Good ADM Saved my Bacon

Well....probably the most instructive demanding and humbling day of flight and ADM I've had since my Instrument Checkride:

Patient Air Lift (PALS) flight: Second leg of a two leg mission: Started in North Philly (KPNE) to Barnes (KBAF-BTW a new restaurant is opening there soon!!!)

My leg was Barnes to Rockland ME. Spent a whole bunch of time the evening before and morning of the mission scouring weather reports and info. Seemed to me to be prudent about the coastal weather forecast there was a whole lotta issues with visibilities and ceilings in the TAFS and local WX. Had to file for all legs of the trip: POU to BAF, BAF to RKD, RKD to POU. Little voice in my head told me to file the alternate to Portland ME, major field, towered, and had lots of well lit runway to use, and take the approach plates. Told the patient we picked up at BAF that we could possibly divert to Portland, and to be prepared for that. Meanwhile, the WX in all of coastal ME, NH, MA was going downhill, and they arrived at BAF 2 hrs late from PNE.

Off we go....in the mix, all the way from just northeast of BAF, cruising along at 7K. I have waypoint WX on the Aera and reports from RKD were now at minimums (well below my personal mins)at 40nm out from PWM, I called Portland approach and told them I was diverting to Portland, and to set me up for the RNAV11 approach. Late afternoon, getting darker by the minute, the marine layer was visible along the whole coast, and I made it in to PWM with visibilities at 1 1/4nm ceiling 600, BR/FG. I asked the line guy how long the WX was like this he said it had only come over the field in the last few minutes. No wonder there were 3 SPECI updates in the FCSTS since the last regular ATIS was broadcast!

Patient gets set for a bus to Rockland ME by the FBO, we say our goodbyes, fuel up and off we go..into vis 1/16mile, BR/FG, ceiling 300/1000 layered to 2100. Man was I glued to that panel scan. Dealing with the climbout and turning from rwy heading (112) to on course (248) with the head games working against the instruments! As close to a 0-0 departure as I would ever want to have to fly. Finally relaxed a bit when we got on course, above the layers and homeward bound at 6K, put on the autopilot, had some tunes in the headset and took a deep breath.

I've done a lot of thinking about this flight. Learned a hell of a lot about me, my aircraft, my shortcomings and abilities on this one. Glad that I prepped for Portland and had it in the back of my mind the whole time. Oh, and I would NOT do a departure in these conditions for a fun flight out of KPOU. This one, was a bit different...
 
Baron2PG said:
Topping off with fuel is perfectly good SOP with a Tiger or a 172; when I had a Tiger I too kept it topped off. However, with my current plane topping of the tanks is simply not feasible as it holds 196 gallons (~1200lbs). For the vast majority of my travel I only need 100 gallons of gas, saving 600lbs for passengers and baggage. Keeping up with the fuel totalizer is a bit trickier when you never top the tanks.
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Yep, if you can fill the tanks and the seats your fuel tanks are too small:D
 
Failure in ADM:

Flew to KFFA. Fun flight, took off with full fuel in a Piper Archer, which should have given me about 5 hours of flight time - 4 hours plus 1 hour reserve. Landed at KFFA after about 1:45 in flying time, and had a really good time checking out the monument.

Return flight ran into headwinds. Also, clouds and turbulence caused me to climb and descend a few times to find smooth air to keep my wife comfortable. Right around KRDU, I flipped tanks, and about 2 minutes later, the engine quit. I flipped the tank back and the engine came back to life....

Wait, how long have I been flying? I bust out the watch and start working backward....oh snap, 4:50 minutes....look at the chart and only one airport pops out at me as being a place I know I can get fuel - KRDU. I divert and tell ATC that I am minimum fuel. I'm on pins and needles, wondering if I'm going to make it or if I'm going to be surfing trees in a few minutes.

Make it into KRDU, and fill up the tanks - 48.5 gallons of fuel...tanks hold 48 usable....

Most expensive fuel I've ever bought, but I called it my "Stupid Tax." That will never happen again.
 
SkyHog said:
Failure in ADM:

Flew to KFFA. Fun flight, took off with full fuel in a Piper Archer, which should have given me about 5 hours of flight time - 4 hours plus 1 hour reserve. Landed at KFFA after about 1:45 in flying time, and had a really good time checking out the monument.

Return flight ran into headwinds. Also, clouds and turbulence caused me to climb and descend a few times to find smooth air to keep my wife comfortable. Right around KRDU, I flipped tanks, and about 2 minutes later, the engine quit. I flipped the tank back and the engine came back to life....

