I'm an idiot (aka dropped my dip stick)

Swampfox201 said:
I remember a pilot asking what to do after adding oil to his airplane and realizing the ring of plastic that gets left when you unscrew the cap fell off into the engine.
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What type of plane/engine?

Most modern GA type engines, you'd be hard pressed fitting the plastic ring into the down the pipe, or was it just that he dropped it into the general engine compartment?
 
dmccormack said:
(Show of hands who's been ready to roll and realized the chocks were still in place? The pitot tube cover? The handbrake still applied on takeoff?...)
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Done the taxi attempt with nosewheel chock still in place in a twin once. Didn't get far.

Never left the pitot cover on though.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Done the taxi attempt with nosewheel chock still in place in a twin once. Didn't get far.

Never left the pitot cover on though.
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Took off one night with the tow bar still hanging on the nosewheel....

It fell off somewhere during takeoff. Ground crew found it and it was held hostage by the FBO.


That was mighty embarassin'.... :redface:
 
Okay people let me rephrase:

My INSTRUCTOR also did not want me to fly. So it was not just me. I could have flown after the maintenance tech called and said it was OK to fly - however - since my CFI and I had already talked it would have been going against his wishes / behind his back. He also would not fly with his 4pm student knowing there was a dipstick in the plane and therefore he switched planes and flew with his student in another plane.

As mentioned in other posts, I am not too much of a fair weather flyer. I have solo'd in winds where if my instructor and I would have met beforehand he might have suggested I not fly (they changed last minute).

Regardles, as I fly more I need to create personal minimums, especially related to weather.

Kimberly
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
It is always a pleasure to bring you up to speed on these things, my dear Henning.
Nail puller? Good Lord. I suppose for my wooden spar.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mayhew-45046-Ca...352?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item56453350b0

actually I think you will find them best using "flexible retrieval tool" as a search phrase.

:D
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I didn't think I was nuts... well ok, yes I did, but I still knew what a cats paw was...

http://www.google.com/search?q=Cat+...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

:D
 
ron22 said:
I could fly the my club C172 to 6Y9 and drop a dip stick in there for you to repeat if you like:D. I am sure we can find someone with a camera there to post to youtube for you.
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No cameras! No videos! No YouTube! This is a family friendly fly-in. Children may be present. Oh and sixteen year olds (David)
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
No cameras! No videos! No YouTube! This is a family friendly fly-in. Children may be present. Oh and sixteen year olds (David)
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It's all good... Buddy of mine and I took his 10 year old son to the last Dead show at the LA Coliseum, His only comment was "Hey, look at all the naked people" just before he proceeded to join them....
 
dmccormack said:
Took off one night with the tow bar still hanging on the nosewheel....

It fell off somewhere during takeoff. Ground crew found it and it was held hostage by the FBO.


That was mighty embarassin'.... :redface:
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Yeah some guy did that out here at the flying club, cept it stayed on! :yikes:

Somehow he managed to get it down and stopped without it slamming up into that big spinny thing up front.
 
Arbiter419 said:
Yeah some guy did that out here at the flying club, cept it stayed on! :yikes:

Somehow he managed to get it down and stopped without it slamming up into that big spinny thing up front.
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It's a more frequent occurrence than you may think...
 
Arbiter419 said:
Yeah some guy did that out here at the flying club, cept it stayed on! :yikes:

Somehow he managed to get it down and stopped without it slamming up into that big spinny thing up front.
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Henning said:
It's a more frequent occurrence than you may think...
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I dealt with it twice while I was working the line. Doesn't do good things for a wheel pant. Or for the mower that finds it in the infield.
 
That sounds horrible. I read a post, on here I think, about taxi'ing over a chain or rope and then having it get all caught up in your prop.

Because of this, I turned off my plane during my long solo cross country and hand pushed it into the parking spot (over some chains since they had four per plane).

Felt kind of silly since I could have taxi'ed right into place but I though it would be better safe than sorry.
 
Arbiter419 said:
Yeah some guy did that out here at the flying club, cept it stayed on! :yikes:

Somehow he managed to get it down and stopped without it slamming up into that big spinny thing up front.
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That is amazing. We just had a 172 in the club suffer a prop strike because the pilot left the towbar in and simply taxiied to a different parking spot on the ramp.

I can see getting away with it in a retract (towbar sits a little lower), but you'd probably experience some challenges when you try to bring the wheels up.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
That sounds horrible. I read a post, on here I think, about taxi'ing over a chain or rope and then having it get all caught up in your prop.

Because of this, I turned off my plane during my long solo cross country and hand pushed it into the parking spot (over some chains since they had four per plane).

Felt kind of silly since I could have taxi'ed right into place but I though it would be better safe than sorry.
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I used to be very worried about this as well. I never taxi directly over a rope/chock/anything I can pick up with my hands. Whenever I'm parking on a T with ropes, I come in like this and pivot the airplane on the appropriate wheel. If you do it right, you can coast in right over the T and pivot the airplane with the throttle at idle.

2hcovih.jpg
 
Henning said:
It's a more frequent occurrence than you may think...
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Which is why my tow bar sits on the floor behind the front seats. Engine start checklist has me looking at the tow bar in the plane before cranking it. Could make for an interesting gear retract too. :yikes:
 
EdFred said:
Which is why my tow bar sits on the floor behind the front seats. Engine start checklist has me looking at the tow bar in the plane before cranking it. Could make for an interesting gear retract too. :yikes:
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YOU SERIOUSLY NEED TO RE-THINK YOUR AVATAR CHOICES.

I thought the OTHER one was bad . . .
 
