act of putting something on a checklist forces you to think about it more carefully, which can make that same checklist item become redundant. That is how it often works for me: I add something to the checklist when I am repeatedly forgetting something, but once I have written it down, I usually remember to do it without even looking at the checklist. So then I take it off the checklist.
 
sarangan said:
Yes, exactly. I would add that the very act of putting something on a checklist forces you to think about it more carefully, which can make that same checklist item become redundant. That is how it often works for me: I add something to the checklist when I am repeatedly forgetting something, but once I have written it down, I usually remember to do it without even looking at the checklist. So then I take it off the checklist.
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I recently read a book on checklists in the medical field. It actually comes from aviation. What's interesting about the book is that the author - one of the people who was pushing the use of medical checklists - doesn't talk about them in terms of a "how to." Rather they are there to allow those who already know what they are doing to check for small but nevertheless important, sometimes often also critical, items which tend to get missed.

Not in this thread, but I see so much of the opposite in aviation, where some seem to treat checklists as a insult to their masculinity.
 
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DaleB said:
My wife posted a big sign, complete with hand drawn graphics, right next to the light switch by the hangar door:

KEYS?
PHONE?

I see that right before I leave. I will leave it to you to figure out why she felt it necessary to put that sign there...
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You once locked yourself out with the phone inside?
 
midlifeflyer said:
Not in this thread, but I see so much of the opposite in aviation, where some seem to treat checklists as a insult to their masculinity.
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The ones who I’ve met who are like that are exclusively private pilots. They also eschew recurrent training, want pencilwhipped flight reviews, and see no problem with disregarding VFR minimums. Pretty consistently, it seems that the higher their ratings, and the more hours, the more risk-averse they are. I’ve never had an airline pilot cut me off and say to skip the briefing when we’re doing an 18 mile breakfast flight.
 
ateamer said:
The ones who I’ve met who are like that are exclusively private pilots. They also eschew recurrent training, want pencilwhipped flight reviews, and see no problem with disregarding VFR minimums. Pretty consistently, it seems that the higher their ratings, and the more hours, the more risk-averse they are. I’ve never had an airline pilot cut me off and say to skip the briefing when we’re doing an 18 mile breakfast flight.
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I think you observation is essentially correct but I don't think it's limited by the certificate you hold. I think you are probably talking about personal aviation. I think a lot of it is from initial training when you see read-and-do for engine start and run-up checks, but never again in the flight. After all, there's not much to do, so why bother. That becomes the habit. I've told the story before about the pilot who during transition training kept missing the exact same before landing task. I would prompt with, "You missed something." The pilot world look around the flight deck trying to figure it out. But never even though of looking at something that was sitting on top of the glareshield in their line of sight.

You can even see it in YouTube videos where creators who might specifically mention they did the runup off-camera, there's not even a hint of any in-flight checklist use. The notable exception is Guido Warnecke who makes checklist use look like an art form. Another exception I see are pilots who move to more complex aircraft and take type-specific training where checklist use is made a priority.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I think you observation is essentially correct but I don't think it's limited by the certificate you hold. I think you are probably talking about personal aviation. I think a lot of it is from initial training when you see read-and-do for engine start and run-up checks, but never again in the flight. After all, there's not much to do, so why bother. That becomes the habit. I've told the story before about the pilot who during transition training kept missing the exact same before landing task. I would prompt with, "You missed something." The pilot world look around the flight deck trying to figure it out. But never even though of looking at something that was sitting on top of the glareshield in their line of sight.

You can even see it in YouTube videos where creators who might specifically mention they did the runup off-camera, there's not even a hint of any in-flight checklist use. The notable exception is Guido Warnecke who makes checklist use look like an art form. Another exception I see are pilots who move to more complex aircraft and take type-specific training where checklist use is made a priority.
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I would add that checklists don't always have to be in written text form. One can also use the physical layout of the panel as a checklist, sweeping left to right to address every item. As long as the process is reliable and repeatble, then I don't have an issue with the exact way in which the checklist tasks are being executed. The problem is with things that are not readily visible, like 'did you close the baggage door', or 'did you check the hydraulic fluid', which is one reason why written checklists tend to be used more on the ground. If the pilot is still missing something right in front of him, then perhaps he is not being methodical and thoughtful in his actions. That can happen even with a written checklist - you can read and do, and not stop to think. I've asked students, right after they have done a runup, what the RPM drop was during the magneto check. You would be surprised how many times they don't remember. So they do it again. That could be because there wasn't anything noteworthy to remember, but sometimes it's because they are going through the rote process of reading and doing and not taking any mental notes. During training, I try to hit the 'mental note' aspect more than the 'read and do' aspect.
 
