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list of DOs. However, we must accept the fact that we as humans can make mistakes and that CHECKing our actions is a very good thing to do to catch these errors before they catch us and cause a problem. At this stage, the checklist truly aligns with its name: A necessary and important aid in CHECKing that nothing of importance has been overlooked.
Imagine that you are Pilot-in-Command (PIC) on the last flight before your King Air undergoes a Phase inspection. For many of you, this will likely be an annual combination of Phase 1 and 2 or a combined Phase 3 and 4, plus attending to calendar items ... such as landing gear or propeller overhauls. What an incredibly important flight this is! Now is the time – no matter how familiar you have become with your CHECKlists – to act as if you are totally new to this machine and use the entire POH’s Normal Procedures section as a DOlist. Time- consuming? Tedious? You bet! But oh, so important! You want to know the status of every system in your King Air so that you can provide the shop personnel with an accurate list of what needs special attention. “But, Tom, the shop will check things themselves and probably do a better job than I can. Why duplicate their efforts?”
In a few cases, you have stated a correct observation and a lot of efforts will indeed be duplicated. But some won’t. How about cabin leak-rate tests? How about the engines meeting cruise power requirements at altitude?
“But wait a minute. Those things aren’t on the POH’s Normal Procedures lists. I don’t know what to do nor how to do it!” I am sure this is a true statement for many of my readers. In some cases, you’ll just have to go with the shop’s findings even if they are not as complete as we’d like. But move the step up to a higher level as you gain experience in your particular new-to-you flying machine. Get a more-experienced pilot or an experienced King Air mechanic to go with you on some flights to demonstrate how and what to check. Take notes. Video the procedure on your smartphone. Review the King Air Academy’s videos on You Tube. Follow some threads on the Beechtalk forum. Read The King Air Book and The King Air Book Volume II. There is a lot of helpful information out there waiting for those who search for it. Before the airplane leaves your hands and enters the shop, you want to ensure that everything within your capability has been examined by you and that a list of discrepancies has been made. Realize that you are the PIC, not the shop foreman or owner.
The same procedure is necessary (maybe even more so!) when you pick up the airplane after the maintenance procedure has been completed. Few shops conduct a test flight with their own people after the maintenance is completed. Now is not the time to “Kick the tires, light the fires and go!” Disregard what the humorous T-shirt says: “What could go wrong? It just came out of the shop?” Sadly, but truly, a LOT of things on your squawk- list can still be wrong and some new ones often crop up as well. I will even go so far as to make this suggestion:
Give yourself an extra day before returning the airplane to normal service. Give the shop enough time to deal with the problems uncovered after the test flight that you conduct before you fly back to your home base.
Similarly, how about when the airplane is in the shop not for scheduled maintenance but for other work? Maybe some new avionics have been installed or the airplane has had an interior upgrade or exterior paint job. Often the shop you chose for the avionics or cosmetic work may be hundreds of miles away from your home base. How expensive it can become when multiple roundtrips must be made to resolve the problems that were not observed during the acceptance procedure! Again, budget enough time to check it out very thoroughly. One example: A paint shop failed to remove the paper with which it had covered the oil coolers to keep the new paint off the cooler’s fins. The pilots missed that mistake during their exterior preflight inspection. Oil temperature quickly rose enough after takeoff to send them scurrying back to the departure airport.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here: The most dangerous flight most of us civilian pilots will make is the first one after maintenance. Now’s the time to run the DOlists very carefully and completely.
But what about when the airplane has been operating regularly with no discrepancies showing up? How important is it to run the complete set of checklists
APRIL 2023
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 21