Page 18 - Volume 12, Number 7

King Air model A100
of maintenance (DOM) has a pilot certificate and the chief pilot wants the DOM to be more familiar in flying the A100 so he asks me to include this fellow in my flight training sessions while I am doing recurrent training with them in Lexington. The year is about 1981 and I am now training through my own company, Flight Review, Inc.
The young man is very pleasant, eager to learn, has great airplane knowledge, and is a joy to train. After
demonstrating autofeather operation – this particular A100 had that option – and doing single-engine maneuvering, we conduct a starter- assisted airstart. The engine starts normally but the prop won’t come out of feather. Darn! No matter how many times we move the prop lever into and out of feather, the prop stays feathered, turning at maybe 400 RPM with the engine running at low idle. Even adding a little power does not help. I suspect that the autofeather dump valve has stuck in the open, dumped position. Later, we find that this is exactly what has happened. A good whack with a wooden mallet fixed it, never to stick again.
When our unfeather attempts all proved fruitless, we declared an emergency and returned to Blue Grass airport, shooting the ILS to Runway 4, even though the weather was good. The DOM, a rather low-time pilot, was a bit nervous with our situation and asked me to fly. I commented that he was doing a fine job and it would be good experience for him to make the single-engine landing, so he kept flying.
I could tell he was nervous. After we were nicely stabilized on the glideslope with gear down and approach flaps, with the runway in sight about 3 miles ahead, I tried to ease his fear. I turned to him and said, “Hope you’re ready, because the hard part is yet to come.”
“It is?!” he gasped. “Yeah. You’ve got to taxi to the hangar on one engine!” We laughed together and the tension eased. He made a wonderful approach and landing and kept the speed up enough that he was able to make it to their hangar without using a tug. Good job!
Well, readers, did you enjoy these war stories? I have plenty more, so please let me know if you’d like to read more in this same vein. If you do, great, I’ll regale you with others! If not, I’ll return to my normal King Air systems and operations emphasis. Be safe out there! KA
King Air expert Tom Clements has been flying and instructing in King Airs for over 46 years, and is the author of “The King Air Book.” He is a Gold Seal CFI and has over 23,000 total hours with more than 15,000 in King Airs. For information on ordering his book, contact Tom direct at twcaz@msn.com.
Tom is actively mentoring the instructors at King Air Academy in Phoenix.
If you have a question you’d like Tom to answer, please send it to Editor Kim Blonigen at editor@blonigen.net
16 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
JULY 2018