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sarangan said:
I would add that checklists don't always have to be in written text form. One can also use the physical layout of the panel as a checklist, sweeping left to right to address every item. A
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I agree that a physical checklist does not have to be text. If you have the talent and a visual depiction works better for you, great. Write one for yourself that's in pictures.

But if you are saying that a flow pattern, even a good one, is a replacement for a list of items to verify, I disagree. To many, the ideal checklist use is to complete the task with a flow pattern and then verify that haven't missed something with a checklist.

That was actually the bottom line problem with my transitioning student. They learned flow to substitute for checklist. Even the concept of there being a checklist no longer existed.
 
Most aerobatic pilots use flows. Loose objects in the cockpit are bad. Don't want to get smacked in the face by your POH.

Now that I moved from an enclosed hangar to a shade hangar, securing the aircraft is more involved. I've started doing a post-flight walkaround inspection before I leave.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I agree that a physical checklist does not have to be text. If you have the talent and a visual depiction works better for you, great. Write one for yourself that's in pictures.

But if you are saying that a flow pattern, even a good one, is a replacement for a list of items to verify, I disagree. To many, the ideal checklist use is to complete the task with a flow pattern and then verify that haven't missed something with a checklist.

That was actually the bottom line problem with my transitioning student. They learned flow to substitute for checklist. Even the concept of there being a checklist no longer existed.
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A written checklist should always be available to verify actions, and it should be customized for the individual pilot to address specific weak points. But the flow checklist - and I would emphasize that it is a flow checklist, not just a flow pattern - has a more direct and tactile connection to the brain.

If someone is still missing items that are right in front of them, that suggests the mental connection has not been fully developed yet. That is exactly where a written checklist helps. Even a Post-it note can function as a written checklist. There is a time and place for a formally written checklist, and pre-takeoff is one of them, so is cruise, or prior to an instrument approach. On final is not. Neither is a busy traffic pattern full of airplanes.

I have seen people pull out a written checklist on final and give it a quick glance, mostly to prove that they are following the rules. But that is more of a symbolic nod to the rule than a meaningful safety practice.

There are huge variations in checklist culture. Some pilots think they are too good to use checklists at all. At the other extreme are those who insist on using only the checklist in the POH because that is the “FAA-approved” checklist. I remember watching a checkride pilot doing a walkaround with the original thick POH binder in his hand, clearly trying to prove something to the examiner.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I agree that a physical checklist does not have to be text. If you have the talent and a visual depiction works better for you, great. Write one for yourself that's in pictures.
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What fascinating idea. I never would have thought of that. Hm, let's see...
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I like the “put it somewhere you have to touch before leaving” idea. For me that seems more reliable than just trying to remember one more thing when you’re tired or in a hurry.

Hanging it on the hangar light switch or door handle sounds simple and hard to miss. Same logic as putting something next to your car keys, wallet, tow bar, or chocks — it turns the pitot cover from a memory item into a physical interruption in your normal exit flow.

I also like the idea of treating post-flight almost like the pre-flight for the next flight. Not necessarily a 30-minute inspection every time, but a fixed “put the airplane to bed” routine: covers/plugs, chocks, doors, master off, leaks, general look-around, then leave. If the pitot cover keeps getting missed, I’d absolutely put it on a written post-flight/shutdown checklist until it becomes automatic.

The critter problem would make me pretty motivated too. Losing airspeed indication on final may be manageable if you know the airplane well, but it’s still one of those small avoidable things that can stack up with other problems on the wrong day.
 
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