Arbiter419 said:
I used to be very worried about this as well. I never taxi directly over a rope/chock/anything I can pick up with my hands. Whenever I'm parking on a T with ropes, I come in like this and pivot the airplane on the appropriate wheel. If you do it right, you can coast in right over the T and pivot the airplane with the throttle at idle.

2hcovih.jpg
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Thanks for the beautiful drawing. If I ever go on a trip again (I'm done with my cross countries) and actually have to leave the aircraft I'll try and remember this.
 
EdFred said:
Which is why my tow bar sits on the floor behind the front seats. Engine start checklist has me looking at the tow bar in the plane before cranking it. Could make for an interesting gear retract too. :yikes:
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Does the SE Comanche have the trim crank on the ceiling like the Twinkie?
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
That sounds horrible. I read a post, on here I think, about taxi'ing over a chain or rope and then having it get all caught up in your prop.

Because of this, I turned off my plane during my long solo cross country and hand pushed it into the parking spot (over some chains since they had four per plane).

Felt kind of silly since I could have taxi'ed right into place but I though it would be better safe than sorry.
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Rope you may pick up, although at idle, it'll be a very rare thing. Chain, you'd need to be at high power and have really bad luck.

Best way to do it is have enough speed to clear over the line at idle power, or if it's a drive in spot, just chop the mixture as you roll up.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
My INSTRUCTOR also did not want me to fly. So it was not just me. I could have flown after the maintenance tech called and said it was OK to fly - however - since my CFI and I had already talked it would have been going against his wishes / behind his back. He also would not fly with his 4pm student knowing there was a dipstick in the plane and therefore he switched planes and flew with his student in another plane.
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You made the right call. You weren't sure if there was a safety issue and because of that you decided not to fly. If anybody faults you for that, well, they're an idiot.

By the way, I'd have done the same thing.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Thanks for the beautiful drawing. If I ever go on a trip again (I'm done with my cross countries) and actually have to leave the aircraft I'll try and remember this.
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:confused::confused::confused: Do you intend to quit flying when you get rated? Or just never fly anywhere again?
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Your plane is how old?! I thought my late 70's Cessna trainer was old.....
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There really hasn't been a significant change in aluminum GA aircraft since the 1940's. The differences are primarily in avionics and appointments (more luxurious now).
 
Henning said:
:confused::confused::confused: Do you intend to quit flying when you get rated? Or just never fly anywhere again?
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Well first I need to pay off my training. I will probably go somewhere but if I am alone I will come right back. Not sure, really. we shall see. I know the 99s have fly-ins occasionally etc.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Well first I need to pay off my training. I will probably go somewhere but if I am alone I will come right back. Not sure, really. we shall see. I know the 99s have fly-ins occasionally etc.
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What got you started in aviation? What were you trying to achieve?
 
jesse said:
You made the right call. You weren't sure if there was a safety issue and because of that you decided not to fly. If anybody faults you for that, well, they're an idiot.

By the way, I'd have done the same thing.
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By that, he means he'd'a shaken his boobs.
 
Henning said:
What got you started in aviation? What were you trying to achieve?
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I thought I posted that story on here. It was sort of an out of the blue thing, then it evolved, and now I'm not sure. One of those "got hooked after the $49 discovery flight" people I guess. I saw a TV show about flying and the rest is history.

What was I trying to achieve? Nothing - it was fun. And what's cool is that once I have my cert as long as I keep things going I will be a pilot for a long time to come. I haven't had a "challenge" in a long time, and it came to me at a point in my life where I needed something to keep me out of trouble. All of my friends are doing the married / kids thing and so I've had more time lately as they do that kid stuff.

It kept my mind off any job / relationship / lack of relationship stresses, gave me something to look forward to on the weekends. It was fun, and hard, and very rewarding in and of itself. And come September it will lead me to meet some new people who I predict will be a breath of fresh air from all these Californians and their interesting personalities.
 
jesse said:
You made the right call. You weren't sure if there was a safety issue and because of that you decided not to fly. If anybody faults you for that, well, they're an idiot.

By the way, I'd have done the same thing.
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Thanks, but it seems with websites there are always people saying "you could have gone".

I will stick with my own decision and if I'm a wuss, so what. I don't care.
 
It is never a bad decision to cancel a flight.
Some may disagree with that and that's their perogative.
 
dmccormack said:
(Show of hands who's been ready to roll and realized the chocks were still in place? The pitot tube cover? The handbrake still applied on takeoff?...)
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Door closed & latched for takeoff?

Forgot to switch from Clearance to CTAF before rolling on to active?

looks upward and whistles a tune while walking away...

jesse said:
You made the right call. You weren't sure if there was a safety issue and because of that you decided not to fly. If anybody faults you for that, well, they're an idiot.

By the way, I'd have done the same thing.
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Same here, except I wouldn't have dropped a dipstick in there to start with. I always do visual checks by looking into the tank and judging amount of fuel. It's much easier when you have about 1000 hours in the aircraft, tabs in the tank and a totalizer.

Seriously, Kimberly, you did the right thing. Being conservative will provide a much higher liklihood of being safe.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
This actually came up - a student in the flight school asked if my flashlight was LED since I'd be going in / near a large amount of fuel.

And I was keeping a tight grip on the flashlight so that too would not fall into the tank.
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An LED flashlight is just as bad. The switch will make a spark when actuated. The fuel mixture around the outlet is explosive. These two factors don't go well together.

Dan
 
EdFred said:
Which is why my tow bar sits on the floor behind the front seats. Engine start checklist has me looking at the tow bar in the plane before cranking it. Could make for an interesting gear retract too. :yikes:
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We have a rule in our flight school: The towbar comes off the nosewheel if you are going to take your hand off it.

Guess why that rule is in place??

Dan
 
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