- Joined
- Jul 17, 2019
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- 1,933
- Location
- Chicago suburbs
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Display name:
The Little Arrow That Could
JFC. Had an eventful morning. This is a rant.
Accepted an invitation to fly with a guy who has a Dakota at a nearby field. It's a really slick plane with a new gps navigator and new paint (two things my plane doesn't have), so I said why not? Been jonesing to fly after my ear infection kept me grounded. My new-ish flight instructor who just got their -II had connected us as safety pilot buddies since we both dragged ass on building hood time, plus I figured I'd get some free high performance time. All things considered, sold!
Arrived with my headset after preflight and the excitement wore off after starting the engine.
I'm going to bullet point what went wrong:
1. Fuse for the aux fuel pump pops like 5x in 5 seconds. He responds by reaching across me angrily, hovering his finger over it, reflexively pushing it back in each time it pops. Response: "it started doing that sometimes, idk why but its fine"
2. We're supposed to be doing practice approaches and on the ground I notice we have vacuum pressure but the directional gyro is completely worthless. It is just continuously spinning at about 90-180 degrees per minute. His solution is "we can compensate for that"... What?
3. Taxis really fast and says we should take off quickly because the right main tire has a tendency to run flat. He overinflates to compensate and it "doesn't drain air as fast when it's off the ground and we're not landing at the other airports so it should be OK". I just had a flat tire issue less than 2 months ago and this strategy of flying with a perpetual flat never occurred to me as a reasonable option. It's like buying a new tube never crossed his mind.
4. We did 3 run ups. The first 2 the engine was vibrating badly. This wasn't rough mags. This was ****. I was actually nervous even sitting in the plane because it felt like we were about to blow up lol (I knew we weren't but still). On the third try it was silky smooth. Still, I can't just forget about getting my teeth rattled on the first 2. After he gets 1 good runup, he's content. Again: "sometimes it does that"
5. After the third runup he pulls the level back to idle and the engine shuts off, he quickly tries to rescue it to no avail. Can't get it started right away. We're stuck on the ground for a few mins so he wants to exit the plane and check that the tire is still good. I'm almost laughing at this point. We get the plane running again.
6. He had kept asking to crack the door even though it's cloudy and 50F out. I didn't think much of it at first. But after run-up he tells me to crack it again "otherwise its going to smell like avgas" in the cabin. But don't worry, once we're in the air and have some airflow its fine.
At this point we taxi past the FBO and I had to exercise PIC. That is: Passenger-In-Control (of my own ******** fate) privileges and tell him I'm going to have to skip the flight. Never would I accept actual PIC at the controls of that plane. I did it politely and hopped out near the FBO. He wasn't disappointed or anything just surprised I didn't want to fly anymore after driving an hour out there. Drove back home in rush hour and had plenty of time to think about it.
I fly an Arrow, not a Dakota. In fact, I've never even been in a Dakota before today. But he saw nothing wrong with any of this. Except to say that the plane has some problems but it's not a big deal because he only needs it for another year before his partner has the money to buy out his half. A dubious assumption based on the text below. It's like he's pretending that negotiating with the airplane that it only has to last another year is a valid maintenance strategy. I was like "****ing BRUH".
So instead of flying I just headed home to supervise construction on my deck, and relishing the beauty of not fearing for my life in a flying sh*tbox.
Also, this is the text I got back from my flight instructor, who will probably no longer be my flight instructor.
IDK how any reasonable pilot would think a rubber gasket around the root of the wing would "prevent" a fuel leak.
Anyways - I don't know what the lesson is here aside from "don't assume someone who owns a 'nice' plane actually takes care of it". Rant over.
Accepted an invitation to fly with a guy who has a Dakota at a nearby field. It's a really slick plane with a new gps navigator and new paint (two things my plane doesn't have), so I said why not? Been jonesing to fly after my ear infection kept me grounded. My new-ish flight instructor who just got their -II had connected us as safety pilot buddies since we both dragged ass on building hood time, plus I figured I'd get some free high performance time. All things considered, sold!
Arrived with my headset after preflight and the excitement wore off after starting the engine.
I'm going to bullet point what went wrong:
1. Fuse for the aux fuel pump pops like 5x in 5 seconds. He responds by reaching across me angrily, hovering his finger over it, reflexively pushing it back in each time it pops. Response: "it started doing that sometimes, idk why but its fine"
2. We're supposed to be doing practice approaches and on the ground I notice we have vacuum pressure but the directional gyro is completely worthless. It is just continuously spinning at about 90-180 degrees per minute. His solution is "we can compensate for that"... What?
3. Taxis really fast and says we should take off quickly because the right main tire has a tendency to run flat. He overinflates to compensate and it "doesn't drain air as fast when it's off the ground and we're not landing at the other airports so it should be OK". I just had a flat tire issue less than 2 months ago and this strategy of flying with a perpetual flat never occurred to me as a reasonable option. It's like buying a new tube never crossed his mind.
4. We did 3 run ups. The first 2 the engine was vibrating badly. This wasn't rough mags. This was ****. I was actually nervous even sitting in the plane because it felt like we were about to blow up lol (I knew we weren't but still). On the third try it was silky smooth. Still, I can't just forget about getting my teeth rattled on the first 2. After he gets 1 good runup, he's content. Again: "sometimes it does that"
5. After the third runup he pulls the level back to idle and the engine shuts off, he quickly tries to rescue it to no avail. Can't get it started right away. We're stuck on the ground for a few mins so he wants to exit the plane and check that the tire is still good. I'm almost laughing at this point. We get the plane running again.
6. He had kept asking to crack the door even though it's cloudy and 50F out. I didn't think much of it at first. But after run-up he tells me to crack it again "otherwise its going to smell like avgas" in the cabin. But don't worry, once we're in the air and have some airflow its fine.
At this point we taxi past the FBO and I had to exercise PIC. That is: Passenger-In-Control (of my own ******** fate) privileges and tell him I'm going to have to skip the flight. Never would I accept actual PIC at the controls of that plane. I did it politely and hopped out near the FBO. He wasn't disappointed or anything just surprised I didn't want to fly anymore after driving an hour out there. Drove back home in rush hour and had plenty of time to think about it.
I fly an Arrow, not a Dakota. In fact, I've never even been in a Dakota before today. But he saw nothing wrong with any of this. Except to say that the plane has some problems but it's not a big deal because he only needs it for another year before his partner has the money to buy out his half. A dubious assumption based on the text below. It's like he's pretending that negotiating with the airplane that it only has to last another year is a valid maintenance strategy. I was like "****ing BRUH".
So instead of flying I just headed home to supervise construction on my deck, and relishing the beauty of not fearing for my life in a flying sh*tbox.
Also, this is the text I got back from my flight instructor, who will probably no longer be my flight instructor.
IDK how any reasonable pilot would think a rubber gasket around the root of the wing would "prevent" a fuel leak.
Anyways - I don't know what the lesson is here aside from "don't assume someone who owns a 'nice' plane actually takes care of it". Rant over.
