President’s Update- Charath Ranganathan
Dear Members,
As you read this newsletter, we are past the autumnal equinox and in early fall. In many parts of the country, this is “fall colors” season – a time when the leaves turn brown and trees are at their most colorful. In Southern California, it is “fire season”! I guess each part of the country has its own charm…
Fall in SoCal is a great time to go flying as temperatures start dropping and the evenings turn cooler. And, the weather is still fairly dry – which means it’s generally VFR up there. So, if you have been waiting for cooler weather to fly, now is your chance.
Enough of me channeling my inner Dickens and waxing eloquent about the seasons. Let’s talk about business.
Until this quarter, 2024 has been a challenging year for AACIT. Aircraft utilization was significantly lower than in previous years and, coupled with a steep increase in maintenance rates, resulted in your Club being in a tenuous financial position. The Board has exercised strong fiscal discipline to rein in our costs. Thankfully, a steep increase in utilization over the last two months has also added to our coffers and we are in better shape now than we were a few months ago.
We are not out of the woods yet. Maintenance costs have more than doubled in the last 12 months and continue to increase. We have two more airplanes that will soon need their engines overhauled. Avionics overhauls are getting more difficult each day – there’s a lot of pressure to replace to more modern avionics. In short, owning and operating airplanes is challenging.
My goal in stating the above is not to alarm you but to request three things from you:
1. Fly more: Airplane rentals are the primary source of revenue for AACIT. Also, aircraft engines that are flown more frequently tend to last longer than their manufacturer-stated TBOs (Time Before Overhaul). AACIT airplanes are a testament to that fact.
2. Fly cautious: The modern general aviation airplane is a marvel of engineering, but even this (sturdy) machine needs TLC. Use manufacturer-recommended leaning and power settings, for instance. And, please do not take unnecessary risks with the airplane. Risky flying isn’t good for the airplane, and it certainly isn’t good for your longevity either.
3. Upgrade: Get checked out in the 182, the Archer, Arrow, or Cirrus. These are airplanes that have greater availability and are a pleasure to fly during longer flights. I recently flew the Arrow (2824Y) to Utah and back and the new avionics and the two-axis autopilot made the long flight so easy.
As we approach the holiday season, your Board is planning to hold at least one member event so that we can all get together and celebrate our shared joy of aviation. We are also planning our fall member meeting. Please stay tuned for more information on these events and send us your ideas as well.
Thank you for being a member of AACIT. I hope to see you soon on the flight line.
Fly Safe.
Vice President – David Werntz
Good to Go? pAve the way…
During training, we spend time on preflight preparation, including things like PAVE, IMSAFE, AV1ATE, ARrOW, weather/NOTAM briefings, and the physical preflight of the plane. Today I’d like to talk about the A in PAVE… the Aircraft. Is the aircraft (airplane) you plan to fly legal, airworthy, and safe?
At most places you might do flight training or rent airplanes, you’re given keys each time you rent a plane and only after someone confirms that all required inspections are up to date and there are no critical outstanding maintenance issues; they “dispatch” the plane. In AACIT, this is the responsibility of the PIC;AACIT keeps information in ScheduleMaster (SM) to help you make your decision, but ultimately it’s up to the PIC.
If you go to the schedule page in SM and click on an aircraft identifier on the left (in blue), a window pops up listing squawks and scheduled maintenance.
The squawks (aka discrepancies) are ordered by priority (highest first) and creation date (newest first). Don’t stop there though – you can see additional detail on a squawk if you click on the squawk’s title. This further information is often crucial to understanding the impacts of a squawk, recent changes, or recommended procedures. If you have additional information/comments on a squawk, click the “+” next to the title. Need to create a new squawk… just click the “+” next to the word “Squawks”, Members can change the priority of a squawk too. Changing an existing squawk to “Plane Down” priority will not automatically create a maintenance schedule, but does turn the “!” red in the schedule screen next to the plane’s ID. Creating a new squawk with “Plane Down” priority automatically creates a maintenance schedule that will overlay upcoming schedules and should email any pilot’s whose reservations are impacted.
The Scheduled Maintenance is grouped by engine time items first and date items second. Inside those groupings, the items that are due first are sorted to the top. Check dates and tach times carefully, as it’s easy to misread or assume that it’s ok, when it’s not, Items that you will see in this list include:
– Annual – all aircraft are required to have an annual inspection within the preceding 12 calendar months. [14 CFR 91.409(a)]. Any date for the expiration of an annual should be the last day of a month and it is illegal to fly past this expiration.
