Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:27 am
#1410079
Earlier this summer I flew a local sortie with a recently qualified PPL. I had planned to fly on my own and at the last minute invited Jim (not his real name) to accompany me in the right seat.
A lovely summers day with superb vis what more could one ask for.
The flight to another airfield took us around 35 minutes we stayed for a while and took in the atmosphere and chatted with other aviators.
Jim I knew was keen to fly the PA 28 he had flown it previously for around three hours. I let him do the take off from the RH seat and monitored his take off and general performance, all looked fine.
Approaching home base we made an overhead join then joined the circuit dead side making standard radio calls.
Late downwind with pre landing checks completed we turned base. To my horror I saw the carb heat off and mixture fully leaned yet the engine was still running. Instantly correcting the error I called I have control and continued with the approach to an uneventful landing. JIm was so apologetic could no understand how he had made the mistake, I kicked myself for not monitoring every aspect of his flying there could have been dire consequences.
Later that day I flew again solo this time and climbed to 4000 ft. Out of curiosity I bought the mixture back as Jim had earlier and instantly the engine started to splutter before regaining full power with mixture back to full rich. I consider us both very lucky and can only assume flying from the right seat caused Jim confusion - lesson learnt
A lovely summers day with superb vis what more could one ask for.
The flight to another airfield took us around 35 minutes we stayed for a while and took in the atmosphere and chatted with other aviators.
Jim I knew was keen to fly the PA 28 he had flown it previously for around three hours. I let him do the take off from the RH seat and monitored his take off and general performance, all looked fine.
Approaching home base we made an overhead join then joined the circuit dead side making standard radio calls.
Late downwind with pre landing checks completed we turned base. To my horror I saw the carb heat off and mixture fully leaned yet the engine was still running. Instantly correcting the error I called I have control and continued with the approach to an uneventful landing. JIm was so apologetic could no understand how he had made the mistake, I kicked myself for not monitoring every aspect of his flying there could have been dire consequences.
Later that day I flew again solo this time and climbed to 4000 ft. Out of curiosity I bought the mixture back as Jim had earlier and instantly the engine started to splutter before regaining full power with mixture back to full rich. I consider us both very lucky and can only assume flying from the right seat caused Jim confusion - lesson learnt
Tango Charlie