I was supposed to fly with another dude to Mayfield Ky to deliver some relief supplies today.
We loaded the plane, paying particular attention to Weight and Balance,….special care as to what we loaded and where in the plane as this was gonna be a max gross weight takeoff. Just enough fuel to get there plus an hour reserve fuel. The rest was cargo and the two pilots.
This was a cold day, temp 9F or so…the coldest I have ever taxiied the plane
Pulled the plane out of the hangar, fired it up, taxiied….all good.
Then when I pulled the power back to stop for the “Before Takeoff” checklist, the left engine died. I restarted it, and it seemed to run fine….but the tach on the panel showed zero RPM.
I’m not sure what happened, or if the engine stoppage was related to the tach failure or not…could have been coincidental and the engine stoppage at idle was simply a function of the cold temps.
Either way, It looks like we will drive the supplies down, rather than fly them. 6 hours driving rather than 1.6 hours flying each way.
Plus whatever the repairs cost…..
Shit.
Better safe than sorry.
In all honesty man, you probably just shock cooled the damn thing. Still, you have to ask yourself, “Is this shit truly worth the risk?” Good decision!
pretty hard to shock cool an engine that isn’t fully warm yet….
Good on you regarding delivering supplies to needy families!!!!
Doubly good-on-you for A) Being smart and driving and B) Not aborting the mission because of the additional inconvenience.
You get my hero of the day award. That and a buck will buy you a cup of coffee.
Drive with friends for conversation. One possible topic: the checklist for landing with one engine. Hopeful cause of stoppage – ice in fuel line. Glad we will be able to read more of your posts in the future.
I second ERJ you get my Hero award. We appreciate all supplies and volunteers. I think at one point we had more volunteers than people left in the town. For me it looks like a war zone. Glad to know that you didn’t take any chances with flying.. Thank you.
As a regular reader and a Kentuckian, I THANK YOU for your kindness.