S q u a w k !
For a bit of background:
A squawk is the term for a maintenance issue of significant size to effect the air worthiness of an aircraft. Think, fuel line leak or crack/dent in the tail boom. Basically, a big deal.
A trend is a maintenance issue to note that does not effect anything significant on the aircraft. A rattle in the cockpit or night-time running lights being out during daytime operation.
Anyway, today was rather messy weather-wise - lots of ground fog. The entire airport was grounded at 7am. So, while we were waiting for things to clear up, Kristie ran me through the pre-flight check procedures for a Robinson R22. This involves checking and touching every control surface for cracks and deformations, testing each and every flight control fastener, and sampling fuel at various stages in the fuel system. It also involves reviewing the maintenance folder for the helicopter. This particular helicopter had 2 trend forms attached. See if you can guess why we chose not to fly today:
Trend #1: "Cracks in main rotor belt. Felt nail underneath."First of all, we noticed nothing like this in the pre-flight inspection. Not even a hint of a leak or a crack. However, someone chose to notify maintenance of this, and we were not about to fly with that type of trend. Second, and more importantly, this is clearly not a trend at all... this is a major squawk and the aircraft should not be flying. This was confirmed in 5 seconds from the maintenance crew chief after reading the records. Someone is going to get their butt chewed over this.
Trend #2: "Main engine gasket leaking oil. Oil spraying all over carburettor and electrical system. Possible electrical system and/or engine fire."
Anyway, I did get about 1 hour of ground training out of this. Unfortunately I did not get to fly to the PDX heliport. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon. We did get up on the big board.
I did, however, test out my new headset. It is quite obvious that the best is the best for a reason. In the off position, headset decreased ambient noise by about 75%. When I switched on the ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) circuit I might as well have been on the moon. Silence.
1 comment:
Good call on the drive belt. The ship should have been grounded -- that's the kind of crap that can kill you (or at least force you into an auto, maybe some place where you really would rather not do one!). We keep a red "grounded" placard under the pilot's seat in our ships. Any pilot can ground a ship by hanging the placard from the cyclic. It can only be returned to service by our mechanic.
Good choice of headsets, too. I've been flying with Bose's since they first came out 4-5 years ago. Some detractors say that the ANR masks RPM changes, but I don't buy that -- even an old guy like me can hear them through the Bose.
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