Aircraft pilot walk-around

[Janissary]

I am curious about pilot preflight walkarounds, especially in the air force and navy. How often does a pilot spot an issue and how severe can these issues get? The crewmen are surely very good at what they do. But are there horror stories of awful prep jobs? Do the pilots go through their checks with extreme focus, or is there a large (and possibly dangerous) sense of trust? I imagine if a pilot hasn't had an issue in preflight checks for a long time, the checks would become too routine and mundane, without much of a practical point. How do pilots break that mental barrier (if exists)?

I just saw a Navy video where the crewman opens a pouch to show the pilot all his tools are accounted for, the pilot inspects the aircraft carefully but rather quickly, and then boards the plane etc. I know everything has an order, guidelines, and rules when it comes to these things, but I am curious about the things that a pilot can catch that the crewmen missed, their severity, and ramifications. Any personal stories from pilots, crew chiefs etc. would be great.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Janissary

[kellyF15]

Depends on the pilot as well as the ground crew.

Edited July 26, 2016 by kellyF15

[kellyF15]

It is a very stressful thing to do working fighters. I cant speak for how the aircrew feels about it, but when you sign off maintenance in the air force, your tail is on the line.And its not about worrying about getting in trouble, its about knowing you just fixed a machine and human lives are trusting you to do it right. Sending your jet up after a CANN rebuild or Phase rebuild is the WORST. You cant open the jet back up to let the pilot look at everything, so they cant really check a lot of vital things. There's a lot of mutual trust going on there.

[Murph]

It's a mix. I never flew with another pilot that didn't trust that the ground crews have done their best, but ultimately if the control rods are rigged backwards, you're the one whose body is on the line, so pilots typically do a thorough preflight. Having said that, it's still a cursory inspection; you're not pulling panels and checking the guts of the plane, you're looking for pretty obvious stuff.

Regards,

Murph

[ikar]

When I was in the 44th we got a report from another squadron, the Commander didn't say who or where, that a F-4 was lost when a wing tip folded during takeoff. No survivors. The Commander called it Nature's way of culling out the idiots.

My wife's C-130 came back one day with its cargo ramp damaged and skewed to one side. A inspection team was sent from M.A.C. H.Q. I've heard they go through the records of the aircraft and those of everyone connected with it.

On the way in, the T-39 declared a inflight emergency. They foamed the paved runway and he landed in the grass between the dirt and paved runways.

Two more inspection teams were sent to handle both accidents.

[kellyF15]

It's a mix. I never flew with another pilot that didn't trust that the ground crews have done their best, but ultimately if the control rods are rigged backwards, you're the one whose body is on the line, so pilots typically do a thorough preflight. Having said that, it's still a cursory inspection; you're not pulling panels and checking the guts of the plane, you're looking for pretty obvious stuff.

Regards,

Murph

Funny you mention that,

When I was at my first assignment (Elmendorf) I had to go through the pneudraulics class. They actually had a mixer assembly simulator. They hand you the T.O., have you verify if the rods are installed correctly, and everybody gets it wrong. That was back in 99, so that crash was still fairly hot as far as maintenance goes.

[DarkJester]

I worked 16's for 4 years in the USAF.

I was in Avionics as well, but I was Cross Utilization Trained "CUT" to Crew Chief. Our pilots were pretty thorough, or as thorough as you can be without opening stuff up.

They put a hand on most everything. The After engine start checklist is long and distinguished. My Butt stayed puckered for the entire ordeal. Until the jet came home safe.

FCF's after Phase or CANN bird rebuilds really were the worst. Usually we did those on the Weekends.

On Alert, it was all on us. The Bird gets pre-flighted after we put it to sleep, then no touchy. Period.

It's your Butt on the line second if things go badly. Pilot first, then CC, then whoever signed off on the forms, then the last guy that worked on it.

It is best to have all your Crap in one sock if you have to stand tall before the man.

The stress out there on live aircraft is very real. I don't care if you are on the Flightline on the ground or on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

You make a mistake and somebody pays. Big.

I loved every second of it, and wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Kicking chocks in the rain was still better than making fries at McDonalds.

Except squirt checks in the snow, but that's a whole different story.

Edited July 27, 2016 by DarkJester

[Slartibartfast]

Except squirt checks in the snow, but that's a whole different story.

Short-arm inspection???

[DarkJester]

Funny, but no.

Had to do with standing on the Ramp/Taxiway close to EOR and simulating RADAR for checking the RTWS system.