– 100 hr – for all instructional flights, a 100 hr inspection must have been completed within the previous 100 hours [14 CFR 91.409(b)]. Instructional flights include solo flights by student pilots, as well as the more obvious flights with an instructor on board. Instructional flights must stop prior to the time listed in SM.
– 100 hr seat rail – all of our Cessnas are covered by AD 2011-10-09, which requires a repetitive inspection of the seat rail every 100 hrs. No flights are allowed past this limit.
– ELT Insp – the Emergency Locator Transmitter must be inspected within the previous 12 calendar months [14 CFR 91.207(d)]. This inspection is normally done at the same time as the annual, so you should expect the dates to be the same.
– ELT Battery – the battery in an ELT must be replaced on a regular basis [14 CFR 91.207(c)]. No flight should occur past this date. The expiration date is determined when a new battery is installed.
– Static/Xponder – the altimeter/static system and transponder must have been tested within the previous 24 calendar months [14 CR 91.411 and .413]. These two inspections are done together and no flight should occur past this date.
– Registration – the FAA recently changed the rules, such that registrations are good for 7 years [14 CFR 47.40]. The information in SM is provided to keep pilots from needing to handle the registration in the plane (and potentially damaging or losing it). Flight past the registration expiration is illegal.
– 50 hr (oil) – most manufacturers recommend (and the club follows) that aircraft oil and filter be changed every 50 hours. There is no FAA requirement for this, but pilots should get approval of the airplane’s maintenance director prior to exceeding this time
– GPS Database update – the aircraft with IFR certified GPS units (all except 326 currently) have databases that should be updated every 28 days. An out-of-date GPS database is primarily of concern to IFR flights, but all pilots should be aware than an out of date GPS could have incorrect airspace and navigational data.
– CO Mon – the club has equipped all aircraft with portable Carbon Monoxide monitors that will alert for higher than normal levels of CO. These have a 2 year lifespan and cease working at the end of 2 years. There is no FAA requirement for these monitors, but the club believes we should always have an operational CO monitor onboard.
– TBO – Time Between Overhaul. For aircraft engines, their manufacturer specifies a TBO based upon a average “lifetime” for that type of engine. For club aircraft this ranges between 1500 and 2400 hours. With regular use and monitoring, we have been able to safely exceed this guideline by 50%. This information is provided to give insight into the relative “age” of an aircraft’s engine, though there is no FAA requirement for replacement based solely on engine time in part 91 operations such as AACIT.
Now, occasionally information is not updated immediately after maintenance is completed. If you are unsure if an item has been repaired or an inspection completed, please contact the maintenance director for the airplane. If you believe that entry in SM is incorrect, please let the maintenance director or board know (every once in a while we do make a data entry error).
One advantage of keeping squawk and scheduled maintenance info online is that you can check and read up on this info prior to going to the airport. It’s helpful to know that you might not be able to fly as the aircraft is nearing the 100 hr limit or that a required light for your night flight is not working. If you log into SM with a few hours before the start of an airplane reservation, you will be shown a list of squawks and scheduled maintenance. Unfortunately, this screen does not allow you to see the details in a squawk, so I recommend the method listed above in addition to the SM preflight screen. Checking squawks prior to your preflight inspection of the plane allows you to verify the state of previously reported squawks and avoid the embarrassment of entering a new squawk for something already in SM’s squawks.
As always, if you’re ever unsure… ask.
Fly safe.
Flight Director’s Corner – Kevin Baines
Fuelish Behavior: The Common Cause of Five Serious Aviation Accidents within the Broad AACIT Community
Fuel mismanagement is a significant cause of aircraft accidents, including fatal ones. As recorded in the AOPA’s McSpadden (historically Nall) Report for 2021, over the past decade on average of some 70 accidents and 10 fatalities a year were caused by fuel mismanagement, representing about 8% of the total aviation accidents and deaths. Fuel exhaustion, wherein there is no fuel left onboard to feed the engine(s), accounts for many of these. Fuel starvation due to fuel contamination, or fuel systems mismanagement that, for example, leaves untapped fuel onboard as the plane strikes the ground, accounts for many others.
