A_and_C wrote:
I Currently hold both Boeing & Airbus type ratings and at the end of the day the only real difference is it’s much easier to eat a crew meal in the Airbus.
Then you surely agree emergency and abnormal procedures are entirely different matters…(at least up to 787 and A350 which I am not familiar with)
You surely know the answer from the crew of the Qantas A380 uncontained engine failure as well as that of the BA 787 dual engine failure on short final at LHR. I would expect the answer would not be very different.
I believe it is pertinent to this discussion: how much understanding does the pilot need to have on the underlying processes happening in the machine?
Gresham.
Clearly you have not taken the time to read the debate from the start or have entirely ignored both the manufacturers research on the subject or the operational aspects of maintaining a reliable aircraft while making flying safe for very low time pilots.
I have absolutely no doubt that the people on this forum flying 300+ hours a year in their own aircraft can do far better in the mixture control stakes than a 10 hour student but they have had years to build a experience and technique .
What some on this forum have forgotten is they once had only a few flying hours and just getting the aircraft around the circuit safely was using at the very limits of your flying ability. The question you have to ask is how much workload can you ask of the low time pilot to do and maintain a safe operation ?
As the student advance through the syllabus then correct engine management technique can be introduced but this is going to be after about thirty plus hours flying.
For me the balance is struck by using the manufacturers a SOP for shutting down the engine as not doing so results in the plugs fouling at 40-45 hours into the maintenance cycle making the aircraft unserviceable until an engineer can fix the problem adding about £200 or £4/hour to the cost of the 50 hour maintenance cycle and disruption of the flying program that is difficult to put an extra price on.
As for the willy-waving as you put is , this was only after I had been accused ignorance for using the manufacturers data for the reasons outlined above and to point out I had been around the block a few times and I’m very sorry that you find me ignorant for thinking a ten hour student can perfectly manage the cockpit workload as well as an experienced owner operator, clearly I’m just a stupid old git for trying to build student skill at a rate the allows them to absorb and retain information and skills at a rate govened by the students ability rather than overloading them with more information than they can’t absorb with their experience level.
Ok, so tell me what’s so complicated about mixture that means it really shouldn’t be taught? What’s so difficult about “pull it back halfway on the ground becaue otherwise it runs lumpy and rich and the plugs furr up.”
It’s not just students in the early stages, it’s students all the way through and most of the renting PPL population.
If you’re really honest with yourself, you’ll admit that it’s taught that way because it’s always been taught that way. There’s so much inertia and blind following of folklore in the UK flight training scene.
I think that if a businessman or businesswoman (actually anybody who could potentially run a kebab joint) starts a PPL, they will soon realise that it is much more about selling a product called “PPL, cost £xxxxx” than about producing a pilot who can fly somewhere.
The clients are on a spectrum and you can’t chuck out the bottom 95% (or whatever) like the RAF do.
Just my opinion… I really do wish it was otherwise. I have spent so many hours writing about flying etc in an effort to change / improve things…
Those who want to move forward can do so but in general they need to move out of the school/club environment before they can do that.
Graham
I’m really getting the idea that you can’t process information or are just on a pointless piss take.
I quite clearly said that engine management techniques are introduced at around the thirty hour mark in the sylibus, so I realy can’t see why you seem to insist this is not the case .
I can’t talk for others in the business but this is the way we do things however it does result in about 75% of the course and about 80% of the sectors being flown full rich but teaching and practicing leaning requires the aircraft to be flown S&L and this means it gets covered as part of the navigation part of the sylibus. This being the case the Lycoming shut down technique is used to avoid plug fouling problems.
I agree about blind following of folklore in UK aviation, that is why we use the Lycoming shutdown technique rather than most of UK GA that seems still to shut engines down using Gypsy technique.
Antonio wrote:
b) I have full rich on my checklist before run-up
Which is different to the checklist that I use which states mixture – set.
I know its a bit pedantic but setting full rich at some airfields would result is a significant loss of power on take off.
I’m very much with A and C here and I’m very surprised no one else is.
In my area one crappy little registered facility teaches leaning learning as part of Exercise 4 but effectively only makes the student use it as part of the post flight taxing. Largely to reduce plug fouling. Its then revisited in the cruise during navigation.
I don’t know of any other training organisation RTF or ATO that teaches leaning.
I am not arguing against anyone; merely pointing out that this is not a trivial topic given the wide spectrum of customer abilities in the PPL intake.
Also nearly all planes used in PPL training don’t have EGT instrumentation so the only way to lean in cruise is to lean until you get a fairly sudden and obvious power drop and then you enrich a bit. That sets peak EGT. However on many carburreted engines you will also get too much vibration at that point. Unfortunately going more rich from there (so the vibration disappears) takes you to the max-CHT operating point. There is much written online about this (Deakin etc) but the first diagram here shows the principle. Flying at the max-CHT point is probably not a good idea.
If I was running a school I would install an EDM700 in every plane and go for the ~30% fuel saving 
A_and_C wrote:
GrahamI’m really getting the idea that you can’t process information or are just on a pointless piss take.
I quite clearly said that engine management techniques are introduced at around the thirty hour mark in the sylibus, so I realy can’t see why you seem to insist this is not the case .
I can’t talk for others in the business but this is the way we do things however it does result in about 75% of the course and about 80% of the sectors being flown full rich but teaching and practicing leaning requires the aircraft to be flown S&L and this means it gets covered as part of the navigation part of the sylibus. This being the case the Lycoming shut down technique is used to avoid plug fouling problems.
I agree about blind following of folklore in UK aviation, that is why we use the Lycoming shutdown technique rather than most of UK GA that seems still to shut engines down using Gypsy technique.
Try not to get personal, there’s a good chap. No-one’s taking the piss.
If you’re teaching leaning at the 30hr mark then good for you. Most schools aren’t teaching it at all.
What Peter says about customer ability is true but I really don’t see what’s so complex about pulling it back halfway on the ground to stop the plugs furring up. You don’t need instrumentation or detailed understanding to do that.
As I understand it, the shutdown procedure you reference was put out there when Lycoming realised that everyone on the training scene was flying too rich and furring their plugs up. So they basically built a plug-clean into the shutdown procedure, and if you don’t furr your plugs up then you probably don’t need to do it. Sometimes I’d just like it to be acknowledged that doing something else is ok – as long as you understand why. Chest-thumping of the “follow the published procedure” nature rarely does anything to improve understanding, especially when that procedure is in place precisely because of a lack of understanding.
In any case, digging out that Service Letter (L192B) and reading it reveals that the 1800rpm for 15-20 seconds method is not, per se, the book technique.
It is a work-around they recommend ‘for operators experiencing lead fouling’, and in the same document they suggest eight other things that help reduce lead fouling as well as saying that if you operate correctly and avoid over-rich operation (and particularly prolonged over-rich idle or low power settings) then it’s not a problem you should have anyway.
Which explains why it’s not in my POH.
Mine says:
RPM = 1000 to 1200
Magnetos = check dead cut
Alternator = off
Mixture = full lean
When engine stops
Magnetos = off
Ignition key = remove
Bathman wrote:
Which is different to the checklist that I use which states mixture – set.I know its a bit pedantic but setting full rich at some airfields would result is a significant loss of power on take off
Not pedantic at all. “mixture set” used to be my checklist before I converted to our current turbocharged aircraft " mixture full rich" so your point stops my comment from misleading those flying NA, thanks!
