Wednesday, August 30, 2006
He Never Said a Word
(1)
Rereading the previous post relatively sober, I see that corrections are in order. First, I do not remember the instructor's name. Maybe it was 'Dave,' maybe not. He was Cole's Chief Pilot at the time. Regarding the weather, it was way below minimums for a VOR Approach. We didn't have a prayer of finding the runway in those conditions at night. We were doing the approach for training purposes only, and, yes, I was infuriated by 'Dave's' apparent willingness to risk our lives on a training flight. Suppose we had iced up so much that the airplane was unable to climb above the icing altitude? Suppose the 'carburator heat' control failed and the engine lost power? We would have been faced with landing the ice-covered airplane in darkness on unknown terrain in near-zero visibility. (By the way, I did experience 'carb heat' failure in another airplane during instrument conditions: the mechanical linkage broke, leaving carb heat in the 'on' position. The result was a slight decrease in engine power, nothing serious.)
We lucked out, of course. The carb heat worked as advertized, the wing ice had not reached a critical lift-destroying level yet, and we were able to climb above the freezing level and make our way back to Denver.
I flew for the entire flight, of course. By the time we got back to the Denver area, Columbine was below VFR minimums. We then requested and received an ILS approach clearance to Stapleton runway 35. I did the ILS approach in good style. I remember 'Dave's' comment on my flying the approach: 'Doesn't this just make you sick?' His remark was a back-handed compliment addressed to our German passenger in the rear seat. The passenger never said a word the entire flight.
We had got the bad news about Columbine soon enough to have them call for transportation, and soon after we tied the airplane down at Stapleton we were on our way back to Columbine by automobile.
Rereading the previous post relatively sober, I see that corrections are in order. First, I do not remember the instructor's name. Maybe it was 'Dave,' maybe not. He was Cole's Chief Pilot at the time. Regarding the weather, it was way below minimums for a VOR Approach. We didn't have a prayer of finding the runway in those conditions at night. We were doing the approach for training purposes only, and, yes, I was infuriated by 'Dave's' apparent willingness to risk our lives on a training flight. Suppose we had iced up so much that the airplane was unable to climb above the icing altitude? Suppose the 'carburator heat' control failed and the engine lost power? We would have been faced with landing the ice-covered airplane in darkness on unknown terrain in near-zero visibility. (By the way, I did experience 'carb heat' failure in another airplane during instrument conditions: the mechanical linkage broke, leaving carb heat in the 'on' position. The result was a slight decrease in engine power, nothing serious.)
We lucked out, of course. The carb heat worked as advertized, the wing ice had not reached a critical lift-destroying level yet, and we were able to climb above the freezing level and make our way back to Denver.
I flew for the entire flight, of course. By the time we got back to the Denver area, Columbine was below VFR minimums. We then requested and received an ILS approach clearance to Stapleton runway 35. I did the ILS approach in good style. I remember 'Dave's' comment on my flying the approach: 'Doesn't this just make you sick?' His remark was a back-handed compliment addressed to our German passenger in the rear seat. The passenger never said a word the entire flight.
We had got the bad news about Columbine soon enough to have them call for transportation, and soon after we tied the airplane down at Stapleton we were on our way back to Columbine by automobile.