Fuel mismanagement accidents are clearly preventable. Yet they do occur, even to very experienced pilots such as CFIs and highly decorated Air Force pilots with thousands of hours of flight time. In fact, during my time with AACIT since 1982, there have been five such accidents I am aware of that involved such high-time pilots as well as others associated with our Club, either as Club members, their relatives, employees of JPL, or pilots who use our airport as their home base. All of these clearly experienced fuel exhaustion or fuel starvation, resulting in four totaled aircraft and the deaths of three pilots within just 10 minutes after takeoff. In two of these accidents, fuel exhaustion/starvation actually occurred much quicker: less than 30 seconds after liftoff. The fifth accident was the result of fuel systems mismanagement as the NTSB found fuel in one wing of the totaled Club aircraft which came to rest in the arroyo less than a quarter mile short of the threshold of Runway 19. Luckily, that Club pilot and his three passengers walked away unscathed.
A quick reminder of what the FAR’s have to say about fuel requirements:
Paraphrasing FAR 91.151, on any and every flight, the pilot must plan for enough fuel to fly to the intended destination airport and then have at least 30 minutes of fuel remaining based on normal cruise speed. For night and IFR flights, at least 45 minutes of fuel margin is required.
Now let’s review five close-to-home examples of clear violations of the
Fuel Requirement rule, beginning with the one involving pilots more loosely connected with AACIT and finally discussing two involving Club Members flying Club Aircraft, in which, thankfully, no one was killed.
Accident #1 occurred on July 14, 2017 at KEMT. An experienced pilot with 4,200 hours of flight time was rather desperate to get quickly over to Chino airport (KCNO) to meet some friends for a scheduled flight in another aircraft. He was able to quickly borrow a 2-place low-wing training aircraft known as a Pazmany PL-2, parked near Annia’s to fly over to KCNO. He was told that the aircraft had not been flown for over six months and needed to be carefully pre-flighted. As witnessed by several pilots at KEMT, including one of our own instructors, the pilot proceeded to do a quick “run-around” preflight, jumped in the plane and taxied rapidly to the hold-short line for Runway 19, without doing a runup in the runup area. His flight lasted about 5-10 seconds in the air before the engine quit at roughly 75 feet AGL as the plane reached midfield opposite the terminal, where a CFI (among others) – alerted by the startling quiet of the suddenly dead engine – witnessed the ensuing calamity. Instead of nosing a bit down and gliding to the arroyo paralleling the runway, the pilot continued a nose-up climb to ~ ~200 feet for a few moments, slowing the plane down considerably. Then he initiated a left turn apparently in an attempt to land on Runway 01. The plane reached nearly a 90-degree angle of bank and then the nose dropped and the aircraft stall/spun nose-first into the tarmac near the end of Runway 19, killing the pilot. There was no fire. The NTSB rather surprisingly concluded fuel starvation – not fuel exhaustion – had occurred, because the fuel status could not be determined based on the available evidence. In particular, since the wings were breached, the investigators could not tell how much fuel – if any – had been present when the plane crashed. But the lack of fuel in the carburetor bowl and the accelerator fuel pump demonstrated that at least the engine was being starved of fuel.
Accident #2 occurred on January 9, 2015 at Van Nuys airport (KVNY) and involved a JPL scientist not affiliated with the Club who was a CFI-and commercial-rated pilot with multi-engine and helicopter ratings and over 2,300 hours of flight time. He was intending to fly his Lancair from VNY to Scottsdale, AZ (KSDL), but, as he told his wife during a quick phone call, he needed to refuel first at Whiteman airport, where fuel was cheaper than at VNY. Already several hours late he, like the experienced pilot in Accident #1, was in a hurry. And also like what happened to the previous pilot, his plane lost complete engine power rather quickly on the climb out, within about 30 seconds after liftoff, at 400 feet AGL while departing Runway 16R. A minute or so later the pilot spun into a busy intersection, killing him. As in the first fatal accident above, there was no fire.
Accident #3, on July 4, 2003, involved a turbine-powered Beechcraft Bonanza commanded by a well-decorated Air Force pilot. Along with him were his two teenage sons, both pilots themselves who later became AACIT members and subsequently earned their IFR and Commercial ratings with the Club. They had just taken off from a small rural airport with no fueling services to pick up fuel at Pangborn Memorial Airport in Wenatchee, Washington, some 10 minutes away. The PIC had calculated through his own record keeping that they had at least 20 minutes of fuel onboard so could complete the flight. Such an estimate was all they had to go on, since the fuel gauges were not operating properly due to incomplete pilot-led work on the fuel lines. On the flight to the rural airport from their home base, the PIC had made careful records of engine settings and associated times to determine the total fuel burn. But nevertheless about 5 minutes into the final flight the engine went dead. The teenage co-pilot who was at the controls then handed command to his dad, which in the case of the Bonanza involves the wholesale movement of the control wheel over to him. The dad then performed a glide down to a wheatfield and touched down. But as they rolled out, the wheatfield ended and the plane rolled off into a ravine about ~50-feet deep. The PIC dad was killed when his head hit the control wheel on impact. Both sons survived, but with permanent scarring from their heads (1) striking the bolster in the case of the co-pilot, and (2) in the case of the backseat passenger, striking the seat in front of him.
