October 2012
Four years ago, I flew right seat with my friend Leroy Nygaard on an Angel Flight charitable patient transport mission, picking up a cancer patient in Lincoln, Calif. (KLHM) and dropping her off in Santa Monica (KSMO). I enjoyed the experience and have been looking forward ever since to flying such a mission in my own airplane.
A couple of weeks ago, that finally happened—and it turned out to be a bit of a challenge.
Getting checked out as an Angel Flight command pilot took some doing. It required an early BFR, completing an AOPA Air Safety Institute online course and then getting together with an experienced pilot for a couple of hours of orientation. I’d completed those prerequisites a couple of months ago, but for a combination of reasons couldn’t get a mission scheduled until recently.
The mission I selected involved picking up a nine-year-old patient and her mother in Crescent City (KCEC), just south of the Oregon border, and flying them to Sacramento Executive (KSAC). They were met by volunteers who provided ground transportation, and another pilot flew them home the following morning.
The first complication: Crescent City is right on the coast, and at this time of year is consistently socked in with coastal marine layer (fog and/or low stratus) in the mornings.
One reason I accepted the mission is that the time of day for the flight was flexible.
Several days checking weather convinced me that while the stratus might not clear up completely, it consistently improved to well above instrument minimums by 1:00 p.m. local—so I told the passengers to expect me at 2:00 p.m.
That brought up another issue. While still within FAA currency limits (six approaches plus holds in the last six months) it had been quite a while since I’d done any hood work. I invited Gary Kling, another local pilot who recently joined Angel Flight, to fly as my safety pilot (and as my copilot for the actual mission).
We shot several hooded approaches, including two on partial panel, with and without autopilot. In the process, something unusual happened. While I was flying toward the initial approach fix for a GPS approach, ATC asked me to slow down because another airplane was on a long straight-in for the ILS at the same airport.
Some time back I read an article (unfortunately, I can’t remember where) by a pilot who flew cargo during the Reagan-era air traffic control strike, when holds became all too common. To avoid running out of fuel, he’d developed a technique of pulling power back until the airplane just barely mushed along, and aggressively leaning the engine; this allowed him to keep holding until ATC could work him in.
I’ve experimented with that in Microsoft Flight Simulator and didn’t like it, but I figured out a safe alternative. By pulling power back to the bottom of the green arc (both manifold pressure and prop RPM), I can drop my airspeed well under 100 knots and cut my fuel burn almost in half.
I tried it under the hood and it worked so well that ATC eventually asked me to speed back up so the next guy wouldn’t have to hold. “Seems busy today,” Gary commented.
The day before our flight, I loaded N4696K with everything I figured we’d need and a few things we probably didn’t, including an oxygen bottle and cannulas. I planned a 10:30 a.m. departure, but asked Gary to meet me at 9:30, and we launched half an hour early.
The preflight weather briefing emphasized smoke from wildfires—it seemed like half of California was on fire. I was glad that I’d filed IFR instead of just flying out VFR and asking for a clearance when I got close.
As we approached KCEC, Seattle Center asked me to—you guessed it!—slow down. Sure enough, there were two airplanes ahead of us, and another behind. The technique I’d practiced a few days earlier worked perfectly.
I got another surprise with a procedure I’ve never encountered before: Seattle Center can’t talk to airplanes on the ground at KCEC, so each airplane holding over (or approaching) the VOR was asked to relay IFR flight plan closure for the airplane on approach. Only after passing that along could you get a clearance to leave the VOR and begin your own approach.
Fortunately, the tops were pretty low, so until the procedure turn we were on top. After that, I stayed on the gauges while Gary looked for the approach lights, and when he had them, I looked up and saw the runway. I had to be reminded to call the next airplane and have him relay my IFR cancellation to center.
After meeting our passengers, and their entire family who came to see them off (this trip was the little girl’s first flight), getting a weather briefing, and eating a much-appreciated peanut butter sandwich courtesy of Sarah Kling, we got everyone in the airplane, called for our clearance and took off. I was proud of myself for handing the departure procedure (climbing right turn to the VOR, then turn on course) with aplomb. We popped up on top and reported to Center…
Up to this time, after the runup I’d been focused completely on the flight instruments. Now that we were in the clear on top and had reported in, I relaxed, expanded my scan and found a whopping anomaly on our JPI engine monitor: EGT was pegged high on cylinder number six. CHT on number six was a mite low, and everything else looked (and sounded) normal.
To understand the knot this put in my stomach, you need to realize that every airport west of the coastal mountains was socked in. To get into any of them we’d have to execute an instrument approach, over the water, with a questionable engine. Turning toward the mountains didn’t seem like a good idea either. The engine sounded good, so I continued climbing. Altitude gives you options.
At about this point, Gary reached over and tapped the engine analyzer without saying anything. Like me, he didn’t want to alarm our passengers. I asked him to pull the JPI manual out of the glove box. When he got it out, I took it and told him to take over the controls and continue climb.
I want to complement JPI for the troubleshooting section of their manual—it has graphics showing what the bar graphs look like, and several showed one cylinder with a high EGT: a bad spark plug, burned exhaust valve, and detonation.
As circumstances permitted, I took steps to eliminate each possibility: a quick magneto test had no effect, so it wasn’t a bad plug. The problem didn’t develop gradually, so it wasn’t a burned exhaust valve. Reducing power didn’t help, so it wasn’t detonation.
By this point, I’d spent a lot of time looking at that high EGT, and noticed something that wasn’t covered in JPI’s manual: the reading wasn’t stable. It varied from about 1,630 to 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (all too high), yet everything else looked and sounded good. I began to suspect we might have a bad EGT probe.
By now we were approaching our 9,000 foot cruise altitude and the point where we’d turn east. I gave Gary the JPI book, took control, leveled out and decided that unless something else went wrong we’d continue to KSAC, drop off our passengers—and call maintenance.
Inevitably, ATC vectored us around a bit, kept us high, and then expected us to get to pattern altitude instantly. I cut power, lowered flaps and built up an impressive rate of descent, but Gary pointed out we were all getting ear pain—including our nine-year-old medical patient—so I got on the radio: “Capital Tower, Angel Flight 96K needs to extend downwind for passenger ear pain.”
I had to repeat that a couple times before they caught on, but eventually they cleared me to do whatever I wanted so long as I stayed in their airspace.
After landing, I taxied to the Sacramento Jet Center, which had kindly agreed to waive their ramp fees for an Angel Flight, and they did a splendid job getting the passengers to their ground transportation.
Once that was taken care of, I called Dick Brainerd at Pacific Aircraft Maintenance (the folks who keep N4696K ready to fly) and started to tell him about our EGT anomaly.
“Hold on… One of your partners reported the same thing last week,” he said.
You can only imagine my reaction to that news!
We now have a squawk sheet in the front of the same loose-leaf binder where we all write down our starting and ending tach readings and oil level. That way, nobody will ever be surprised by something that already happened to another partner. (By the way, the EGT probe was bad, as I’d suspected.)
Nonetheless, I think it made for a pretty good day: 5.9 hours, including 0.2 actual instrument and a for-real ILS, all tax-deductible and for a very good cause. If that sounds like a good deal, visit angelflight.com. –JDR
John D. Ruley is an instrument-rated pilot, freelance writer, and holds a master’s degree from the University of North Dakota Space Studies program (space.edu). He is a volunteer pilot with ligainternational.org, which operates medical missions in northwest Mexico. He is also a member of the board of directors of Mission Doctors Association (missiondoctors.org). Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
