#237 ( My only engine failure in 20 years ) Advanced Preflight After Maintenance

Alrighty then. Day 237 Coffee with Kenny. I'm gonna set that down because I want to talk real quick about advanced pre flight after maintenance. And this is a PDF from the FAA. Wouldn't take you but 5 minutes to read it, but this is a pretty good topic and I just wanted to mention that, remember the Labor Day sale ends tomorrow night, Monday night, midnight. So if you want to jump in on the special sale, go to helicopterground.com below or any of the links below and take advantage of the big Labor Day. So in the advanced pre flight after maintenance, they talk about how a significant number of general aviation fatalities could be avoided if pilots were to conduct more thorough pre flight inspections of aircraft that have just been returned to service. I don't think I've talked specifically on this topic in the coffee with Kenny videos. Maybe I have. I know I've talked about how I think you can learn a lot by pre flighting or take at least taking a look at the aircraft after you've flown when the engine's hot and you've had it out and put a load on it. But this puts a little more of a spin on it. And they got some great tips. Just like coordinate with your mechanic before flying aircraft that have been recently maintained to get a clear determination of as to what has been accomplished. It's nice to talk to them and know exactly what they've done. That's a big help when you go to do your pre flight because you know exactly what you're looking for or what areas to look after maintenance. Check all systems more thoroughly than normal pre flight checklist implies. Other than the normal preflight checklist implies. Okay, you can, anybody can make sense of that, right? If you're an experienced pilot, you already know this, but if you're new to this, this is something you haven't really maybe thought about. Pay particular attention to aircraft components that may have been affected by recent maintenance. Avoid becoming distracted or being interrupted in the middle of the pre flight to ensure you do not accidentally miss or skip a step. I think that one's big because especially the busier flight school. This happens a lot and it can happen in any environment. When you're pre flighting, somebody comes walking up to talk to you and then you forget where you're at. And last but not least in the list, immediately be prepared to abort takeoff if something goes wrong or doesn't feel right. One school I worked for, we always did 10 minute hover after pre flight and you know, I've kind of Gotten away from that. I think that's really good. Not. And I shouldn't have gotten away from that. That's a good idea. The only time I've ever had an engine failure in 20 years was after maintenance, believe it or not. And I was doing a hover. I was doing the hover pre takeoff check or you know, hovering for five to 10 minutes before actually going out in the pattern. And I hovered for a few minutes and thought everything's, everything's good, right? And then I got ready to go and actually I thought, well, I'm just going to hover here another minute or two. I even had the boss's son with me in the aircraft, I think. And about that time the engine went, blah, quit, right? So hover auto down to the ground. So a mechanic comes out, takes a look at it. Something was inverted during the pre flight or during the maintenance. There was a valve that was put in backwards. So the aircraft ran, ran for just a little bit and then ended up failing on me. And the engine literally quit during a hover. And the interesting thing is at that point where that place where we would take off, we went out over the lake, right? So if I wouldn't have waited that three, five, seven minutes and took and had taken off with an engine failure and I went right into the lake. And I also want to mention one of the mechanics that worked on stuff I flew for years that I would trust with my life. Super mechanic. I can think of one time at least that I found a tool in one of the aircraft that I owned after maintenance. So even a really high quality mechanic can make a mistake, leave a tool inserted somewhere, a bag of a roll of paper towels. There's so many things that could be left after the fact. So this advanced pre flight after maintenance is a great topic. I'll put the PDF down below so you can go take a look at it. It's short and sweet. You won't spend more than five minutes taking a look at it. So I highly, highly, highly recommend you check out this PDF from the faa. Advanced pre flight after maintenance. So as I mentioned, Labor Day sale on now, this is Sunday, it ends tomorrow night. So you got a little over 24 hours to get on that special sale. I'll put all the links down below. You can go check it out. 30% off the yearly or the big professional pilot package. And if you don't take advantage of that and you want to go for the monthly, we do have a special for the monthly. No discount because it's already cheap. We'll send you either one of our number one Amazon best selling books or if you don't have either, we'll send you both. Just for taking the trial. You don't even have to go all the way through, but if you at least take the trial membership on private, commercial, CFI or instrument, we'll send you the books. Heather will email anybody that signs up for a monthly subscription over the weekend. She'll email y' all on Tuesday, get your info and get your book shipped. So give us a thumbs up. Leave your comments down below and we'll see you in the next video.