Seems like they always wanted to do them when it was butt freezing cold or when it was 98 degrees.

Damndest thing.

[kellyF15]

We just called them RWR pits, but thats pointy head business lol.

[ALF18]

As a fighter pilot, I had a very high level of trust in our groundcrew. I never expected to find anything wrong (like a low oleo, underinflated tire, oil or fuel leak, etc), and (with one exception I will describe) never did have a problem.

My focus on the walk-around was pins and other items such as gear door maintenance switches. I wanted to make sure all the pins were out, switches in the right place, and left nothing to be assumed.

Now to the one time I had a problem. I was instructing on the Tutor (same jet as the Snowbirds). We refuelled at a Canadian military base (Edmonton/Namao) on the way back to Moose Jaw. The student was put in charge of the refuelling, and he did the walk-around. This student was within a month of finishing his Wings course, so I didn't follow up on his walk-around (no instructor usually did, after the student had successfully soloed). When we got back to Moose Jaw, the phone on my desk rang as I was completing the paperwork for the student's assessment post-flight. The groundcrew told me that they had found the fuel cap unfastened, inside the access panel to the fuel port. Oops. The military transient-servicing tech was unfamiliar with the aircraft; he had forgotten to replace the fuel cap. With the access cover closed, it was not visible unless the student had opened the panel during his walk-around (which he should have done). As the instructor, it was ultimately my responsibility. Nothing really bad happened, but if we had decided to do some aerobatics on arrival, we could have p*ssed a bunch of fuel overboard with any negative g.

One time, on a trip to San Diego, I stopped at Navy North Island. The USN techs refused to refuel our T-33. They said that recently somebody had managed to start a fire and blew up a transient aircraft (A Tracker, I think), and since then only visiting aircrew were allowed to refuel their aircraft themselves. I assigned my back-seater (a recently-graduated Lieutenant) to do the job, and he managed to collapse an oleo by filling too much in one tip-tank before balancing the load with the other tip. Kind of funny, as the kerosene sloshed all over his flight suit.

Bottom line: When working with qualified techs on an aircraft type, the pilot's walk-around is usually just cursory, looking for very obvious things that have been forgotten, and RBF flags, chocks, and such. When techs are not familiar with the aircraft, the pilot does the A/B (after and before) checks himself, usually fairly thoroughly. We received training and periodic requalifications for those checks.

ALF

[Winnie]

On Civvy street, we place I think the same ammount of trust in our engineers, but we usually only have 1 guy look at our aircraft. You develop a sense of trust with your guy, and if he's good your checks may get more relaxed, after all they are qualified. But if major stuff is done to the aircraft, I will look at the work much more closely. We also have counter-signing authority or dual control check authority for such things as flight controls etc.

When I get to the aircraft (a Bell 212 Helicopter in my case), I grab the flashlight and do the ground first, while the engineer does the fuel drains etc. then I go on top and do the last bits there. It usually takes me maximum 10 minutes. When we are two crew, one guys does the ground level, the other goes on top, and the engineer still gets to do the fuel...

Basically we just look for things out of place, and I have found missing antenna (ripped of by ground handling), missing fuel caps, rags where none were supposed to be, screw drivers where none were supposed to be, and spare parts in strange locations.

shoot happens, and this is why we do the preflight inspection...

[Janissary]

Thanks all for the insights and personal stories, I love reading things like this. Vicariously living my childhood dream of becoming a pilot. The closest I got to that was playing on my Commodore 64, with my winter gloves on, the keyboard on my left, a polished tv tray on my side for sticking the joystick, and a kids football helmet on my head. Damn those were the days....

[Murph]

One time, on a trip to San Diego, I stopped at Navy North Island. The USN techs refused to refuel our T-33. They said that recently somebody had managed to start a fire and blew up a transient aircraft (A Tracker, I think), and since then only visiting aircrew were allowed to refuel their aircraft themselves. I assigned my back-seater (a recently-graduated Lieutenant) to do the job, and he managed to collapse an oleo by filling too much in one tip-tank before balancing the load with the other tip. Kind of funny, as the kerosene sloshed all over his flight suit.

T.A. always shuddered when we showed up in our T-birds with their "seven point refueling system". Especially a four ship: 28 tanks to fill. They never balanced it out when refueling, so we always had a collapsed oleo, and then we would have to climb up on the "high" wing and jump up and down on it to collapse that one and even it out. It always made for entertaining times as jets other than T-33s taxied by wondering what in the hell we were doing.

