No more runups

RyanShort1 said:
I'm really curious what the reasoning is behind the OP's statement...
Ryan
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I think Steingar was having a particularly dull day and needed to liven it up so he thought he'd do a little trolling. :D
 
Twice I've found a fouled plug on the club 172...and I'm fanatical about leaning on the ground to prevent it. I think one of the club members keeps it rich on the ground for some reason (it's a lengthy taxi to one of the runways)
 
Ditto.

Fundamental benefit of having my own plane, kept in a secured hangar - there are alot of things for which I might search in a club or rental plane that I need not focus on in my own plane. I still look it all over, but I am less concerned about "gotchas."
 
This is nuts, a run up is part of the pre flight, there are more issues than just faulty mags involved.

Keep cutting corners, and sooner or later your gonna wish you hadn't.

John
 
Would they have unfouled after about 2 minutes of full power?

Jack Spectre said:
Twice I've found a fouled plug on the club 172...and I'm fanatical about leaning on the ground to prevent it. I think one of the club members keeps it rich on the ground for some reason (it's a lengthy taxi to one of the runways)
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Very busy. Things to do, places to go, people to see. Need to cut trivialialities to a minimum to facilitate productivity. Every second counts. The early bird gets the worm.

Ron Levy said:
On my plane, a "full preflight" takes what, two minutes? Three? Are you really in that much of a hurry? What's the burden here?
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SCCutler said:
Ditto.

Fundamental benefit of having my own plane, kept in a secured hangar - there are alot of things for which I might search in a club or rental plane that I need not focus on in my own plane. I still look it all over, but I am less concerned about "gotchas."
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Once again the gentleman from Texas has hit the nail squarely on the head.
 
First, my preflight takes 20 minutes, and I can't see it taking any less without doing due diligence. Any preflight can take as long as you want, but hwat are you really checking?

As to my reasoning, it goes a bit like this. No one is going to rewire my flight controls between flights unless they want me dead, and if they do there are better ways to achieve it. If the engine is that far dead it will leave a sign, like some fluids on the aircraft or the ground, except for something really minor, like a fouled plug. If it is going to blow up on the runup it will do so when I go to take off. I use mostly huge runways, I can pull the power and abort if need be, and I have done so before. I fly VFR only, so if a gauge goes fubar it doesn't affect me overly much.

I therefore honestly don't see the point. I am in no hurry, but don't see the need to put unnecessary wear on the aircraft. My remark on preflights was not meant to yank anyone's chain. Its purpose is the same as a run up, yet I know no one who does a preflight before every last flight. Everyone I know does one a day. That said I am an owner, and might think very differently if flying rentals.

I only sought a discussion among friends. I do yank the occasional chain and hide under the occasional bridge, but this time is not one such.
 
wabower said:
Very busy. Things to do, places to go, people to see. Need to cut trivialialities to a minimum to facilitate productivity. Every second counts. The early bird gets the worm.
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"I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date. No time to lose, no time to wait, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" - White Rabbit, "Alice in Wonderland," Walt Disney Films, 1951.

Keep skipping preflights and runups, and you will be the "late" Joe Pilot.
 
steingar said:
therefore honestly don't see the point. I am in no hurry, but don't see the need to put unnecessary wear on the aircraft. My remark on preflights was not meant to yank anyone's chain. Its purpose is the same as a run up, yet I know no one who does a preflight before every last flight. Everyone I know does one a day.
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If so, you have a very limited and highly risk-tolerant circle of friends. Or friends who only fly once a day. I've caught plenty on preflights and run-ups over the years, including my own plane which nobody else flies and sits in a locked hangar.

BTW, if it takes 20 minutes to perform a preflight walkaround inspection, you must be flying a 747 or the like. It just shouldn't take that long to preflight a light, simple single-engine airplane unless you're also including the time to air the tires or add oil or the like as a result of what you found on the preflight.
 
There might be mixup in terms. Most people do a preflight before the first flight of the day, and a runup prior to taking off. Thus most would not discover a fouled plug on preflight.
 
Ron Levy said:
If so, you have a very limited and highly risk-tolerant circle of friends. Or friends who only fly once a day. I've caught plenty on preflights and run-ups over the years, including my own plane which nobody else flies and sits in a locked hangar.

BTW, if it takes 20 minutes to perform a preflight walkaround inspection, you must be flying a 747 or the like. It just shouldn't take that long to preflight a light, simple single-engine airplane unless you're also including the time to air the tires or add oil or the like as a result of what you found on the preflight.
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Perhaps for you and your aircraft, but for me and mine it takes 20 minutes for due diligence. And I do it for the first flight of the day as I was taught. Yes, I always do a cursory inspection of the aircraft before every flight.
 
I know everyone is rushing to be the top safest do-good pilot here and finger-wag everyone else, but I'll bet more plane owners skip preflights and runup than do them.
 
The finger wagging and sarcasm are a real pity. There are lots of things we can do to be safer. Probably the number one thing is to not fly at all, but that is untenable as a pilot. We could remove cowlings to have a better look at the engine, or remove inspection plates for a good look before each flight. The list goes on.

I was trained to do a thorough preflight at the beginning of the day and a run up before every flight. As I've said, I have begun to question the wisdom of doing the latter before every flight, as I feel the safety benefits are marginal (for the reasons I've outlined) and not worth the wear on the aircraft.
 
steingar said:
How many here do a full preflight before every flight?
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I do. If I'm doing a lot of takeoffs and landings, like at Gastons, I generally do a thorough pre-flight in the morning and then abbreviated ones before each flight.
 
schmookeeg said:
I know everyone is rushing to be the top safest do-good pilot here and finger-wag everyone else, but I'll bet more plane owners skip preflights and runup than do them.
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That might be so, but I doubt it. Then again you could be right on. Aren't most airplane accidents traceable back to pilot error?

