Distractions? Very distracting.

"Doors latched" is one of my checklist items. I just push on the
door(s), and if one opens, I latch it.

Same here. Although, since we usually have the kids in the back (and
a spouse in the right seat), so the last thing we call out before
advancing the throttle is "Door latched and seat belts on?"

You'd be surprised how many times it's not latched, or one of us
doesn't have a seat belt/shoulder harness buckled.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In the Baron, the door can appear locked when it is unlatched. Pushing on it
does not move the door- my first indication was at rotation, when the door
light flickered just before it popped. Had to by a whole set of new charts,
and almost lost a flight jacket out the door.

On Sun, 8 Jul 2007 07:24:42 -0500, "Viperdoc"
wrote in
:

In the Baron, the door can appear locked when it is unlatched. Pushing on it
does not move the door-

So it takes a large pressure differential to unlatch it?

my first indication was at rotation, when the door
light flickered just before it popped.

It sounds like the door switch could use adjustment, so that indicates
properly when the door is not completely latched.

The only switch is the one that turns on the door light when it's fully
open. I pulled the fuse for this circuit, since I generally leave the door
open in the hangar. It seems the pressure differential increased with
airspeed- while flying the door trailed open with around a two inch gap, no
more, no less. Couldn't open it more against the airstream, and of course
couldn't close it as well.

In a previous article, Jay Honeck said:
"Doors latched" is one of my checklist items. I just push on the
door(s), and if one opens, I latch it.

Same here. Although, since we usually have the kids in the back (and
a spouse in the right seat), so the last thing we call out before
advancing the throttle is "Door latched and seat belts on?"

I *looked* at the door and it appeared latched. From now on, I'm going to
shove on it instead of just looking.


--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
"Why are we hiding from the police, mommy?"
"Because we use vi, dear, and they use emacs."