Regards,

Murph

[kellyF15]

Bouncing the wings to collapse the struts on a F-15 is great fun.

[ALF18]

T.A. always shuddered when we showed up in our T-birds with their "seven point refueling system". Especially a four ship: 28 tanks to fill. They never balanced it out when refueling, so we always had a collapsed oleo, and then we would have to climb up on the "high" wing and jump up and down on it to collapse that one and even it out. It always made for entertaining times as jets other than T-33s taxied by wondering what in the hell we were doing.

Regards,

Murph

Been there too, Murph. I also hopped out on a taxiway to fix a cocked nosewheel by the runway. I heaved up on the nose with my back, kicking the nosewheel straight, as the other pilot held the brakes. Gotta love old classic jets.

The Lt in question was sitting on the wing, right by the tip tank. He had already filled the mains and leading edge tanks, but left the filler caps off, as he filled the tip. When the oleo collapsed, copious quantities of fuel gushed out of the two open wing filler caps to soak him. Strangely, the JP-8 perfume wasn't a big hit with the ladies in the bar. He stank for a week after that.

Our bowsers on T-33 bases had twin hoses, so the two tips could be filled simultaneously by two techs. They also hated it when pilots used the LE tanks early on. They always asked us to not feed those tanks, because they took forever to fill with their internal baffles. Managing that fuel system, and avoiding overtemps with the big Nene 10 centripetal flow engine was a full-time job!

We are definitely spoiled now.

ALF

[Superheat]

I am curious about pilot preflight walkarounds, especially in the air force and navy. How often does a pilot spot an issue and how severe can these issues get? The crewmen are surely very good at what they do. But are there horror stories of awful prep jobs? Do the pilots go through their checks with extreme focus, or is there a large (and possibly dangerous) sense of trust? I imagine if a pilot hasn't had an issue in preflight checks for a long time, the checks would become too routine and mundane, without much of a practical point. How do pilots break that mental barrier (if exists)?

I just saw a Navy video where the crewman opens a pouch to show the pilot all his tools are accounted for, the pilot inspects the aircraft carefully but rather quickly, and then boards the plane etc. I know everything has an order, guidelines, and rules when it comes to these things, but I am curious about the things that a pilot can catch that the crewmen missed, their severity, and ramifications. Any personal stories from pilots, crew chiefs etc. would be great.

Being a former Nasal Radiator I will confirm what you surmise and others have verified. Before you manned an aircraft you reviewed its recent maintenance history, known as yellow sheets because they were the yellow copies of a multi part form filled out after each flight, so you knew what had gone wrong lately and what to take a closer look at. Even that was largely unnecessary if you got the right aircraft and consequently the right plane captain, because his preflight was exhaustive and he'd tell you if there was anything questionable. We had a couple that were so good I would just ask them if I needed to look at anything and if they said no, I just got in the airplane. With others, I did do the preflight and the things I would habitually check on the F-8 were the PC 1 and 2 flight control hydraulic accumulators because those were critical, and I would look for popped or "working" rivets because those might indicate an unreported overstress, but it was rare that a pilot found anything that maintenance or the plane captain had missed - but read on!

A couple stories about preflights. When I was a Ferp (FRP: Fleet Replacement Pilot) in VF-124 I was on a 3 plane ( 2 FRPs and an instructor)advanced radar hop one day that required an F-8D, E, H or J. But this was 1968 with the Rebuild program in full swing and all the D's had long since departed to become H's, but none had yet returned, the E's had started going for conversion to J's, but, again, no J's on board, so an E was the only option and they were not as plentiful as they had been and, of course, a working radar was required. We briefed the flight, went to Maintenance Control and signed out two E's, with the instructor taking a C and went out to man up. Everything on my airplane was fine and I manned up and got started without incident. During the post start checks I noted that there was a lot of drama around Hugh's (the other Ferp) aircraft, with Maintenance crawling all over it and Hugh getting out. Someone from Maintenance Control ran out with the Yellow Sheets for another aircraft and Hugh quickly signed off on it and ran over to the new airplane, did a very fast run around and jumped in and got ready to start. I could see the aircraft well from where I was and it did not look right to me, the tail was way up off the ground and it was sitting very slightly nose down - very unusual for a Crusader. Well, that one wouldn't start at all, which should have come as no surprise because it did not have an engine installed! Sometimes preflights could get TOO cursory! It turned out that when the first aircraft went down, Mainteneance Control's first priority was an E with a good radar and that airplane had one so it was assigned without realizing it had no engine in it. There wasn't another E with a good radar available so the hop got CNX'ed and rescheduled, and we all went to the O Club where Hugh got a lot of stick for his preflight.

