PreFlight at a XC stop?

Machfly said:
Only on the first flight. Say if something did crack in the exhaust what's the worst that can happen? I
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You start on fire and burn a painful death.
 
On a stop, I'll dip my tanks, check the oil, check anything if it seemed odd during the flight.
 
I took a good preflight at the beginning of the day, rather my first flight. If my s/o flew it earlier I will still treat it as if this is its first trip out for the day. I'm pretty sure I still preflight as throughly, if not more throughly, as when I was a student in a rental. I check everything.. pitot head, fuel (even if it wasn't refueled lately), pins, bolts, screws.. yeah I've missed a thing here or there, but who hasn't?

If I stop somewhere and do not take on fuel, I check oil and do a quick walk-around to make sure nothing is missing, has been run into, no prop chunks gone etc..

If I do take fuel, at a minimum I sump it when I check the oil if it's a branded fuel. If it's a mom and pop without branded fuel I do the individual tanks also.

If I just stopped somewhere for lunch/fuel/break and not overnight or anything I'll do a rolling runup pending it's not a super short taxi. My plane hates being rich on the ground anyway so I do a good mag check no matter what.

I would really hate to wreck my airplane (and kill myself/friends/family) because I didn't preflight very well. I'm just not interested in that kind of guilt. I'll take the entire 2 minutes to preflight to make myself feel good about it.
 
I swear my life is only meant to serve as a warning to others, sometimes.

Nice flight today. Just had to go putz around in the beautiful weather.

Plan was KAPA-KFMM-KLIC and return, VFR. Wind was out of the East down low, and I figured a good crosswind landing at KFMM and some of their cheap-ish 100LL in the LR tanks would be a fun little mission for this afternoon. Gorgeous 21C temp, blue skies.

Did a longish pre-flight since we changed oil yesterday. No new leaks, drips, etc. Run-up near the hangar. Taxi out, blast off.

Near Aurora Reservoir I notice some fresh oil spitting on the windscreen. Figure it must be the little bit that one of the other guys spilled when he missed the filler port. Bummer but will clean it off later.

Then realize, it's still spitting. Damn. $20 says the filler cap was left off when we buttoned up the cowl and another $20 says I didn't look at it. CRAP.

At this point I'm equidistant between KAPA and KFTG and there's a lot more stuff to land on between where the airplane is and KFTG if this is a more serious leak of some sort. Tune in the ATIS, copy it, and tell 'em I'm inbound for landing.

Landed 08, taxi in. Get towels and stuff. Clean up the damned mess. Make sure everything is where it's supposed to be this time and, outta there for KFMM.

Nothing else interesting to report. Crosswind landing on 14 at KFMM with the wind 060/12 is no biggie. Fuel up. Say hi to the skydive pilot who's waiting on jumpers. Back taxi 14 and depart.

The delays are putting me running a little later than I wanted so quite a ways south of KFMM I'm listening to the jump plane drop meat bombs at KFMM and doing air work. Power on and off stalls, falling leaf (airplane got a nice porpoise going today in pitch with the yoke full back power off, that was entertaining) and while it ain't exactly a surprise pulling it on yourself, I threw in a simulated engine out and picked a farm field and lined up on it and established best glide and tool the power lines at the road into account and wandered down to a reasonable recovery altitude and then boogied outta there. Decided it was time for Direct KAPA instead of KLIC, poked at Foreflight and noted the heading and time and turned West.

Staying low to take advantage of the low level tailwind Westbound (almost unheard of around here...) I got 155 knots groundspeed in the Skylane. Wheeeee! Not a common sight on the iPad!

So there is my "damn it, I missed something in a pre-flight right after playing devil's advocate about them!" story.

Here's the departure out of KAPA. Just hung the iPhone from a suction mount to see what it'd shoot. It sucks, but it wasn't the point of the flight.

 
P.S. Note no oil drops in the video on the plexi. They were light and over on my side since that's where the filler is. Didn't really do much of anything until level-off really. Just a little annoying amount, but with 100 knot plus wind, it doesn't take much to make a dang mess.
 
Ugh... YouTube "Stablization" made it worse there at the beginning. Yuck. Oh well. Learning process.
 
denverpilot said:
I
Staying low to take advantage of the low level tailwind Westbound (almost unheard of around here...) I got 155 knots groundspeed in the Skylane. Wheeeee! Not a common sight on the iPad!
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I saw 182kts Groundspeed last weekend in the Skyhawk:D. I asked my wife to snap a photo of it and she proceeded to take our her cellphone. By the time I proceeded to instruct on iPad screenshots (she had no idea what I was referring to) the ride was over and I was my point of pre-landing checklist. A little LLWS had me busy navigating, looking for the airport at night, talking to ATC and running the checklist. Didn't get the screenshot.:mad2:
 
Jaybird180 said:
I saw 182kts Groundspeed last weekend in the Skyhawk:D. I asked my wife to snap a photo of it and she proceeded to take our her cellphone. By the time I proceeded to instruct on iPad screenshots (she had no idea what I was referring to) the ride was over and I was my point of pre-landing checklist. A little LLWS had me busy navigating, looking for the airport at night, talking to ATC and running the checklist. Didn't get the screenshot.:mad2:
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Tailwinds are GREAT..:yes:.

I flew with the FBO's son in his new 182T, fixed gear to OSH this summer. Other then the first 15 minutes or so it took us to get to 17,500 we had a ground speed of 200 mph or more, the whole 5.4 hours it took to get to OSH.. TIT was 1625 and FF stays right at 12.3 -12.5 GPH... It was a sweet ride to paradise for sure... If I had extra cash I would by one in a minute..:yesnod: First thing I need though is a hangar at Haas International,2WY3...:wink2:
 
I do always check fuel.

1) Fuel is the most common cause of accidents. So double checking is good.

2) I have had my plane unexpectedly fueled (they confused mine with one that asked for it).
Now I need to make sure that it's avgas.

3) A friend had fuel siphoned during a stop.

4) Make sure quantity 'looks about right', that the amount you thought you had is the amount you actually have.

Too many people have the prop stop and say "I don't understand what happened!" That will never be me.
 
200MPH in a 182T is not uncommon. As I understand max cruise is in the 180kt range (???). Convert knots to MPH and there ya go...:D

N801BH said:
Tailwinds are GREAT..:yes:.

I flew with the FBO's son in his new 182T, fixed gear to OSH this summer. Other then the first 15 minutes or so it took us to get to 17,500 we had a ground speed of 200 mph or more, the whole 5.4 hours it took to get to OSH.. TIT was 1625 and FF stays right at 12.3 -12.5 GPH... It was a sweet ride to paradise for sure... If I had extra cash I would by one in a minute..:yesnod: First thing I need though is a hangar at Haas International,2WY3...:wink2:
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darrell said:
I'm a helicopter crew chief, and we do what is called a through-flight between flights on the same day.

Preflight before first flight of the day
Through-flight between flights on the same day
Postflight after last flight of the day

Of course, these are all spelled out in the flight manual, while most GA manuals just have a preflight.

Personally, I'd double check fuel, check the oil, and check for obvious damage, such as something having run into the plane while parked.
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This is pretty much what I do.

Sent from my SCH-I200 using Tapatalk 2
 
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