MAYDAY in the Everglades

"Marty from Florida" marty@-x-x-x- remove -x-x- worth.net writes:

[...] I know as a given fact that I will not get hurt in a general
aviation aircraft that I'm flying during daylight hours. It's just a
fact that comes with a great respect for the unexpected (I have a
healthy fear of what I don't know). [..]

I hate to say this, but all that respect and pre-flight attention is
just not a guarantee that you won't be hurt. There are unfortunately
many ways to get hurt in an airplane, some foreseeable, some
preventable, and some neither. I don't want to scare you by dreaming
up scenario after scenario, but rest assured that they exist.

- FChE

Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
"Marty from Florida" marty@-x-x-x- remove -x-x- worth.net writes:

[...] I know as a given fact that I will not get hurt in a general
aviation aircraft that I'm flying during daylight hours. It's just
a
fact that comes with a great respect for the unexpected (I have a
healthy fear of what I don't know). [..]

I hate to say this, but all that respect and pre-flight attention is
just not a guarantee that you won't be hurt. There are unfortunately
many ways to get hurt in an airplane, some foreseeable, some
preventable, and some neither. I don't want to scare you by dreaming
up scenario after scenario, but rest assured that they exist.


I've definitely gotta agree with that one. If you know it is a fact
that you won't be hurt in an aircraft that you're flying day VFR, then,
with all due respect, you are deluding yourself. Of course, you
probably won't be convinced of that until it actually happens (been
there, done that, still have the blood soaked T-shirt). A great
respect for the unexpected will not guarantee that the unexpected will
not happen. Not by a long shot.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

I sometimes check mags at cruise power in the air - but only over flat
country. I also occasionally check them at idle on the ground to keep
track of the condition of the points.

One caveat is if you get a rough engine that is fixed by going to one
mag, don't experiment with the BOTH position again. One fellow I knew
did that on a 182 and had an exposion in the intake manifold that blew
off some of the intake system hoses. The integrity of the intake
system is critical to maintaining a semblance of the correct mixture
and the open port(s) made things so lean he couldn't recover power.

The range of spark ignitable mixture is less than three to one air/fuel
ratio (from about 8:1 to maybe 20:1 by weight).