On my first cruise we had an F-8J, 207, that everyone hated to fly. It was just a horror show to fly especially in formation: on the right wing you felt like you were pointed at the lead and constantly made unnecessary corrections for position and on the left wing it was the opposite. We carried only two AIM-9D's on single pylons, but on 207, the port missile was good for about two or three flights and then the Guidance section would shake itself off in flight, or depart the missile on a trap, so 207 had no missile of pylon on the left and a Y-pylon with 2 9D's on the right. An even bigger problem with it, though, wass it wasthe most reliable aircraft we had! Nothing ever went wrong with it, so it was always up and ready. One day I got it assigned for a flight and went out to man up. Usually, aircraft were parked aboard ship with the tailpipe over the cat walk so there was no way you could walk around the back of the aircraft, but on this day 207 was parked in the middle of the deck and I could. As I walked around the right UHT to look up the tailpipe - something, after Hugh's experience I ALWAYS did when I could - I happened to glance up the right side of the fuselage, then checked the tailpipe - engine installed! - and glanced up the left side of the fuselage. And stopped dead in my tracks! I looked up the left side again, then the right, then the left. There was a visible difference! The airplane was bent! The nose actually DID point to the left. Turned out the aircraft had been severely damaged in a landing accident at Da Nang and was to be written off but was sent back to LTV for spares (K's and L's got wings and landing gear among other things from E's and D's in the conversion process) but LTV said they could restore it in the rebuild process, so the Navy said OK. Somehow they missed (or ignored) the kink in the fuselage, and so had everyone else up to that point. So you could occasionally find something on a preflight that had been missed, but it might not do any good! 207 made the whole cruise with very few missed flights for maintenance issues.

Cheers,

Tom

[Slartibartfast]

^^ Like reading a "You had to be there" story from Flying magazine.

[kellyF15]

My favorite TA story: When I was in the 90th at Elmendorf, we went through a short period where the jets flew with the aircraft forms at all times in the big square door on the side of the CFT.

We had a jet divert to eielson for some reason or another, and TA didn't close the cft door after they put the forms back in.

Only one flimsy strut props this door up.

I can't remember if the called an IFE, or if it was a code 3 or not, but the wingman saw it on the battle damage check after takeoff, and they called it in. For some reason the decided to continue to elmendor at a slow speed.

I was de-arm that day, and I'm nosey, so I was happy to be the first one there. Somehow, the door was still there, and the forms. I don't know how, but I do know aerodynamics are funny.

[iaf-man]

On Civvy street, we place I think the same ammount of trust in our engineers, but we usually only have 1 guy look at our aircraft. You develop a sense of trust with your guy, and if he's good your checks may get more relaxed, after all they are qualified. But if major stuff is done to the aircraft, I will look at the work much more closely. We also have counter-signing authority or dual control check authority for such things as flight controls etc.

When I get to the aircraft (a Bell 212 Helicopter in my case), I grab the flashlight and do the ground first, while the engineer does the fuel drains etc. then I go on top and do the last bits there. It usually takes me maximum 10 minutes. When we are two crew, one guys does the ground level, the other goes on top, and the engineer still gets to do the fuel...

Basically we just look for things out of place, and I have found missing antenna (ripped of by ground handling), missing fuel caps, rags where none were supposed to be, screw drivers where none were supposed to be, and spare parts in strange locations.

shoot happens, and this is why we do the preflight inspection...

Was a 212(UH-1N) mech and a Fouga(Tzoukit) afterwards

Can say that the chopper pilots do more of a PF checks than jet ones

At the choppers you have many rods to grab and shake,besides that all other

checks sum up to checking for closed panels and brief visuals,maybe grab the controls on a low

sitting jet as the Fouga was

Remember the collapsing oleo here too,as in T-33))) There was a 3 point fueling procedure

As the wings were so low sitting-no problems leaning or jumping on a tip tank to straighten them out

There was a B.757 crash because at plane wash the static pitot ports' masking tape wasn't removed-pilots should've

check that thing too,although it was a silver,low observable tape

Isaac

Edited July 30, 2016 by iaf-man