On Oct 18, 5:18*pm, Franklin "Franklin
wrote:
On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:48:26 -0700 (PDT), a wrote:
On Oct 18, 2:24*pm, "vaughn"
wrote:
"a" wrote in message

....

My hand stays on the mag switch throughout a mag check so I want to
believe I won't forget to go back to both -- help us avoid making your
mistake: do you remember what distracted you enough to leave it
pointing to a single bank of plugs?

I agree, no reason to take your hand off the switch, but things can still go
wrong! *I also took off on one mag once. *I don't think I actually forgot to
return the switch to "both", but just made a sloppy job of it and somehow
ended up with the switch not quite in the detent. *I still kick myself for
not aborting that takeoff. *It turned out to be a butt-puckering trip around
the patch. *I never did make it alll the way up to pattern height.

Now I visually verify the position of the switch before leaving the runup
pad.

Lesson learned!

Vaughn

That's interesting. My primary flight instructor must have been burned
by something like that, because my training (which did not include
getting rapped across the knuckles with a stick -- that was from grade
school days) was to focus on the tach, go from both to left, note the
drop, back to both, see the tach get back to 1900, go to right, note
the drop, go to both, see the tach get back to 1900, and only then let
go of the mag switch.

He was the same guy who insisted controls like throttle and mixture
should be pushed with the palm, pulled with curled fingers, and never
grasped-- his point was that if can can only push or pull you are less
apt to move something in the wrong direction. Some old habits are
worth retaining. If he could have he would have replaced radio tuning
knobs with paddles.

Would you say he was compulsive?

No but he had a feckin' moron for a student.

Thanks so much for your insight. So far his moronic student had 3000
safe odd hours in a complex single, so his instruction worked. You, on
the other hand -- your remark is the QED of that -- clearly failed in
social skills..