Plastic Pilot

Symptoms of food intoxication can be felt 90 minutes after eating the poisoned food, as an average. So says my Human Performance book, and it was perfectly verified yesterday. I ate some chocolate with unknown expiry date at 8:30pm, and rushed to the toilets at 10pm… While waiting there for improvements, I asked myself… what if that occurred in flight ?

I don’t want to talk about this particular case, but more generally. What shall I do if experiencing the symptoms of imminent flight incapacitation while in flight, single pilot on board. Here are some food for thoughts on that hot topic…

Make it short
If incapacitation symptoms manifest themselves away from your destination, it seems logical to divert. Depending of the symptoms, a larger airport with medical support can be a better option. Such airports also have better rescue services, shall the landing not as smooth as wished.

Informing ATC of the situation is the best way to get a direct-to clearance to any airport. A MAYDAY call is may be not justified, but medical emergency, or PAN PAN is perfectly relevant. Even when flying VFR to an uncontrolled airport, the FIC can help you and send some rescue and / or medical teams.

If air is smooth and allow for more speed, think of continuous descent. If you don’t need to maintain altitude, the extra-speed can make the difference, and loosing altitude soon enough will make the approach easier to manage. Having to go-around because of a too-high approach would be silly.

Make it easy
Letting the auto-pilot fly the plane under such circumstances is also on top of my check-list. Not only it reduces the workload, but also prevents for bad surprises if the symptoms develop quicker than expected. As long as your bugs are where they’re supposed to be, engaging the autopilot requires to press one or two buttons only.

There are also a couple of before landing checks that you can do: lights on, fuel pump if required, fuel check, and so on. If you’re close to your new destination, envisage getting the drags out, particularly the landing gear. The last thing you need is a belly landing.

Make it safe
If you fly with passengers, it may be time to review safety procedures, or to brief them on basic aircraft handling. A full pinch-hitter course is probably not possible, but you can probably guide your passenger, and possibly make it to the airport. One of the first things is to show them how to transmit on the radio.

Your passenger can fly under your instructions, or simply use the autopilot. If you choose this option, don’t try to make your passenger fly a perfect landing, but aim at a “survivable crash”: slightly higher than usual approach speed to avoid stall, and nose-up attitude to avoid flipping.

Did you think of the precautionary landing option ? If you really think that you won’t be able to fly within the next minutes, and if terrain is favorable, you don’t need long to get back on the ground.

Make it… later
Depending the kind of symptoms that affect you, they can get away rather quickly. Vomiting in flight is not the best experience, but it is certainly a great relief. If you think that the symptoms could diminish, why not fly towards the airport, and then hold in vicinity.

If things get worse, you’ll be in good position for an approach at any time. If your symptoms vanish, you can then land safely.

Lesson learned
The only thing I will keep from my yesterday’s mishap is that it’s good to be well prepared. The 20 minutes I spent thinking of this course of action were not wasted. It’s much easy to prepare for any critical situation without being exposed to stress than improvising when things happen.

Strangely, however, there is a topic on which I did not learned… I still can’t resist chocolate

Read more about in-flight intoxication in my post “Captain’s Dish - Food or Chicken“.

When I prepared my post about the new Cirrus Perspective, which includes G1000 and an upgraded autopilot, I read some info about an auto-pilot button labelled “LVL”, for wings-level. This sounded to me like the basic mode of most autopilors, I was even surprised that so many reports were even mentioning it.

It’s only when I read an AOPA news post calling it “emergency switch”. This auto-pilot mode is indeed a new and cool thing: it does bring the aircraft in wings-level and pitch-level from (nearly) any attitude ! As long as the bank does not exceed 75° and the pitch does not exceed 50° (both rather extreme…), pressing this button will make the autopilot restore wing and pitch level attitude.

Even if all IFR pilots are trained for unusual attitude recovery, this is not an easy thing. Turbulence in IMC can be challenging, and loss of spatial orientation is sadly not a seldom thing. So if everything else fails, this button can be a life saver.

Missing what this new feature is, and how good it is was for me a practical lesson about human performance. In the first report I read, it simply sounded like “that’s not really new…”. When I got additional information, my mindset turned towards “you guys are annoying me with that”.

I strongly sticked to my original idea, and simply removed that possibility that I could have a wrong understanding for the list of options. Which of the five dangerous attitudes do you recognize in that (more than one correct answer) ?

This was my personal “I learned about flying from doing that blog” lesson for today, and I’m not particularly proud about that. Hope it will help someone else.

UPDATE: Strangely, the editor of AviationWorld had the same kind of reaction, and also published about it here.

Pilots flying aircrafts with retractable landing gear must know three things: how to extend and retract it, the speed restriction for its operation… and the emergency extension procedure. As any equipment on board, the landing gear extension system can fail, and manufacturers have to plan an emergency system.

On the PA-32 Saratoga, the gear is operated with a dedicated hydraulic system, which is rather simple. When the gear must be retracted, the pump creates pressure on the appropriate side of a cylinder, which raises the gear. To extend the landing gear, the pump removes pressure, by moving liquid back in a tank.

One of the drawbacks in this system is that if pressure diminishes in flight, the gear can move, and the pilot gets a warning. This also re-activates the pump, which brings the gear in the “fully up” position. The first time it happens is always a surprise to new pilots !

The Bonanza uses a full electrical system. Gears are mechanically linked to a “master wheel”. When the wheel rotates in one direction, the links bring the gear up. When the wheel motor drives it in the other direction, the links bring the gear down. No pump, no liquid, no hydraulic circuit. The gear won’t move by itself, as nothing will move the master wheel.

So is one of these systems better than the other one ? In normal operations, the answer seems obvious. But emergency operations is another world…

The emergency system to extend the Bonanza’s landing gear is a crank coupled to the master wheel. It’s normally folded betweent he pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats, in a relatively aft location. If the gear engine fails, the pilot must unfold the crank, and turn it… 50 times ! The first turns are easy, but then the air resistance to the unfolding gear comes in the game, and more force is required to turn the crank.

I practiced that a couple of times, and I it took something like two and a half minutes. If this happens in VMC condition, or IMC with autopilot working, this can be done. But if the reason of the failure is a total loss of electrical power, the whole procedure must be done without auto-pilot. Good luck.

The Saratoga’s hydraulic system includes a by-pass valve. If the gear can’t be extended normally, pull the lever to open the valve. The fluid in the cylinder will go back to the tank, and after 9 seconds, the gear will be extended. That’s it. Ok, one must first reduce speed to 90 kts, instead of the usual 132, but that’s no big deal.

So, which system do you prefer now ? If you know other systems, let me know which is your favorite.