Immediate Action Items Checklist

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:08:23 -0700 (PDT), "Ol Shy & Bashful"
wrote in
:

On Jun 17, 7:36*pm, Larry Dighera wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:46:47 -0700 (PDT), "Ol Shy & Bashful"
wrote in
:

Do YOU have one? Do you rehearse it or practice it while the pressure
is off? If not, why not? What do you use for immediate action and why?

This is the first I've heard of that term. *Are you referring to
emergency procedures contained in the aircraft's POH?

Larry
Immediate Emergency Action is just exactly that.

Okay. So you're thinking about emergency procedures for a given
scenario on departure, en route, or arrival.

If you check stats,
the vast majority of engine failures occur because of fuel problems.
Fuel exhaustion, fuel starvation, fuel contamination or a mechanical
like fuel pump or fuel line failure. I think its like 80%? So, if a
pilot does the obvious like fuel tank select, mixture, throttle, carb
heat (if carbureted) fuel pump on (if so equipped) there is a chance
of taking care of the problem without heading for the trees while
digging out the checklist and crashing.

So you're concerned that the PIC should be instantly prepared for all
contingencies. If the pilot understands the systems (fuel,
electrical, control, hydraulic, ...), he shouldn't find
logically/intuitively diagnosing the cause of the emergency too
difficult.

Most of the POH info goes thru
the litany of things to check while setting up for a crash and down
towards the bottom kind of as an afterthought says "Attempt to restart
the engine if time permits..." That is kind of after the fact and way
too late.

I suppose it can be at low altitude.

When I was flying a variety of aircraft and jumping from one to
another, I tried to do the procedure for one that did not apply and
damned near put it into the trees.

I can certainly see how that might occur in that situation. What
happened?

After that, I took time to review
Immediate Action Items for the specific aircraft I was flying before I
took off. I rehearsed the specific immediate action items before
takeoff and still do it to this day and teach my students the same.

Coming from a pilot with your experience, preflight review of
emergency procedures is prudent and sound advice. Thanks for calling
it to my attention.

If an engine quits at less than 500' agl, there is not much time to
decide what to do

Right. If you believe you can successfully execute a turn-back, it's
best begun immediately rather than analyzing the cause of the problem.
However, a sudden power interruption is most likely due to a control
improperly positioned, and might be easily rectified. You're forcing
me to give this some thought.

I can see where the PIC should have a different response to similar
situations according to height/time available. If altitude permits,
one fiddles with the fuel selector, ...; if you're light and five
hundred feed AGL and the fan stops, you'd immediately bank 45 degrees,
and slow to five knots greater than stall speed, the speed at which
the warning is normally activated. If below that altitude, select a
touchdown point but a few tens of degrees from your present heading
that may provide the kinetic energy to be dissipated by the airframe
without endangering those on the ground, if possible. It's always
good to have a few spots at the home airport pre-picked out on the
departure end of the runways and on the crosswind legs.

and it sure is better to have a game plan rehearsed immediately beforehand.

Things always go better when you're prepared.

I spent about 40 years doing crop dusting or
ag operations and the margin for error is pretty narrow as is the time
to react to emergencies. That is where I got my basis for this answer.
Cheers
Ol S&B

Very much appreciated, Rocky.