Fire warning light

jtrain609 said:
You may or may not agree with me on this, but I think more people have flown their airmanship into the ground than their checklists into the ground. Not to say that you can't fly a checklist into the ground, because people have, and will do so in the future, but the emergency procedure memory items and checklists are written by folks who have the presence of mind to consider the best course of action for your given operation.

Now if it's obvious that running that checklist will get you killed, then by all means, don't run the checklist, but let's also talk about how often that's going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, I love to "what if" situations to death, but the majority of the time this stuff is going to be cut and dried stuff, and the emergency procedure checklist is there to mitigate pilots from creating their own procedures when they are, quite literally, on fire.
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Its all a matter of timing. No one is saying don't run a checklist or toss it aside. It's simply a matter of when to run it. You can't simply rely on one or the other regards airmanship and checklist usage, you need both. But there is a time for each, and even a time to use both at the same time. When those times are will likely be different for each and every unique emergency. But the two do complement each other.
 
jtrain609 said:
You may or may not agree with me on this, but I think more people have flown their airmanship into the ground than their checklists into the ground. Not to say that you can't fly a checklist into the ground, because people have, and will do so in the future, but the emergency procedure memory items and checklists are written by folks who have the presence of mind to consider the best course of action for your given operation.

Now if it's obvious that running that checklist will get you killed, then by all means, don't run the checklist, but let's also talk about how often that's going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, I love to "what if" situations to death, but the majority of the time this stuff is going to be cut and dried stuff, and the emergency procedure checklist is there to mitigate pilots from creating their own procedures when they are, quite literally, on fire.
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I'll write more about it tomorrow, but I just finished training on an airplane that "has no memory items whatsoever." Of course, during training, they kept saying well, what would you do for immediate action items? I said "nothing, since there are no memory items, but I'll pull the checklist out." They would get all huffy..."well, you know enough about the airplane, so what are some things you can do while you are getting to a safe place for the checklist? Yes, there are no memory items, but you can do some immediate items until you have a chance to get to the checklist." I just laughed...wouldn't that be a memory item that you told me not to memorize, but now are saying to do, without guidance?
 
Stone Cold said:
I'll write more about it tomorrow, but I just finished training on an airplane that "has no memory items whatsoever." Of course, during training, they kept saying well, what would you do for immediate action items? I said "nothing, since there are no memory items, but I'll pull the checklist out." They would get all huffy..."well, you know enough about the airplane, so what are some things you can do while you are getting to a safe place for the checklist? Yes, there are no memory items, but you can do some immediate items until you have a chance to get to the checklist." I just laughed...wouldn't that be a memory item that you told me not to memorize, but now are saying to do, without guidance?
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Again, don't throw out airmanship and judgement just because there's no memory items. Your easiest answer to their question, and one that should satisfy them, would be "Id maintain aircraft control until I can get to a safe place for the checklist". There's your "memory item" where there are no published ones, obvious though it may be.
 
MikeD said:
Again, don't throw out airmanship and judgement just because there's no memory items. Your easiest answer to their question, and one that should satisfy them, would be "Id maintain aircraft control until I can get to a safe place for the checklist". There's your "memory item" where there are no published ones, obvious though it may be.
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That's just it...that was my answer and they were insisting that you could just do stuff with systems knowledge without using the checklist until you could get to a safe place to use the checklist. It was actually comical to listen to what was being said. If an engine starter stays engaged, well, just turn off all the bleeds and disengage the starter, but you had better do it right as per the checklist. That was seriously their response to a starter problem. Emergency descent...no memory items. Of course, you know there are the normal no brainers...get masks on, establish comms, and descend, but those are not memory items in this airplane.

I asked how they could not have those as memory items, and the answer was it has an emergency descent mode that does it automatically, so you should wake up at 15,000' on autopilot on heading at 250Kts. Well, it is only auto if the A/P is engaged, and you are above 40,000'. What happens if those conditions are not met? I know it is pretty much a no brainer on Emer Descent, but I did not understand how they can have literally NO memory items, but a lot of things they said you need to do by memory before you could get a checklist out.
 
Stone Cold said:
That's just it...that was my answer and they were insisting that you could just do stuff with systems knowledge without using the checklist until you could get to a safe place to use the checklist. It was actually comical to listen to what was being said. If an engine starter stays engaged, well, just turn off all the bleeds and disengage the starter, but you had better do it right as per the checklist. That was seriously their response to a starter problem. Emergency descent...no memory items. Of course, you know there are the normal no brainers...get masks on, establish comms, and descend, but those are not memory items in this airplane.

