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Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 10:36:16 -0600
From: Snowbird <snbird@ibm.net>
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Subject: Re: emergency decents
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JStricker wrote:
 
> Snowbird,
> You make good points.
 
> To be perfectly honest, I never really gave a lot of thought (or had
> much instruction) about true, emergency descents until I did my 
> Instrument training and not much there.  Much more during my ME 
> instruction.  Because of this, I haven't given a lot of thought to 
> emergency descents in singles.

Join the club, me neither.  I probably still wouldn't have if we
hadn't had that incident with the smoke up over JAX at 8000 ft
with the airports below all socked in on the way to TMB last xmas.

We were flying a rented C182RG neither of us had much time in at
that point (maybe 5 hrs apiece?).  Naturally maximum-rate descent
wasn't part of the checkout.

While we were waiting to see if the smoke would stop after I killed
the electrical power, you can bet had "how do we get this thing
down the fastest" running through our minds.  To give credit where
it is due, it was stuff I'd read in Gene Whitt's material which
occurred to me.  Later on of course we went up and tried different
maximum rate descents to see what would work the best, and have done 
so in every new plane we check out in since.

I honestly don't feel common, possible emergencies like smoke in
the cockpit or an engine fire or partial loss of engine power or
control failure are given the consideration they maybe ought to
get in a lot of pilot training.  Certainly weren't in ours.

> >We had a little smoke, which went away promptly when I killed
> >the electric's, and no real good choices about where to go
> >(airports below us socked in).  Kind of Hobson's choice. But if
> >they'd been VFR, I would have headed for the ground pronto and
> >sorted the problem out on the ramp.

> But would you have made it an emergency descent?  A 3,000 to 4,000
> fpm one? In the situation you described, I wouldn't have (smoke 
> going away promptly).

OK, here is another part of the Thought-Food I want to put on
the table.  

Truth?  At the time?  We didn't see descending as a very survivable
option at the time (IMC below minimums).  We had two fire extinguishers.
We chose to continue at altitude and in fact once the smoke went away
systematically determined the source and continued our trip to its
original destination.

Even if it had been VFR, at the time, we probably wouldn't have
treated the situation as a true emergency and done a full-blown
"get down fastest" routine.  But *maybe we should have*.  If the
smoke hadn't gone away, by the time we determined that it wouldn't
*it could have been too late*.  We were lucky.

Here's the point:
> If I had your experience with the smoke (and I deemed it serious 
> smoke and/or causing my passengers or myself respiratory problems) 

*By the time you "deem it serious smoke" or it is actually causing
respiratory problems and begin to treat it like an emergency, *it
may be too late* for you too*.

I'm a biochemist who worked through college as an EMT.  My husband
is an engineer who works in safety, hazardous, and radioactive material
disposal.  He serves on the 'disaster' and 'emergency response' teams
and receives regular training as part of that (by the way he works for
Boeing, so he knows something about the toxic properties of aircraft
materials). 

*It does not take a lot of smoke, from some materials, to incapacitate*
Also, the time for a whiff of smoke to become a big honking fire is a
lot shorter than many people think, especially when the fire is getting
the right food.  Oil and fuel lines run through the cockpits of many
aircraft (that's how the fuel selector and oil pressure gauge are
typically fed).  

The difference between 30 seconds, and 2 minutes, could be critical.
So could the difference between 2 minutes and 4 minutes.  That's
the difference between a "balls to the wall" most-you-can-get descent,
and a rapid descent at 2000 fpm.  Just a point to ponder.

While modern aircraft wiring and electronics are required to smolder
and not to produce toxic fumes, the standards for aircraft materials
seem very inconsistant on this point, and older wiring/materials may
not meet these standards.  Nor may the wiring and connectors from
"Auto Zone" which the last owner put in the plane and the IA never
noticed or passed over, hidden behind the panel.  So I think these
are realistic concerns.

As far as "how common is this", well, there are a number of not
particularly well explained crashes every year, where fire is
involved.  If it's a remote site and the plane is scattered
about, (or even if it's not), is the crash investigation always
sufficiently detailed to determine whether the fire started on
the ground, or maybe whether it could have in the air?  This type
of analysis can be done by experienced fire investigators, but I
don't know how thorough the fire investigation training of NTSB
folks is, or how much time they're allotted to look into the crash
of each small plane.  It takes time and care to sort this stuff out.

There are certainly a number of crashes of large planes where it
is clear there was some delay in how seriously the situation was
treated (treated as "return to airport promptly" not "Get this 
plane down NOW").  This delay may have affected the survivability
of the accident.  Not meant to critique the judgement of the dead,
clearly it's a very difficult judgement call to make and one which
invites hindsight.

Last point for everyone:  do you carry a fire extinguisher?  are
the planes you fly equipped with one?  If not maybe you should think
about it.  As renters, we had a small halon fire extinguisher from Sears
which fit in the end pocket of our flight bag and there was another in
our rented plane.  There's a halon extinguishr in the plane we own now
as well as our mini-halon.  Halon is probably superior to anything else
for dealing with a cockpit fire, because it works by reacting with the
burning material so it need not be applied directly to the fire in order
to work (the latter is true of all other fire extinguishers).

Just for John:
> >I've already had to worry about it once, and I ain't been at
> >this long.

> Ah, the joy of aircraft ownership.  Not only do you scare yourself 
> silly when it happens, you have to pay for it afterwards.  

You don't remember the details too well, mon cher.  Doubtless
degeneration of the neurons from excessive consumption of beef :).

We were in *a rented C182rg* at the time.  That was the incident
that decided us to buy a plane, because it turned out to be a known
problem the plane owners had decided not to repair (possibly 
illegally, since I believe it was a Pt 135 plane and service 
bulletins are mandatory for Pt 135 ops).  We decided the next time
our butts were on the line because a service bulletin hadn't been
complied with, we wanted to look in the mirror to know who to blame.

Later,
Snowbird


