Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:43 am
#739159
Today I had a yearly checkflight/refresher with an instructor in an aircraft that I have rarely flown before and never solo. It went pretty well, so I decided to do a little solo trip later in the day. I spent quite a while positioning my GPS pda suction bracket on the side of the windshield so that the screen did not obscure the ASI (I left it in my bag during the checkflight). I also tried to be as careful as possible in going through the checklist, mindful of the relative unfamiliarity of everything compared to the usual C172s that I fly.
Anyway, took off and I thought that perhaps the climb was not as quick as it should have been given the now vacant RH seat. When I did a FREDA on reaching cruising altitude I noticed that the GPS (it's a pda with Memory Map software) had zoomed out for some reason. Ho hum. Not to worry, I'm only staying local and I really don't need it anyway.
The short flight passed uneventfully until rejoining the circuit. First I forgot to set QFE and got too low until I realised what had happened as I was about to join crosswind. I climbed a couple of hundred feet up to correct circuit height. Then I forgot to pull carb heat on the descent to land and only noticed once on the runway. Then I noticed I had forgotten to set the transponder on ALT and had been flying around near controlled airspace on standby. I put all of these errors down to the much higher cognitive load in flying a new and unfamiliar type solo for the first time. Not great but fair enough and I can work on it.
I decided to debrief myself thoroughly in the cockpit after shutdown, rehearsing checks etc. About ten minutes into doing this, I looked over to my gps just as I pushed the throttle forward in a rehearsal of pre-start priming. As I did so, I saw the OTHER THROTTLE LEVER (which is on the left of the instrument panel to facilitate right hand stick for aeros) nose into the middle of the pda screen! The pda was preventing full travel on the throttle. Horrified, I realised that this explained both the slight lack of power I detected on take-off and the resetting of the zoom on the pda.
I will never make the same error of gps placement again in that aircraft, nor I hope any other, but I am not at all happy that I didn't pick it up before taking off or during the take-off run. I checked the rpm was well up once rolling, but being somewhat unfamiliar with exactly how many rpm I should expect, I did not notice the problem. It was not affecting the throttle travel by much, but enough, and on a shorter runway than the 2000m that I had available today it could have been nasty.
Looking back at it, it seems, and indeed was, a stupid mistake, but in some ways difficult to predict. Yes, there is a 'throttle full free, set 1/4 inch open' item on the check list. But the lack of the final centimetre of travel just wasn't apparent and of course I was looking at the primary throttle, not the one that I never touch up on the left.
Anyway, took off and I thought that perhaps the climb was not as quick as it should have been given the now vacant RH seat. When I did a FREDA on reaching cruising altitude I noticed that the GPS (it's a pda with Memory Map software) had zoomed out for some reason. Ho hum. Not to worry, I'm only staying local and I really don't need it anyway.
The short flight passed uneventfully until rejoining the circuit. First I forgot to set QFE and got too low until I realised what had happened as I was about to join crosswind. I climbed a couple of hundred feet up to correct circuit height. Then I forgot to pull carb heat on the descent to land and only noticed once on the runway. Then I noticed I had forgotten to set the transponder on ALT and had been flying around near controlled airspace on standby. I put all of these errors down to the much higher cognitive load in flying a new and unfamiliar type solo for the first time. Not great but fair enough and I can work on it.
I decided to debrief myself thoroughly in the cockpit after shutdown, rehearsing checks etc. About ten minutes into doing this, I looked over to my gps just as I pushed the throttle forward in a rehearsal of pre-start priming. As I did so, I saw the OTHER THROTTLE LEVER (which is on the left of the instrument panel to facilitate right hand stick for aeros) nose into the middle of the pda screen! The pda was preventing full travel on the throttle. Horrified, I realised that this explained both the slight lack of power I detected on take-off and the resetting of the zoom on the pda.
I will never make the same error of gps placement again in that aircraft, nor I hope any other, but I am not at all happy that I didn't pick it up before taking off or during the take-off run. I checked the rpm was well up once rolling, but being somewhat unfamiliar with exactly how many rpm I should expect, I did not notice the problem. It was not affecting the throttle travel by much, but enough, and on a shorter runway than the 2000m that I had available today it could have been nasty.
Looking back at it, it seems, and indeed was, a stupid mistake, but in some ways difficult to predict. Yes, there is a 'throttle full free, set 1/4 inch open' item on the check list. But the lack of the final centimetre of travel just wasn't apparent and of course I was looking at the primary throttle, not the one that I never touch up on the left.
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