I asked how they could not have those as memory items, and the answer was it has an emergency descent mode that does it automatically, so you should wake up at 15,000' on autopilot on heading at 250Kts. Well, it is only auto if the A/P is engaged, and you are above 40,000'. What happens if those conditions are not met? I know it is pretty much a no brainer on Emer Descent, but I did not understand how they can have literally NO memory items, but a lot of things they said you need to do by memory before you could get a checklist out.
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I agree. You were giving them the one universal memory item of "fly the airplane until I can get into the checklist", when that's about the only one you can give if there are no other official memory items. Apart from the no-brainers you mention, what exactly were they looking for from you? Some kind of "testing your systems knowledge" or something like that?
 
MikeD said:
Again, don't throw out airmanship and judgement just because there's no memory items. Your easiest answer to their question, and one that should satisfy them, would be "Id maintain aircraft control until I can get to a safe place for the checklist". There's your "memory item" where there are no published ones, obvious though it may be.
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See that's just the thing. With the way we operate, doing anything besides flying the airplane during an emergency is a no no. Or in other words, don't go pushing buttons without grabbing the checklist first, because you're got a higher likelihood of screwing things up FURTHER if you reach up and start trying to "fix it" before you have a chance to fly the plane, settle down, think about what's happening, FIGURE OUT WHICH CHECKLIST TO PULL, and then run said checklist.
 
MikeD said:
I agree. You were giving them the one universal memory item of "fly the airplane until I can get into the checklist", when that's about the only one you can give if there are no other official memory items. Apart from the no-brainers you mention, what exactly were they looking for from you? Some kind of "testing your systems knowledge" or something like that?
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No, that was what was so funny about it was it seemed like they were saying "there are no memory items, but these are items you could do before going to the checklist." That in my book, is a memory item. Prime example was engine fire after takeoff...no memory items. So, we said let the thing burn off until we get to an altitude to safely run the checklist and verify you have an engine fire. They insisted you could check the engine instruments, verify you have a bad engine, cage the engine, pull the fire handle, and blow a bottle if it did not go out before you get to the safe altitude and run a checklist, depending on what the PIC wanted to do. So, we said we will let it burn off and run the checklist at a safe altitude.

It had nothing to do with testing systems knowledge. It was what seemed like a disconnect between the manufacturer and the school house, IMO. The manufacturer said only follow the checklist as we have no memory items, but the schoolhouse is trying to invent memory items, and backed that up by saying "of course, if you are going to do something before doing the checklist, make sure you do it in accordance with the checklist, as every button push is recorded and if it is not done correctly, it could come back on you."

Edit to add: by the end of training, it was a running joke between us and the instructors of there are no memory items, but do this first, and you'd better do it correctly according to the checklist...
 
jtrain609 said:
See that's just the thing. With the way we operate, doing anything besides flying the airplane during an emergency is a no no. Or in other words, don't go pushing buttons without grabbing the checklist first, because you're got a higher likelihood of screwing things up FURTHER if you reach up and start trying to "fix it" before you have a chance to fly the plane, settle down, think about what's happening, FIGURE OUT WHICH CHECKLIST TO PULL, and then run said checklist.
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Which as I mention before, is your one memory item: "Fly the airplane" until in a safe place to utilize the checklist. And as you said, it's the correct and appropriate thing to do with your crew-served airplane. No argument there. It might vary with single-piloted aircraft depending on the conditions they're encountering and the pilot's workload, as you well know, and without going into 1000 "what if's". But I think we're on the same page overall.
 
pullup said:
Air France, two year ago.
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Wait, what? What does that accident have to do with a checklist?

Yes, there exists checklists they could arguably have run (NAV UNRELIABLE AIRSPEED or NAV ADR 1+2+3 FAULT), but with all the bells and whistles that were going off in that cockpit, that QRH checklist was the least of their worries...especially since both of the procedures in parenthesis are "unannunciated" checklists.
 
I am a firm believer that a single pilot airplane the pilot needs to have the critical EP's memorized. In the case of fire all of the checklist is memorized. I enjoy spending afternoons at the destination sitting in the cockpit and making airplane noises and going over all of the procedures by memory and fluid motion. Like in training for a gun fight, you fight like you train and train like you fight and during a real fight will be like your worst day at training. So you just need to be that much better.

I doubt I would shut the engine down at all if there was no secondary indications of any kind. Even by the time you got to a safe altitude and or in the clear. Theoretically enough time would have gone by and the wing is still attached that there probably is no fire. On has to be carefull about to many false alarms however and the softening of the mind.

It is a single loop system and reacts by heat in excess of 375 degrees which then un grounds the circuit triggering the light. When we got the light during the fuel flow tweaking it was because the ground wire became disconnected all on it's own. I wonder if the engineers thought it might have been a better idea to just use temperature threshold for the light instead of ungrounding so that way you could press to test and troubleshoot the sensor in flight. The manual is silent on any of this. I wonder if perhaps the sensor trips in both cases irrespective of each other. Something I will have to play with one day by removing the ground wire. If the press to test with it tripped does not do an OK green than I know it's a seperate deal and it can be tested in the event the light comes on. If the red light comes on and it does OK green with the test button than it may be illuminated because the system is inoperative and there would be no way to confirm and the system may not actually be OK. Why would they design it to be the latter, it makes sense that the pilot should be able to test it to confirm Oheat or wire came off or something.