The final two accidents were in AACIT aircraft. While both planes were totaled, thankfully no major injuries occurred.
Accident #4 occurred on April 12, 2007 in N9685Q, a club C172 flying from KEMT to Stockton, CA. Due to higher than expected winds, the trip took about 45 minutes longer than expected. The pilot usually flew N19760, our Club 160-HP C172 that burns ~8 gallons/hour of fuel. But this time he was flying N9685Q with its 180 HP engine that burned ~10 gallons/hr. The pilot did not recognize this difference in his endurance planning. His engine quit about eight miles from the airport. He set up a glide for Rwy 29R and made a miraculous landing in a small plot of land between Highway 99 – a major freeway with lots of traffic at the time – and a blast fence at the near end of the runway. N9685Q was totaled but the Club pilot survived with minor injuries.
Accident #5 occurred on Sunday, October 15, 1989 and is personally poignant as it occurred in the Club’s 1976 Piper Archer II, N9323K, which I owned. The pilot had flown to Sacramento with three passengers for the weekend and was returning without refueling there. As he was passing KVNY, the engine quit due to the left wing fuel tank running out of fuel. He switched to the right wing tank and got the engine running again. He flew on past Burbank Airport and about 8 minutes later entered the right downwind to KEMT Runway 19. Opposite the numbers, at pattern altitude, the engine quit again. He set up a glide but landed short of the runway by a few hundred yards, crash-landing the plane into the arroyo, just prior to the Lower Azusa bridge, totaling it. Quite luckily, he and his three passengers survived with little injury. But, surprisingly, it was not fuel exhaustion that caused this accident, but fuel starvation: The FAA inspectors found that the fuel selector was set to the LEFT wing position corresponding to the fuel-empty wing. When they switched it to the RIGHT wing position and turned on the fuel pump, the fuel readily flowed to the carburetor tank, demonstrating that there indeed was fuel available for the engine to use. Rather incredibly, on downwind, the pilot, apparently attempting to follow the “Select Fullest Tank” landing checklist item printed conveniently on the instrument console in front of him, had actually switched the fuel selector from the working right tank back to the empty left tank! “Dohhhh!”.
All of these accidents – and deaths – were easily avoidable. As in the vast majority of general aviation accidents, the root cause of all of these was poor pilot attitude. The blatant disregard for FAR 91.151’s fuel requirement was obviously a key transgression committed on all of these. The two AACIT accidents show poor judgment as manifested in a “Can Do” or “Get Home-itis” attitude to complete the flight no matter what. Both of our Club aircraft overflew several airports before winding up totaled on the ground less than a few hundred yards short of the intended runway. On the crash of N9685Q at Stockton, the pilot even ignored the prodding about a potential fuel stop from his brother who was piloting a Piper in loose formation with him. The brother knew that C172s held significantly less fuel than Pipers and was concerned that his brother’s plane might be getting low on fuel. Our Club pilot dismissed him out of hand, forgetting that this more powerful 180-HP C172 plane was burning 10 gallons per hour, not the 8 gallons he was used to.
Compulsiveness and unbridled Can-Do attitudes were evident in all three fatal accidents. The 4,200-hr pilot who ignored the advice to perform a careful preflight of a plane that had not been flown for many months, not even checking the fuel or doing a runup. The Air Force pilot who flew an aircraft with a non-operating fuel monitoring system, and then decided to take off anyway when he clearly “knew” he did not have enough fuel to get even 10 minutes beyond his destination, much less the required half-hour. The JPL scientist who just *had* to fly to Whiteman to get the cheaper fuel there even though he knew that the fuel on board was much less than the required 40-minute’s worth for the 10-minute flight. All of these were really rookie mistakes in judgment.
Please fly conservatively, even when you too may have thousands of hours of flying time under your belt….
As The Prop Turns! – Barney Lum
Schedule Master
- Include Destination and/or estimate of flight time. This helps Maintenance Directors anticipate scheduling maintenance
(eg 50hr, 100hr), reducing the chance of members getting “bumped.” - Use the Standby or Notification feature to become primary or first to know, respectively, of an aircraft’s availability. As a corollary – there’s no need to send an email out if you cancel your schedule.
