This is why we train (kind of long)

"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
I guessed what happened the moment I read that you had flown through the
localizer. This is becoming a real problem and I am beginning to think that
there is a fundamental design flaw in advanced avionics systems.

I have noticed a tendency for people to forget to switch on the CDI even
when they are very familiar with the GPS.

This is one reason we like our setup, which is a separate CDI dedicated
to the GPS. It's always GPS, the CDIs are always LOC/VOR.

One question for the original poster: is the GPS moving map in your scan?
Does it automatically, or is it configurable, to show the loc course?
I do this, and find it helpful.

If the CDI must be manually switched, it definately needs to be built
into one's approach checklist and as the original poster pointed out,
that's the reason it's needful to become familiar with each installed
avionics setup. If I moved into a plane (or a setup) that required
manual switching I'm sure it would bite me before I'd had time to
integrate the check into my procedures.

Cheers,
Sydney

I have watched folks under the hood screw the pooch (figuratively) by
not being familiar with equipment and avionics.

I have to wonder.. how did you blow through your required fuel reserves
for IFR with only "one" missed/messed up approach? Were you stretching
it, not plan for winds or were your fuel numbers wrong some other way?

Glad you lived to talk about it.

Dave

SD wrote:
Well, tonight will go in my book as something that I will never
forget. Tonight I learned a valuable lesson and was able to live to
tell about it. As a lurker here for many years, I have come to enjoy
reading about people's experiences and try to learn from their
mistakes. So tonight I am posting my experience in hopes that someone
else can learn from me.

Today started out as just any ordinary day with a cross county flight
that was going to take about 4 hours there, drop someone off and then
come back home. I was in a Seneca II turbo and the weather was
looking mostly VFR with the occasional MVFR called for my route, but
was clearing. My flight to my destination was uneventful. It was the
return flight and about 9 minutes out from my final destination when
things went wrong.

It was around 2200 and I was on with center with flight following and
I turned to the ATIS to get weather for my destination. They were
advising of Snow and ceilings at 2500. But how could that be, this
stuff was not forcasted, I'm about 30miles out, flying at around 4500
agl and I have the city in site, but not the airport. I asked center
if my destination was IFR and they advised that they were not. The
center then handed me off to approach. I proceed to descend in
anticipation of lower clouds then BAM, the city went away. I was not
IMC at the moment but I could not see anything in front of me.

I thought to myself, no big deal, I will call for local IFR and shoot
the ILS in. I have shot this approach many times.... Well at least in
an aircraft with 2 nav radios and a GS. I have about 50ish hours in
this Seneca (mostly x-county time) and we had just gotten the MX20 and
CNX80 system put in about 3 weeks ago. I really haven't gotten use to
shooting approaches with this system yet but here we go. Approach
gave me vectors and altitude changes. Now I'm in IMC. There's a
little vertigo coming into play now (don't know what that was all
about) so on came the autopilot and let my head clear. Now I'm flying
straight and level and on course. I knew I had about 15 or so miles
to go before they would start turning me in to the ILS so now I'm
pulling up the approach plate on the mx20. I have the paper one in my
lap but I was going to use every tool to my advantage. It pulled up,
now I can see exactly where I am on the approach. Now for the final
vectors, I've got the ILS tuned into the nav portion on the CNX80, I'm
getting what appears to be the proper reading on the HSI. But the ILS
needle isn't moving. Next I hear from approach that I have blown thru
the localizer and that they were going to turn me back around for
resequencing. No big deal.

I looked at my configuration on my systems to try and figure out why I
never got the localizer. The frequency was correct, I confirmed it
with approach and they advised it was working correctly. Then I saw
that I did not push the CDI button. I hit it and it came alive. Now
just as they are turning me back for final vectors, I look down and
see that my right fuel gauge is showing 0 but my left is still around
20. I then intercepted the localizer and turned inbound. It was at
that time the right engine dies. I reached down and hit the cross
feed but nothing.