So we skip a few steps and save some of our valuable time. We are pilots, getting killed does not scare us all that much. What we don't think about is getting maimed, burned, enduring a life as a quadriplegic.

Surviving our own stupidity can often give us a lifetime of misery to think about it.

John
 
steingar said:
Perhaps for you and your aircraft, but for me and mine it takes 20 minutes for due diligence. And I do it for the first flight of the day as I was taught. Yes, I always do a cursory inspection of the aircraft before every flight.
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What failures/problems could occur before the first flight of the day
that can't happen after the preflight for the first flight and before
the subsequent flights of the day?
 
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jesse said:
I do. If I'm doing a lot of takeoffs and landings, like at Gastons, I generally do a thorough pre-flight in the morning and then abbreviated ones before each flight.
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I suppose I could finger wag you and ask why you fail to do a thorough pre-flight for each flight. I do so for demonstration purposes only, not to be pain.
 
All of them.

Bob Noel said:
What failures/problems will occur before the first flight of the day
that can't happen after the preflight for the first flight and before
the subsequent flights of the day?
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First off we have confused things a lot. Post are jumping back and forth between pre-flight and run ups. Two obviously different things.

I guess Michael my concern is that everything has its point of failure. and not all failures give us warning. a cracked muffler, a bad mag, birds nests in the srping that I have seen built in under 15 minutes.

Run ups take a minute so for me its worth it Then again Im the kind of guy who checks for wx NOTAMS etc and TFRs if I'm doing a repositioning flight 10 min away.
 
I do a 'full' preflight before the first flight of the day regardless of its 'my' plane or a rental. If I'm doing multiple hops in a day, I'll do an abbreviated preflight, but I'll still check a few key 'must have' elements such as control surface attach/pivot points. I had a crop-duster tell a story of losing an aileron push rod on his ferry flight home after spreading fertilizer all day - it didn't break until he was empty and headed home straight and level, which was surprising considering all the cranking and banking he had been doing all day. You just never know... It ain't broke, until it is.

As for a run-up, my run-ups usually last ~30 seconds, so it's not worth it 'not' to do it before every flight. If I'm gonna blow a line on the oil cooler, I'd rather do it while stopped or barely moving instead of barreling down the runway then trying to do a controlled stop with oil covering the windscreen and my wife screaming next to me. Sure, it's not guaranteed that everything than 'can' break will break during a runup, but most mechanical failures occur when making a change in the system, so if I can give one more opportunity for it to fail by performing one more 'change' while under a controlled environment, I'll take the 30 seconds to do it.
 
wabower said:
All of them.
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So, let me see if I understand you correctly. You believe that no
failure can occur after the first flight and before the subsequent
flights of the day?
 
Bob Noel said:
So, let me see if I understand you correctly. You believe that no
failure can occur after the first flight and before the subsequent
flights of the day?
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I interpreted it as "any failure can happen at any time, first or twelfth flight of the day matters not"
 
schmookeeg said:
I interpreted it as "any failure can happen at any time, first or twelfth flight of the day matters not"
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Right, which is why I don't understand why the preflight/runup
only for the first flight of the day.
 
Bob Noel said:
Right, which is why I don't understand why the preflight/runup
only for the first flight of the day.
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Very reasonable question. If something is going to break, it will do so either in flight or while the aircraft sits. A run up for the first flight of the day serves the same purpose as a thorough preflight, to make certain that nothing untoward has happened to the engine or airframe while the aircraft has been in disuse.
 
Something to think about - How long does an airplane have to sit between flights to warrant a pre-flight before the next one? I'm pretty sure most people would preflight again before it flew again the next day. But do you think there is a significant difference between the airplane sitting for 15 minutes vs. 24 hours? If the airplane has developed a problem, it'll be there after you've shut down...whether it's for days or minutes. There aren't too many problems that will develop as a plane sits idle overnight - maybe birds nests, flat tires, frost, punks who stole your fuel, etc.

Regarding run-ups, it's nice to know that both mags are are fully functional, that they're both able to be grounded (you haven't broken a P-lead...safety issue on the ground), and that the plugs are clear. If the mag coils are going bad, you might only discover this when the engine is hot. The plugs might be badly fouled after long, fully-rich ground ops. What if your lower plugs got badly fouled, and the mag that fires the upper plugs has developed a problem? There's really little-to-no cost in doing a quick check.
 
steingar said:
I suppose I could finger wag you and ask why you fail to do a thorough pre-flight for each flight. I do so for demonstration purposes only, not to be pain.
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I fly a lot there. I was the last one to fly it. I confirm the fuel levels by checking the tanks. If it rains or if I add fuel I'll sump the fuel. Oil is checked every few hours. Everything else is checked on the first flight of the morning. I generally shut down, unload, grab some new passengers, and take to the sky again. Pretty much all weekend. I check the mags and all the systems on each flight.

There is a big difference between not doing something at all and spacing it out to reasonably time intervals based on your usage of the airplane.
 
At the Shawnee, OK airport, I will promise you that in less than two hours the birds can build a 3-bedroom condo with a sunroom and detached garage on top of the back two cylinders of an IO-520. Trust me on this.
 
steingar said:
A run up for the first flight of the day serves the same purpose as a thorough preflight, to make certain that nothing untoward has happened to the engine or airframe while the aircraft has been in disuse.
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A run-up will not find:
  • Low oil quantity
  • Worn control surface bearings
  • Leaking hydraulic fluid
  • Cracked control surface mounting flange
  • Loose control surface connection
  • Loose fairing
  • Missing landing gear cotter pin
...and many other things which can really spoil your flying day.
 
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