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By caverill
FLYER Club Member (reader)  FLYER Club Member (reader)
#1911072
I have spent the last couple of years flying Warrirors and whilst I use the carb heat I’ve never had a rough running engine. A couple of weeks ago I went out in a Cessna 182 from the ‘70s, a new plane to me and the owner (who is used to flying high performance planes).
On take off the climb performance was terrible, it was a warm sunny day but pretty hazy. En-route to our destination the engine ran rough and the carb temp gauge dropped to 0c very quickly.
We put carb heat on, it ran a bit better but as the heat was put on or taken off it ran very rough at the mid point….we debated magnetos, spark plugs, water in fuel, carb icing.
At the destination airfield ops had the carb icing chart out with a big red cross in the middle of the high risk zone. BINGO.
We used carb heat after power checks and then religiously every 15 mins in flight, no issues on the return. A quick scan of the internet showed what a huge issue carb ice is on the old 182s. We had the prefect storm, a new plane, perfect carb icing conditions and no detailed check list that covered carb heat post power checks.
We survived and learnt, but if we had an EFTO we had no where to put it down, just a hill covered in trees and buildings….. Can you plan for every eventuality before you take off?
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By Uptimist
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911078
Our 182R (1981 model) is very prone to carb icing. I’ve learned during cruise to note the manifold pressure set after applying heat and setting back to cold. Keep an eye on that setting, it will start to drop slowly as ice builds. In the “right” conditions, this means applying heat as often as every few minutes. One way around that is to apply partial carb heat continuously, and re-lean the engine, then it can run untouched for long periods - probably not advisable though without an engine monitor which shows carb temperature, as partial heat can be worse than none if you get it wrong.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912414
Not a reference to anyone here as i don't know what they were taught, but ab initio teaching around detection of carb ice in the normal spamcan fleet is a (dangerous) disgrace.
(Opinion gleaned from many rental checkouts, biennial flights, live feedback in PPL Masterclasses, Zoom talks on weather to club evenings during lockdown, etc)
A certain sad incident in an N reg aircraft outside the UK airspace seems to have triggered a CAA study to do with carbon monoxide of such a size it has become a CAA boast-able item, yet surely it just common sense to get a detector, it is hardly a human rights issue to be told to get one in a world where circuits even in plain sight at a full atc airfield requires a plb or elt. However, year after year, in an island nation with various temperature variations, they spend zero time on why students come off training courses only able to detect whether a carb heat knob is actually connected to the carburettor by a cable rather than being trained to detect early onset icing before the nearly-too-late stage of noises and vibrations - or why carb ice auto detection is not made an easy thing in aircraft without it.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912424
Irv Lee wrote:they spend zero time on why students come off training courses only able to detect whether a carb heat knob is actually connected to the carburettor by a cable rather than being trained to detect early onset icing before the nearly-too-late stage of noises and vibrations


In 30 years, I've seen carb icing only once in flight - in a Grumman Tiger in which I was right-seat pax - and when it happened, I had already noted that the pilot was not applying carb heat during enroute checks, so I was alert to the early signs of RPM drop. When I pointed this out, we got the classic signs on carb heat application - drop, then significant rise as the ice cleared.

Nevertheless, I've experienced it many times on the ground, usually taxying around on wet grass in the morning, but by no means restricted to that situation. The symptoms are obvious if you're looking out for them.

I can't believe that there are many student pilots going through PPL courses to whom this isn't also happening. If they're not being trained to recognise it, their instructors are probably also not recognising it (as they're hardly going to intentionally risk a real EFATO).

And they're probably getting away with it because applying carb heat as part of the power checks clears the ice before takeoff.

Except when it doesn't, and we read about another aircraft in a field after takeoff.

I don't only blame the instructors. I also blame the lack of hunger for knowledge on the part of student pilots (present company excepted, of course), where passing the writtens after endless practice with online papers replaces the need for actual knowledge.

The information is all available and has been ever since I learned. As ever, it's down to pilots to connect the dots.

One other thing:

We've probably all noticed that maintaining altitude when flying with a fixed pitch prop through sinking air results in a RPM drop due to the reduced airspeed. Usually I can feel that I'm in sinking air, but I still apply carb heat when I see this, just in case that drop is ice.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912428
TopCat wrote: I also blame the lack of hunger for knowledge on the part of student pilots (present company excepted, of course), where passing the writtens after endless practice with online papers replaces the need for actual knowledge.