There are 3 lights on a push to discharge button. The red is overheat detected, the green is squibs and associated wiring connected and the yellow is fire bottle empty. A note in the section says that the green light does not indicate weather the sensor system has continuity only the squib. So I may have answered my own question but what a dumb way to design it. The test button should test continuity of the extinguishing and sensor system together.
 
I love that FEVER acronym. Really nice.

The big thing to me is this: You can see the motor right next to you in a 421. If it's running fine on the gauges and quite obviously not on fire, I won't shut it down. That may be an unpopular opinion, but if I had a nickel for every time I saw an errant light in a 400-series Cessna I'd be rich. And yes, I'm current a current 121 JJJJJJJJJEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTT pilot too, and I vote to leave it running. Your current gig's procedures don't define you as a pilot; the sum of your background does. I will say this, too: If you opt to shut it down, that's fine too. Nobody's going to come at you for following the procedure, even if it may have been an unnecessary shutdown.

Now, I would more than likely return to my departure airport, simply because there would be no way for the engine to indicate a real fire (though, I flew 402s without fire loops and survived just fine*). 200-1/2 wouldn't change my decision; I can fly an ILS. :)




* But of course, we were men. The women were men, and the children? Men.
 
jtrain609 said:
See that's just the thing. With the way we operate, doing anything besides flying the airplane during an emergency is a no no. Or in other words, don't go pushing buttons without grabbing the checklist first, because you're got a higher likelihood of screwing things up FURTHER if you reach up and start trying to "fix it" before you have a chance to fly the plane, settle down, think about what's happening, FIGURE OUT WHICH CHECKLIST TO PULL, and then run said checklist.
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What irks me in students that I teach is when they think that, because (in some circumstances) they should pull out and read a checklist before executing EPs, that it means they don't have to at least know their aircraft well enough such that they all ready essentially know what the checklist is going to tell them to do.

A checklist is there to back your memory up -- not to be the primary means of understanding what the corrective actions are (ergo, a substitute for solid understanding of systems and procedures).

I always have to counter students' claims like this by telling them that the checklist is stuck somewhere under their seat or blew out when the canopy popped off. Now what do ya do, Stan?

Again, checklists are never a substitute for airmanship and judgment.
 
Hacker15e said:
What irks me in students that I teach is when they think that, because (in some circumstances) they should pull out and read a checklist before executing EPs, that it means they don't have to at least know their aircraft well enough such that they all ready essentially know what the checklist is going to tell them to do.

A checklist is there to back your memory up -- not to be the primary means of understanding what the corrective actions are (ergo, a substitute for solid understanding of systems and procedures).

I always have to counter students' claims like this by telling them that the checklist is stuck somewhere under their seat or blew out when the canopy popped off. Now what do ya do, Stan?

Again, checklists are never a substitute for airmanship and judgment.
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There's almost no emergency procedure checklist we have that any properly trained pilot doesn't already know. If we haven't run it in training, we should have a pretty good idea of what it's going to ask us to do.

But that being said, outside of memory items that are backed up with a QRH/QRC (run like you suggest), emergency procedure checklists (QRH) are read and do procedures.

If we don't get them out, read them, and then do what it says, then we're not operating the way we're trained, and we're operating outside the bounds of what the FAA has signed off for the air carrier.
 
MikeD said:
Shack.

Which are things one would especially need in the situation the OP described if single-pilot. There might not be time in the near-term of the EP for a checklist to be run. The checklist ideas are all well and good, but when they can be brought into play will highly differ between a single-pilot plane, and a crew aircraft. Until then....in both cases....good airmanship, judgement, and decisionmaking will be the only bag of tricks one has to draw cards from.

Now once the checklist can be safely run, definitely do it....that's what its there for.
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I primarily fly single seat aircraft, the checklists are great and all, but my two hands will already be busy... Essentially, they are all memory items for me.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
I primarily fly single seat aircraft, the checklists are great and all, but my two hands will already be busy... Essentially, they are all memory items for me.
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I'd tend to agree on some items for sure. My first any only (thus far) IFE in the Hornet was smoke in the cockpit coming off target, and I was rounding the corner for a short final at Yuma before I ever got the chance to break out the book and verify that I had done everything. Helped to have that one pretty much memorized, even though a good portion of it isn't boldface
 
jtrain609 said:
we're not operating the way we're trained, and we're operating outside the bounds of what the FAA has signed off for the air carrier.
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Ahhh, yet again we reach the point where it's necessary to point out that there's a lot more to professional aviation than flying commuter-class aircraft.
 
Fire warning or not, the biggest issue is why are the CEO and Chairman of the Board flying on the same piston twin aircraft?
 
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