Now here I am, in IMC, flying a plane with avionics that I have very
little experience with, with my best friend (which this is the first
time he has ever flown with me) and now with one engine dead. With
all of this, you can say I got a little distracted and started getting
off course. I had already switched to tower freq by now, so I
declared priority due to fuel. The left was still showing almost 20
but we all know how fuel gauges are accurate. An American Airlines
had just landed in front of me and he advised that he broke out at
around 1500 agl and that it was +10 vis underneath. I was able to get
back on the ILS and intercept the GS. I then started my decent
leaving my gear and flaps up (I had plenty of power on one engine to
maintain blue line, but did not want to take a chance) Just as I was
about to secure the right engine, it started rumbling to life. I
don't know if it was the descent that shifted the fuel or fuel was
finally making it thru the cross feed, I was about 1500 agl and broke
thru the clouds. There was the runway. The most beautiful site I have
ever seen. Flaps came out; Gear came down, and I landed. I was
drenched with sweat and it was 12 degrees and snowing but I didn't
care. I opened my little window and let that cold air in... It felt
good. I was alive.

Now it has been about 3 hours since I landed and I can not sleep a
wink. I keep thinking to myself how foolish I was believing that I
could go IMC using equipment that I was not all that familiar with.
Another thing that I can kick myself in the butt for was to not paying
more attention to my fuel situation. There are low fuel lights on the
annunciator panel but they never came on. The bulbs work fine, I did
test them.

But without the proper training, I might have allowed all these things
to just come to a boil. There were some moments of panic ( especially
when that right fan quit) but I was able to use the basic training of
dealing with engine outs and flying on a single engine that I was able
to regain my composer and continue to fly the ILS on one engine.
Without having that, they would probably be looking for the wreckage
now.

Thanks for reading my long winded story but this was kind of therapy
for me. I think that I can now go and get some sleep.


Scott

"Dave S"
I have to wonder.. how did you blow through your required fuel reserves
for IFR with only "one" missed/messed up approach? Were you stretching
it, not plan for winds or were your fuel numbers wrong some other way?

I think he filed VFR and was surprised, after 3+ hours of flight, to
encounter IFR conditions. He requested a clearance to land... or am I
reading the wrong post?

How many of us of asked for and gotten a clearance to descend through a
layer with little or no thought to required IFR reserves?

It was my impression that the pilot simply forgot to switch tanks, and
flew one tank dry while he had 20 gallons in the other tank. However,
what is the fuel burn rate in a Seneca II? Is 20 gallons worth 45mins?




Dave S wrote in message link.net...
I have watched folks under the hood screw the pooch (figuratively) by
not being familiar with equipment and avionics.

I have to wonder.. how did you blow through your required fuel reserves
for IFR with only "one" missed/messed up approach? Were you stretching
it, not plan for winds or were your fuel numbers wrong some other way?

Glad you lived to talk about it.

Dave

Andrew Sarangan wrote:

It was my impression that the pilot simply forgot to switch tanks, and
flew one tank dry while he had 20 gallons in the other tank. However,
what is the fuel burn rate in a Seneca II? Is 20 gallons worth 45mins?

With two 180 hp engines, 20 gallons should be good for at least 45 minutes.

George Patterson
Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is
"Hummmmm... That's interesting...."

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
om...
| It was my impression that the pilot simply forgot to switch tanks, and
| flew one tank dry while he had 20 gallons in the other tank. However,
| what is the fuel burn rate in a Seneca II? Is 20 gallons worth 45mins?
|

It is a little more complex than that. Normally the Seneca burns fuel for
the left engine from the left tank and fuel from the right engine from the
right tank. It is possible to run out of fuel for one engine and not the
other. I don't remember which tank the aircraft heater draws fuel from, but
I think it is the left. There is a crossfeed valve that allows you to run
both engines from either tank. The engine failure checklist calls for
turning on this crossfeed valve, which he apparently did. However, the OP
could have opted to simply feather the stopped fan rather than attempt to
restart the engine while flying a tricky ILS approach where he was already
behind the airplane. The Seneca is easy to fly on one engine and continuing
the approach on one engine may well have well have been the better part of
valor. He would not have had the option of going around or making a missed
approach if anything went wrong, though, so he probably did the right thing
by restarting the engine.