Wait, how long have I been flying? I bust out the watch and start working backward....oh snap, 4:50 minutes....look at the chart and only one airport pops out at me as being a place I know I can get fuel - KRDU. I divert and tell ATC that I am minimum fuel. I'm on pins and needles, wondering if I'm going to make it or if I'm going to be surfing trees in a few minutes.

Make it into KRDU, and fill up the tanks - 48.5 gallons of fuel...tanks hold 48 usable....

Most expensive fuel I've ever bought, but I called it my "Stupid Tax." That will never happen again.
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Not that it would have added fuel to your tanks but I think, in hindsight of course, you should have declared a fuel emergency, not fuel critical. I also think, given you "knew" you had 10mins left, I would not have limited my alternate landing spots to ones you "know [you] can get fuel". I'd be looking below me for fields, roads, anything that might allow a walk away landing.
 
Baron2PG said:
Topping off with fuel is perfectly good SOP with a Tiger or a 172; when I had a Tiger I too kept it topped off. However, with my current plane topping of the tanks is simply not feasible as it holds 196 gallons (~1200lbs). For the vast majority of my travel I only need 100 gallons of gas, saving 600lbs for passengers and baggage. Keeping up with the fuel totalizer is a bit trickier when you never top the tanks.
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That's understandable if you fly something with L/R, Tip tanks, etc.

Palmpilot said:
Also, topping off a Tiger or 172 may not be a great idea before taking off from a high altitude airport!
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I live in the west. My field is 4100 MSL. If flying to a mountain strip, I don't refuel at their site without calculating takeoff distance, DA etc. Still easy I have only flown with all seats occupied exactly ONCE. Usually only two of us on board.
 
Baron2PG said:
However, with my current plane topping of the tanks is simply not feasible as it holds 196 gallons (~1200lbs). For the vast majority of my travel I only need 100 gallons of gas, saving 600lbs for passengers and baggage. Keeping up with the fuel totalizer is a bit trickier when you never top the tanks.
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What kind of tanks do you have? What I mean is, do you simply have 98 gallons per side, or do you have main/aux/tip or something else?

Do you ever top off when you're going to go somewhere alone or with 1-2 other people so that you're returning to a known condition?

In the Mooney, I only have 89 gallons usable, but if I'm topped off that only leaves 495 pounds for the cabin load. So, I generally fly with partial fuel as well. Luckily, the totalizer is always within a gallon.

I'd like to have a Twin Comanche at some point, with at least main/aux/tips. While that means there's more to do in terms of managing fuel, it also means that you can have that known condition with less than full fuel by running some tanks dry and topping others.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
What kind of tanks do you have? What I mean is, do you simply have 98 gallons per side, or do you have main/aux/tip or something else?

Do you ever top off when you're going to go somewhere alone or with 1-2 other people so that you're returning to a known condition?
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My Baron holds 166 in the mains and 32 in the wing tips, though it isn't a tip tank per se as it is integral to the wing and gravity flows into the mains. With max fuel I still have 495lb of payload. I probably have topped it two or three times in six years and that was when I found fuel so friggin cheap it just made sense. I will occasional top the mains but it is kind of a guess as the fuel will start to run uphill into the tips before it is "full". I usually keep 100 gallons in the plane which provides three hours plus an hour reserve and 900lbs of people.

Just flew up to DC tonight with four on board. Picked up some rime ice in northern NC, good thing the Baron is FIKI, nonissue.
 
Today's ADM forced me to scrub a flight in an iced up Warrior tonight. Probably would have been fine, but with no gun to my head just not worth the risk.
 
I suspect if one doesn't have stories like this one hasn't been trying very hard. The Free Bird diverts for fuel when it has flown 4.5 hours, no matter how close it is to its home base or destinations.
 
steingar said:
I suspect if one doesn't have stories like this one hasn't been trying very hard. The Free Bird diverts for fuel when it has flown 4.5 hours, no matter how close it is to its home base or destinations.
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True, but I've had fewer "pucker factor" moments as I've flown more. I attribute this to recognizing the accident chain as it occurs, and breaking it preemptively. That's my point with the thread.
 
good story. better to error on the side of caution. guessing wrong in a plane can kill you--lots of NTSB reports agree with me.
 
