Squawk Box

Beech 1900C Internal Short After takeoff, the red landing gear in-transit light remained illuminated and the gear would not fully retract. The gear did extend to the down-and-locked position using the emergency system and the flight landed without incident. Examination found the right main landing gear weight-on-wheels switch (p/n 444EN49-6) was internally shorted, tripping the […]

Cessna 208B Grand Caravan Out Of Balance During cruise, aircraft experienced excessive vibration. Reducing propeller speed cleared the vibration for a short time but as the flight continued, vibration returned. Declared an emergency and landed without incident. External visual inspections failed to note defects. Propeller (p/n 3GFR34C703) was dynamically balanced with 28.4 grams of weight. […]

Beech H35 Bonanza Improper Mounting The alternator suffered a total mechanical failure after only 144.7 hours. The replacement unit failed after only 41.8 hours in service. Observation suggests the alternator case hardware was not properly torqued and/or was not assembled with locking fluid. Each failure found the aircraft in near-IMC conditions. Part total time: 41.8 […]

Beech/Raytheon G58 Baron Intermittent Flap Limit Switch Wing flaps were not extending from approach position to the full-down position. Found one set of contacts inside of limit switch to be intermittently open. Replaced switch and adjusted flap 14-degree and 16-degree limit switches rigging as required. Part total time: 166.0 hours Beech B200 Super King Air […]

Cessna 208A Cargomaster Failed Shimmy Dampener During takeoff roll, the crew experienced a severe nosewheel shimmy at approximately 40 knots and aborted takeoff. Troubleshooting revealed a failed shimmy dampener (p/n 26940022). Removed old-style shimmy dampener and replaced with upgraded Lord component (p/n SE0170-7) per SK208-164A. Ops and taxi checks performed with no defects. Part total […]

Beechcraft 95-B55 Baron Misinstalled Aileron The right aileron outboard attach disconnected in flight due to improper installation. On inspection, pick-up points for aileron attachment had been missed internally due to difficulty in visual alignment in between skins where failed to engage hinge. Previous log book entries show the aileron had not been removed since 1990. […]

After a brake master cylinder was installed, the technician was unable to bleed the brake system. Fluid pulled from reservoir would return to reservoir through the same line as the internal bypass was not functioning properly. Master cylinder was disassembled and bypass was found stuck and unable to move. Metal shavings were found inside, and an O-ring was torn, with black specks mixed in with the shavings. Part replaced with new master cylinder.

Everyone talks about the weather but no one ever does anything about it. (Stop me if youve heard that before.) The same could be said about managing the risk of general aviation. We-both this magazine and the industry as a whole-spend a lot of time preaching to pilots about the mechanics of understanding weather forecasts, determining if the aircraft is capable, and making honest evaluations of our own performance in considering how and when to conduct a flight. But once we identify the need to mitigate a risk, we sometimes have little space left over to describe the tools we can use. Lets try to fix that.

During a routine training flight, the right engine was intentionally shut down to demonstrate inflight restarts. After a normal shutdown and securing procedure, the engine master switch was switched back to on per the checklist. Usually, this drives the propeller out of feather, and the restart procedure is continued. Instead, the propeller did not unfeather, even after attempting several troubleshooting procedures. The flight returned safely on the left engine.

Like it or not, winter weather is upon us here in North America. After a few brief weeks of not as much thunderstorm activity, were headed squarely into a a couple of months featuring widespread near-freezing temperatures and precipitation. From storing our airplane, to preflighting it, picking a route and ensuring our destination doesnt have any slippery surprises, winter weather will have an impact on our operations, likely even if we stay in the pattern at a Southern California airport.