The Seneca II burns between nine and twelve gallons per hour per engine in
normal use. The turboed version burns a little more. Nursing it a little
bit, he may have had over an hour of fuel left, especially since he was
descending anyway and had elected to keep his configuration clean.

Other things I think the pilot did right include turning on the autopilot
when he started getting a little vertigo, leaving gear and flaps up on the
descent (approaches in the Seneca usually are flown with one notch of flaps
and gear down), and declaring that he was low on fuel.

SD sdatverizondot.net@ wrote in message . ..
Well, tonight will go in my book as something that I will never
forget. Tonight I learned a valuable lesson and was able to live to
tell about it. As a lurker here for many years, I have come to enjoy
reading about people's experiences and try to learn from their
mistakes. So tonight I am posting my experience in hopes that someone
else can learn from me.

Thanks, a good reminder that even though the plane is IFR equipped,
the pilot may not be ready to use those instruments. I guess there's
something to be said for the simplistic KX-155

snip

I looked at my configuration on my systems to try and figure out why I
never got the localizer. The frequency was correct, I confirmed it
with approach and they advised it was working correctly. Then I saw
that I did not push the CDI button. I hit it and it came alive. Now
just as they are turning me back for final vectors, I look down and
see that my right fuel gauge is showing 0 but my left is still around
20.

Congrats on a safe landing when things weren't going well.

Did you find out why the left tank had 20Gal, but the right tank was
empty? I would assume they were originally filled to the same level
and that the engines were feeding from their respective tanks per
standard Seneca II ops (ie not crossfeeding).

I am curious - do you have the 93 or 123 gallon tanks?

-Nathan

"Nathan Young"
Thanks, a good reminder that even though the plane is IFR equipped,
the pilot may not be ready to use those instruments. I guess there's
something to be said for the simplistic KX-155

Is there a broader question of whether any pilot is fully capable of
operating (GPS) equipment in any a/c other than the ones they have trained
in?

My experience is VERY limited. With little exception, I've trained and
flown IFR only in my owner operated a/c. It was very clear to me that the
button pushing idiosynchroncies of my particular unit (G 300XL) were
specific to not only that unit, but specific to the installation in my a/c.
I would feel confident of being able to operate another 300XL installation
but would be aware that installation options could change certain procedure
significantly.

The 400/500 series Garmins are pretty common and I assume that most pilots
fully trained on one would feel confident operating other 400/500
installations. But I know from the couple of training flights I did with a
430, I never caught up with it.

Ironically, while GPS has made accurate navigation bone simple, it seems to
make jumping from plane to plane more challenging. The moving map
practically eliminates loss of spatial awareness, but the button pushing
required can lead to brain freeze trying to figure out how to make it show
you what you want.

Nathan Young wrote:

Thanks, a good reminder that even though the plane is IFR equipped,
the pilot may not be ready to use those instruments. I guess there's
something to be said for the simplistic KX-155

It's not really simple vs. complex.

When I joined the club, I was switching from KLN-90 something-or-other to a
Garmin. I find both to be quite simple...but at the time, I'd never used a
Garmin. So I know I'd not fly IFR in a club plane until I'd read, watched
the video, and played a bit.

It just seems to be common sense.

- Andrew

just as they are turning me back for final vectors, I look down and
see that my right fuel gauge is showing 0 but my left is still around
20. I then intercepted the localizer and turned inbound. It was at
that time the right engine dies. I reached down and hit the cross
feed but nothing.

Another scary thought ...

With the aircraft flying unbalanced (ie banked 5 deg towards working donkey,
and compensating rudder applied), I doubt very much if anything close to the
full 20 gallons would be available.

Curious also as to why such an (apparant) imbalance between the tanks?