Interesting video. A couple of thoughts on it:

1) I make a point of looking at radar returns when icing is possible. I want to avoid anything that gets a return as much as possible. I've even gone out of the way for light green or blue returns on NEXRAD for icing concerns. If the picture they showed was accurate (all yellows and reds), that's a red flag.
2) It sounds like the ice got really bad, really fast, or else his version of light ice might not have been accurate to start. Combined with the now-awaited climb clearance to get out of it, obviously the desire was to climb. It can be hard to accept pushing the nose down, but I'm always very mindful of my airspeed in icing and try to keep it nice and high. You just don't know where your stall speed is, and I'd guess on a TBM the stalls are abrupt.
3) The best thing to do when confronted with an icing layer is to climb through it as quickly as possible without delay. Coming out of New York, this can be harder to achieve, but it's good to be pushy if need be. I know Bruce has his story about being pushy with NY ATC. It says in the video that one of the points with those types of airplanes is that they climb quickly through the layers, which they do. Although 700 HP and 6500 lb gross weight means that our 310 has a better power to weight ratio. Something to think about.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Interesting video. A couple of thoughts on it:

1) I make a point of looking at radar returns when icing is possible. I want to avoid anything that gets a return as much as possible. I've even gone out of the way for light green or blue returns on NEXRAD for icing concerns. If the picture they showed was accurate (all yellows and reds), that's a red flag.
2) It sounds like the ice got really bad, really fast, or else his version of light ice might not have been accurate to start. Combined with the now-awaited climb clearance to get out of it, obviously the desire was to climb. It can be hard to accept pushing the nose down, but I'm always very mindful of my airspeed in icing and try to keep it nice and high. You just don't know where your stall speed is, and I'd guess on a TBM the stalls are abrupt.
3) The best thing to do when confronted with an icing layer is to climb through it as quickly as possible without delay. Coming out of New York, this can be harder to achieve, but it's good to be pushy if need be. I know Bruce has his story about being pushy with NY ATC. It says in the video that one of the points with those types of airplanes is that they climb quickly through the layers, which they do. Although 700 HP and 6500 lb gross weight means that our 310 has a better power to weight ratio. Something to think about.
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Here are the things I thought about/reinforced watching the video:

1. Transpost category aircraft reporting icing, especially mod+. That for me means big trouble since they don't bother with what a spam can would call light icing.

2. As a rule I wouldn't accept an altitude with known icing even in deiced aircraft. I would have said, "I'll stay at 12 until I can get an unrestricted climb for icing". That sure could have helped him.

3. Whatever condition I'm facing I always rig the airplane for that condition well in advance, just because I know it could get dicey in a short time and I might forget. It seems he didn't do that since he forgot to do things like turn on the separator.

This kind of thing makes me determined to act quick and decisively whatever the circumstances. 2 minutes isn't a long time to think about it.
 
Tonight was a great example of what this thread is about.

I wanted to go to Schaumburg to meet up with PJ and the rest of the PoA crew at Pilot Pete's. We had a meeting earlier with the manager of the venue for our wedding reception, and that went nearly twice as long as I was expecting, so we were running really late. Strike one. We have a ton of stuff to do for our wedding still, and Kelsey was feeling (and putting on!) some pressure to get some things done tonight, even if we got home late. I knew we wouldn't make it to Schaumburg by 7, so I was thinking about maybe calling Grant and giving him our food order so that we wouldn't be holding others up...

...And I missed the exit to get to my office and pick up my car (I drove to the meeting with Kelsey). Strike three.

And just to make sure that I don't feel too bad about it, I'm pretty tired too.

The "three strikes rule" was suggested to me by the late Phil Winiger, the DPE on my Private and Instrument checkrides - In fact, it was on my IR checkride. If three things go wrong before takeoff, it's probably best not to take off.

Usually, I don't need to count strikes - It's just pure gut feel, or the realization that a fun flight isn't really sounding like much fun any more. But, a no-go is never easy, especially when you really want to see friends or do something cool, so it's kind of nice to be able to point to three specific things and say "Yup, today was not the day to fly."
 
Alexb2000 said:
Here are the things I thought about/reinforced watching the video:

1. Transpost category aircraft reporting icing, especially mod+. That for me means big trouble since they don't bother with what a spam can would call light icing.

2. As a rule I wouldn't accept an altitude with known icing even in deiced aircraft. I would have said, "I'll stay at 12 until I can get an unrestricted climb for icing". That sure could have helped him.

3. Whatever condition I'm facing I always rig the airplane for that condition well in advance, just because I know it could get dicey in a short time and I might forget. It seems he didn't do that since he forgot to do things like turn on the separator.

This kind of thing makes me determined to act quick and decisively whatever the circumstances. 2 minutes isn't a long time to think about it.
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Good points as well. I noted those but forgot to say them.

One note on the separator, though. If it works like the other PT-6s I've dealt with, what it does is it removes the ram air effect, which reduces your power. I've met pilots who basically say they don't do it because they don't like the power-speed reduction. There's probably some legitimacy to that. I'd be interested in Dave's thoughts from his PT-6 operation in the King Air.