The information is all available and has been ever since I learned. As ever, it's down to pilots to connect the dots.


I think that is a bit harsh on the studes.

For them they are the unknown unknowns.
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By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912432
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:
TopCat wrote: I also blame the lack of hunger for knowledge on the part of student pilots (present company excepted, of course), where passing the writtens after endless practice with online papers replaces the need for actual knowledge.

The information is all available and has been ever since I learned. As ever, it's down to pilots to connect the dots.


I think that is a bit harsh on the studes. For them they are the unknown unknowns.

I'd accept the criticism if you'd said that the details on carb icing were just one thing in the midst of a million other details to learn, and easy to miss.

But if an instructor has done the absolute bare minimum, and told the student that "this knob lets hot air into the carb, and you use it to prevent it icing up and stopping the engine", then (s)he shouldn't also need to explain that an engine failure in flight is a Bad Thing.

I went away and read up on carb icing after the very first time my instructor showed me the knob.

Somehow, it seemed like it might be important.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912433
By the way, we often talk about student pilots as if they're young children. They're mostly not.

They're usually intelligent professionals, with significant history of achievements of various kinds behind them, perfectly capable of thinking about their learning, and motivating themselves to identify the important things to study, and get on with it without being spoon-fed every detail.

They don't turn into 5-year olds when they start a PPL course, and IMO do bear a substantial part of the responsibility for ensuring that they learn what they need to learn.

And of course they bear 100% of that responsibility after they've got their PPL, which as we always say, is a licence to learn.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912441
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:Chris

A remark is not criticism.

That's ok, Frank, I don't mind criticism, and I didn't take it the wrong way. :thumright:

Criticism in my book is a good thing. It always makes me think, and often makes me learn.

Maybe it was a bit harsh on the studes, I'm not sure. I'd like to think firm but fair :)

Studes, what do you think?
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912460
Paul_Sengupta wrote:
TopCat wrote:They don't turn into 5-year olds when they start a PPL course,

Speak for yourself! :D

I'm sure you're tongue in cheek here, but joking apart, it's insulting to student pilots to suggest that they're incapable of mature thought.

Perhaps not demanding it of them creates the very thing we seek to avoid.

By treating people as needing spoon-feeding with the sort of things they'd identify and source for themselves in their professional life, perhaps we're breeding self-reliance out of them in the aeroplane.

That seems to me to be a bad path to go down, even a little way. But it might explain quite a lot.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912461
It's a very long time since I flew an aicraft with a carburretor but as I recall:

I used taxi with carb heat on when on wet grass and I used to exercise it in the air as part of FREDA checks and never had a carb ice incident.

I think the issue of mechanical sympathy is much to do with how car engines have outsripped aero engines. Those of us learning to drive in the 60s were used to engine technology much like a basic Lycosaurus those learning to drive now are just on a different planet.
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By Milty
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912518
As a current ‘stude’, late 40’s professional (although often told I have the mental age of a 5 year old) I’ll bite…

From personal experience, my training for carb ice/use of carb heat I think has been ok. Used on power checks, taxiing on grass or even in the rain last week we gave it a blast while holding and advised roughly every 5 mins or so when it was raining last week. Normally as part of the FREDA check vey 15 mins and also part of pre-landing checks. It’s covered in several of the current exam topics too. I’m not sure how easy it would be to include in the practical training, noticing That carb icing is starting to happen. I think that’s one where you might learn by experience which you could be lucky enough to be with another pilot or maybe not.

One thing I am finding, and this may be due to the new exam structure, is trying to pick out what’s most relevant to keep me safe and in the air vs what questions are just there because they’ve got to fill a question bank of 2000 questions. For example, what is the point in a question about when the Chicago convention was formed? Or in human performance, one of my questions was ‘Having a false perception of altitude and flight path is called?’ When I’m struggling to think about where I am, I’ll be pleased to be able to recall that I’m suffering from spatial distortion just before a CFIT.

There’s also a lot to take in, especially when you start and actually, as a mid 40’s professional who has a busy career and the last ‘study’ that I did was circa 25 years ago, it is quite challenging at times to find the time and get the headspace to learn properly. Personally though, I’m pleased to say that it seems to be getting easier over time.

I definitely agree though that gaining a PPL is very much the tip of the iceberg in learning to fly.