- Reporting Squawks – be descriptive in Title. What/When/Where etc.
Hanger Etiquette
- Open hangar doors completely before pulling/pushing plane.
- Trash only in receptacles – no garbage or liquids.
- Cold beverages available in hangar B11 fridge – help yourself. Replenish as needed from nearby stock.
- Push seats back in under the desk before leaving.
Preflight
- Ensure tiedowns are removed and coiled at anchor points.
- Wheel chocks removed and clear or stowed.
- Hangar doors COMPLETELY OPEN prior to pulling plane out.
Post-Flight … be considerate to the next pilot
- Hangar doors COMPLETELY OPEN prior to pushing back in.
- Align aircraft in parking spot within tiedown points.
- Secure the plane properly – remove slack from tiedown.
- Prevent straps getting caught in door – fasten or stow all seat and
- lap belts.
- Remove and dispose of trash and other debris. Please – No liquids
- or garbage in trash receptacles.
- Clean the windshield.
Green Box – Key Attached to Aircraft Control Locks
- Oil and Funnels
- Windshield Cleaning Supplies (Pink PlexWax)
- PFDs – Personal Floatation Devices (inflatable vests) * Remember to reserve in Schedule Master
- Headset Pool * Remember to reserve in Schedule Master
Blue Box – Same key as Green Box
- Tiedown Straps (for camping and other airports that might note have tiedowns)
- Tools (screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches)
- Lost & Found
Maintenance News – Wade Kafkaloff
For the past few years there has been a severe shortage of Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanics in the Los Angeles Basin (and around the country for that matter). If you’ve ever wondered why a ‘simple’ squawk might take a long time to get addressed, it’s likely that the maintenance director for your airplane is struggling to get on a mechanic’s schedule. When several of our club’s airplanes need to see a mechanic at the same time, we are actually competing with ourselves for resources! And unscheduled maintenance due to squawks competes with the routine maintenance that must be performed: annuals, 50 and 100 hour inspections etc. Oh, and then there is the issue of parts availability…but that’s a post- Covid-19 supply chain discussion for another day!
For the past few years AACIT has been relying on SoCal Flying Club, located on the field at EMT, to
maintain our club airplanes. Their lead mechanic (and the only A&P in their shop) recently left. SoCal Flying Club is struggling to find a replacement. Until they find a new A&P, they are no longer available to perform our maintenance. Fortunately, in July 2021 a new maintenance shop opened up on the field: Bill’s Air Center. They were previously located at Santa Monica airport and were forced to move due to the impending closure of the airport. Over past year your maintenance directors have developed a relationship with Bill’s Air Center and they slowly began to split the maintenance work between SoCal Flying Club and Bill’s Air Center. Now we rely solely on Bill’s Air Center for our maintenance needs. We have been working really well with them and they do their absolute best to get our airplanes scheduled as quickly as possible.
In other news, we finally have an avionics shop on the field: ARA Aviation. As you can imagine, having avionics work done off airport can be a logistical nightmare, so we are fortunate to have them on the field. They did a beautiful job installing the GTN 750xi’s in both the Arrow and the Archer. They are very busy with months long lead times for service. Fortunately, they managed to get both our Arrow and Archer’s GTN installations done months prior to their scheduled dates!
In spite of the shortage of A&P’s, your maintenance directors will continue doing their absolute best to keep the club’s airplanes flying. The maintenance directors fly the same planes you do, so rest assured they are motivated to keep them available for scheduling!
Hanger Corner – N5997V News – Patrick Alexander
During the last year, N5997V went though a lot! We had the wing repair as you may remember done in Mar to June 2024. It was extensive and costly repair that we had to go through to keep 97V airworthy.
During the pitot static and transponder check in July, we flew up to 16,000 ft and 20,000 ft and get certified for another 2 years. I never though I would see 97V altimeter flying that high !!!
Fly safe and be gentle with your plane.
Newsletter Editor – Patrick Alexander
We urge members to email us their viewpoints and opinions so that we can publish them in our upcoming newsletters. Please share your stories and ideas with us. Our objective is to include club members in regular activities. All of the board members are volunteers who provide their time and efforts to ensure that our club remains a safe flying community and continues to grow. We want to see an involved and active membership in our club, and we want everyone to fly safely and enjoy themselves, whether they are professional pilots or just learning to fly.
Happy Landings and Blue skies!