On pistons, I treat prop heat, windshield heat, and pitot heat as one switch.

The continuous climb is a good one, too. Of course at 12k he's probably burning 50% more fuel than at higher altitude, so that is another concern. Also he was told light icing by the controller (who I've talked to before), which was a disservice.
 
Looked at the NTSB report, according to that he was informed of light at 14, moderate at 15-17. So yeah, I would've asked for a straight climb through that whole area and left it at that.

I also checked out FlightAware, which has its last bits of life in there still. Looks like once he hit the ice his climb decreased from 1500 fpm to 1000 or less. It also shows that he basically ended up with a continuous climb, assuming it's accurate. It just got very shallow towards the end with a lower speed (unsure what winds were that day).

Lastly, it's listed as a TBM 700C2, which has an even higher gross weight than the normal 700, but the same power and higher wing loading (almost 40 lbs).

:(
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
Good points as well. I noted those but forgot to say them.

One note on the separator, though. If it works like the other PT-6s I've dealt with, what it does is it removes the ram air effect, which reduces your power. I've met pilots who basically say they don't do it because they don't like the power-speed reduction. There's probably some legitimacy to that. I'd be interested in Dave's thoughts from his PT-6 operation in the King Air.

On pistons, I treat prop heat, windshield heat, and pitot heat as one switch.

The continuous climb is a good one, too. Of course at 12k he's probably burning 50% more fuel than at higher altitude, so that is another concern. Also he was told light icing by the controller (who I've talked to before), which was a disservice.
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I thought Socata wants the separator open anytime in visible moisture and +5 or below? In the climb it would suck, but holding altitude in icing conditions I would think you'd want to protect the engine. Of course it's also possible that he turned it off when he started to have trouble so that he could make all the power possible.

The thing I believe most people don't think about in icing is ram raise. Not having 300 knots to increase air temp will certainly change conditions for slower aircraft (or really slow, like me).
 
Alexb2000 said:
I thought Socata wants the separator open anytime in visible moisture and +5 or below? In the climb it would suck, but holding altitude in icing conditions I would think you'd want to protect the engine. Of course it's also possible that he turned it off when he started to have trouble so that he could make all the power possible.

The thing I believe most people don't think about in icing is ram raise. Not having 300 knots to increase air temp will certainly change conditions for slower aircraft (or really slow, like me).
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I'm sure that's what Socata wants and they're correct. But remember that airplane owners are cheap. I've made that comment in the Cheyenne and Commander, to which my boss said "Don't turn those on, you'll lose 5 kts." Plus climb is what you need there. So it does box you in a bit.

The 38 lb wing loading at gross doesn't help, either.

Absolutely true on the ram air effect and wing heating.
 
I've never flown a TBM, but the turboprops I have flown worked best in icing conditions when flown at high indicated airspeeds/low AOA. Most of the ones I've flown, AC690, Metro III, SF340 in similar straits I would have stayed low and fast. It was a fools errand to try climbing through the high teens in moderate icing. First thing you know, you've lost 30kts of indicated airspeed and accreting ice on unprotected areas of the wings and belly.
 
I had already posted this in another thread but I think it fits here.

When flying to 6Y9 last August we were delayed in Janeville WI for 3 hours waiting out a storm. We left for 6Y9 about an hour before night fall for an hour and 30 minute flight.

1. About 20 minutes out we had to duck under a thin overcast layer at about 3500 msl.
2. Called ahead to 6y9 to announce we would fly over head in about 10 minutes and then head to Land of Lakes.
3. Within a couple minutes I noticed that I had lost all ground reference except the occasional porch light. (thought to myself this is the stuff that killed JFK)
4. Said to myself this isn't good, then glanced down and saw a patch of fog on the ground at one of the afore mentioned porch lights.

At item 3 I had convinced myself that heading to 6Y9 was a bad idea even if just to fly over head. When item 4 cropped up told my pax (wife) we are heading directly to Land of Lakes.

Learned a long time ago from a very wise pilot that you will never outrun fog.

Had a great evening at Land Of Lakes and had a very nice dinner there. We flew to 6Y9 after the fog lifted the next morning.

The urge to continue on was strong because I had already announced I would.

Making the right decision is sometimes hard, but always right.
 
"The urge to continue on was strong because I had already announced I would."

So true...mentally it is amazing how much you're sitting there watching things unravel ahead of you and knowing, logically, that you need to do something different than you planned, but, damn, didn't you commit to doing X and now, not doing it, is some sort of psychological admission of defeat, rather than an acknowledgement of really good planning and ADM.

How many times is the accident chain really started in our heads more than by anything else we deal with?
 
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