I'm alive!

[eagl]

Funny enough, my only hydraulic failure in the T-37 was a slow leak in the nosegear lines.  It slowly bled out over an hour or so and when I tried to use the speedbrake during my enroute descent, the hyd pressure gage abruptly went to zero.  I had to do an emergency gear extension that time.  After landing we could see a very fine sheen of hyd fluid over most of the aircraft from the nosewheel bay, but we didn't notice it inflight and it didn't hit anything hot so it didn't smoke for us.  And we were wearing oxygen masks the whole flight so we didn't smell it either.

If you don't like the 210 hydraulics, don't bother trying to figure out anything larger   The F-15E has 3 pumps that back each other up, with (if I recall correctly) 5 separate but redundant hydraulic systems.  One utility pump and 2 "PC" pumps.  Each engine drove a PC pump and the utility pump was driven from a central accessory drive unit.  Any one of the 3 pumps could provide enough pressure to fly the plane but you'd start losing stuff if you lost 2 pumps and had certain leaks.  Like only one aileron might work or you might have to use the alternate landing gear extension and emergency brakes with no nosewheel steering, that sort of thing.  The system could survive multiple leaks due to having a complicated system of backups, bypass valves, dual-input hydraulic actuators, and pressure fuses.  Very complicated but the plane could absorb a lot of damage and keep flying.

[icepac]

The fluid will be at engine compartment temperature.

I had a friend borrow my lawnmower and he brought it back 2 hours later with multiple blisters on his hands.

He's never performed manual labor.

[CptTrips]

Way to stay frosty in a hot situation.

What doesn't kill you will only make you smarter and harder to kill the next time.

,
Wab

[Seadog36]

If it had been an Aces High landing he would have bellied in and re-upped a typh to make up lost time. Glad you made down ok~ careful taking that crate back up.

[AHTbolt]

Good job Tupac. Next time tighten your harness, bail out and as your floating down call the rental company and tell them they can pick up there AC at I35 and Hwy 123.

[VonMessa]

Nice job, David 

Not panicking is always an important part of the process.

[Babalonian]

May have been, but I had hydraulic fluid on my pants, shoes, and shirt and my hand is the only place I'm burned. My shoes I was wearing were black but when I took my white socks off they were red with fluid. My pants smell like it and so does my shirt, that stuff is nasty.

Don't own a mustang (the P-51 variety) then, the things (flying condition that I've seen) piss the stuff all over their territory as much as oil.

The fluid will be at engine compartment temperature.

I had a friend borrow my lawnmower and he brought it back 2 hours later with multiple blisters on his hands.

He's never performed manual labor.

Well, now, let's give Tupac the benefit of the doubt that he's at least once spent an entire day in his his vast life digging a ditch with nothing but a shovel before commenting about him having such purty soft hands.    (In seriousness, I doubt you'll ever recall how really fast/hard you were pumping that lever, but in the same situation and at 2am I'd probably do it with enough gusto to develop a few blisters myself.)

[Tupac]

Here is the cause of this



A broken O-ring on the entry port hydraulic screen. The hydraulic power pack kept trying to pump to bring the hydraulic system back up to acceptable levels, and got really hot. Therefore the cause of the heat, we still arent sure how the smoke got into the cockpit. There was hydraulic fluid all over the windshield and sides of the plane, it was worse than I thought it was Monday.

I'm now a minor celebrity at redbird skyport, though.

[Tupac]

It's amazing how critical an O-ring can be. That's what caused the crash of the Challenger.

[Golfer]

I'm not subscribed to the heat being transferred through the manual extension handle much less enough to burn your hand. Friction from pumping like a teenager unlucky at the prom, yes. Hot cherry juice, nah.

At any rate:

1.) Good job
2.) You're a lucky duck for even being able to get the gear down at all with a significant hydraulic leak

The smoke is most likely from fluid cooking off the hot exhaust.

Flight Express is a freight outfit that operates a number of variants of 210s. Austin Collins was the director of training there for a long time and may still be. At any rate he and FEX produced some excellent training materials on the 210 which would be very beneficial for you to learn inside and out.  This incident should show you the gaps in your systems knowledge with the 210 that need filled and while not overly complex it's the most complex thing you're currently flying.

I'd view this experience as a positive and a confidence booster that you handled a relatively minor and potentially major abnormality relatively well. I'd also encourage you temper that swelling confidence you're going to be feeling by debriefing yourself on what you didn't do as well as you could and what you can learn from this incident moving forward. What would you do in the future when the same thing happens again? What would you do different, what you'd do the same or what order you'd do them?

Write it out, talk about it with the instructor who gave you your checkout. Talk about it to others more experienced with the 210 and others in general. If you're planning on being an instructor in the somewhat near future then use yourself as your first student. Practice teaching these things to yourself and use your mistakes as items in your bag of tricks for both yourself and future students.

One of my favorite interview questions that tested systems knowledge that still pops up in recurrent events today is what are all the ways you can verify your landing gear is down.  In most airplanes there can be anywhere from 3-6 ways to check separately your gear is down. Use that as a means to an end, the end being a thorough systems knowledge of the airplane you're flying.  This is especially important when flying multiple types of airplanes of varying complexity.

Jeff Ethell killed himself maneuvering with an engine failed due to fuel starvation in an airplane that had fuel in it. A legal and competent pilot on paper not familiar with the systems idiosyncrasies of that specific airframe died because of something so tragically and simply avoidable.

Take this incident and use it as a learning experience about the seriousness of having a thorough checkout and knowledge of each aircraft you're flying.

[Tupac]

Golfer, I'm not going to argue with you about the heat of the center console, but I will say it was hot enough that the FD had thought there was a fire behind it. The mechanic even said it came from the hydraulic power pack.

There aren't many things I would do differently if I had to do it again, I had a couple instructors and the mechanic tell me that they wouldn't have faulted me had I geared it up, although if I had I would have felt very silly that it was just an O-ring (and then I would have an NTSB report with my name on it)

I didn't end up on the news, and I didn't bend any metal. That's about the best outcome one could hope for, I think.

[Golfer]

I'm not arguing. I'm not even saying you didn't do a great job. You did. You were successful and the airplane is going to fly again with minimal effort. BZ.

What I am doing isn't even critiquing, more specifically suggesting that you critique yourself. I wasn't there, I'm not your instructor and I've not flown a 210 with the engine driven hydraulics so I'm not even a good option to offer an insightful critique.

If you think you did great and would do everything the same way that's your prerogative. I can tell you that rarely does an abnormality happen where you'd do everything exactly the same if it happened again. That's the whole point of training and learning.  Take note of what you did right and what you could have done differently is all I'm saying.  No need to be defensive since I'm not being the least bit offensive. Quite the contrary in fact.

[Tupac]

Ok sorry, I misconstrued your post. It's easy to take things the wrong way on the internet when you can't tell someones tone of voice, etc.

[Babalonian]

Think of Golf's reply as a "good job, here's how to do better for the next time".   


I still think you got them blisters from pumping the lever too hard.  I'd imagine the pump/power-pack is toast too after cooking up to such temperatures (or iminutely about to be).  Pics of the fried motor or hand, or it never happened.       

[Tupac]

The one on my ring finger isnt that visible and the camera isnt that good, you cant really see it.