Posted on

Grounded…and a very important preflight lesson

I showed up at the airport today ready to fly — the ceiling was around 4,000ft, winds were a calm 3-4kts, and visibility was unlimited. Seemed like I might even be able to get some more solo time in (assuming I didn’t scare the crap out of my instructor during the first few laps around the pattern).

I went out to preflight and everything looked good. My instructor came out and I was just climbing into the plane when he yelled over from the passenger side: “Hey, did you preflight this airplane?”

Uh oh…that could only mean I had missed something, and miss something I had! My instructor showed me the passenger side main gear tire, and there was a flat spot (which I had noticed) and a bit of the tire cord peeking through (which I had not).

I didn’t think to take a picture, but here’s an example of what we saw (but our tire was nowhere near as bad as this one — it had just the tiniest bit of cord visible):

Bald tire
Not going anywhere with a tire that looks like this!

So, that was it, plane is grounded, done for the day.

I am kicking myself for not noticing this on preflight. My instructor emphasized just how important this is — a tire in bad condition can lead to a blowout on landing and turn a fun day into a tragedy.

You can bet I’ll be paying more attention to the small details during my preflights from now on. I feel like I’ve gotten a bit complacent in that regard, and that is dangerous.

I’ll file this one under Ground School — I’m glad I learned this lesson on the ground and not after touching down on the runway!

 

Posted on

No tach, no flight!

Today was the day I was supposed to take my pre-solo checkride with another instructor from my flight school. I was a bit anxious driving out to the airport — it had been a week since I practiced my maneuvers with my regular CFI and I was really hoping I wouldn’t make a fool out of myself!

I met my instructor for the day and we started off going over my logbook and talking about some of the procedures I’ve been training on. I was able to answer most of his questions correctly, but I did get hit with a couple of things I should’ve known but didn’t (like cloud clearance requirements for VFR flight — I keep mixing up the above clouds and below clouds numbers!)

After being sufficiently grilled, we were off to the plane. I did my preflight and we climbed in. I started my pre-start checklist and the differences between the two CFIs became apparent — this CFI wanted me to call out all of the checklist items as I performed them. He mentioned most examiners would expect this during a certificate checkride. I have to say, I love my instructor, but I do like flying with different people because you really do get some different perspectives on things.

I got through the checklist and cranked the starter. The engine started right up and I checked the tach. Nothing! It was pegged on zero. I mentioned this to my instructor and he thought it over for a second. He tapped on the gauge, I ran the engine up to see if it was stuck or something, but nothing worked. He said he would be fine flying without it, but I probably would have a hard time taking the checkride with no tach. We decided to shut down and call a mechanic.

C172 tachometer

Inside, we had no luck. The mechanic informed us he had just replaced the tach yesterday and it was probably a broken cable. He would have to order a part; there would be no checkride today.

We headed into a classroom and went over cross country planning for a bit. I showed him the flight plan I had sketched out and he gave me some really good tips on choosing checkpoints and planning out the details of the flight.

I was disappointed I couldn’t knock the checkride out today, but not much I can do about that!

Flight time today: 0.0 hours (!)
Total flight time to date: 30.7 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 102
Total landings to date: 98