We had have clear blue skies all day, and it was looking perfect for night flying... full moon, relatively light winds (only 10-15 knots) and clear skies. Nick and I were planning on flying up to Whangarei so he could check it out after I had already had a go with Chris.
Due to daylight savings and the longer days, ECT was not until just after 8:30pm, so we had plenty of time to prep, pre-flight and gas up JBL. Everything was going fine until we were taxiing from the pumps after gassing up, and noticed that the Artifical Horizon (AH) was looking a little lop-sided... turning a corner and it just flopped over to the other side. Suction looked OK, so figured it must be the AH itself. Shutting down, it just started spinning around and around...
Can't fly at night without and AH, so we filled in the defect log, terminated our flightplan and notified the CFI of the problem. Strike one...
We decided we would take ETZ, so we transferred out gear over, pre-flighted and then taxiied off to the pumps to fill up. Everything looking fine, instruments all working as they should. Run-ups were OK and we lined up. Made my 'rolling' call and applied full power. As we started trundling along the runway I did my usual scan:
- RPM OK
- Temps & Pressures OK
- Airpseed Increasing... ummm... NO?!?! its stuck at 0... ???????
Closed the Throttle... Applied the Brakes... "Ardmore Traffic, Echo Tango Zulu stopping on Zero Three".
Taxiied back to the club, filled in the defect log and terminated our flightplan AGAIN... "Not your night is it?" was the response from Christchurch Information... :-/
I'm looking on the bright side... My training has obviously given me the skills and abilities to:
- Identify Problems/Issues that may compromise the safety of the flight
- Make the correct decisions in a timely manner
I'll chalk last night up as another valuable learning experience, and a timely reminder not to get complacent!
2 comments:
Can't call it a flight if you didn't get airborne. :-P
Seriously, its good to know that when things don't go as they should your training kicks in and you react correctly and in a timely manner. Nice work Jarred.
Surprised myself a little bit actually...
Didn't go into a state of "Oh crap, what do I do now?"... I just identified the problem and then made a decision.
Must remember to thank Trevor for 'suggesting' I brief aborted take-off procedures during pre-Takeoff checks before each of our training flights!
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