Finding the preflight “gotcha”

By RAJEEV PANDEY

“Good morning, Cap’n John! Ready to watch me preflight?”

It was 6 a.m. in July at Corvallis Municipal Airport (KCVO) in Oregon, the sun was just coming up, and I was in a great mood — ready for my third lesson with my flight instructor John Larson.

I had started calling him “Cap’n John” because that is what my two young boys took to calling him when I would take them to the airport to go plane watching.

John was the chief pilot at Corvallis Aero Service, the FBO/avionics shop/corporate jet arm of a company at KCVO, and when I approached him to be my flight instructor, he informed me that he would only be able to fly “early-early morning” as he had a day job that did not involve giving instruction.

That worked perfectly for me as well, since I, too, had a day job that precluded breaking away during the normal workday hours to receive instruction.

John was an early bird like me and he was usually out at the airport before dawn.

Breaking away for an hour instructional flight was do-able — and perhaps even a pleasant diversion for him — but only if it happened bright and early.

Our first two sessions had been great, as we meshed almost immediately style-wise on the ground and flying-wise in the cramped Cessna 152 cockpit.

On the first day, John walked out on the ramp with me to the plane, patiently explaining every aspect of the preflight process: From tie-down chains to sticking the tanks to checking for obstructions in the static port to recording the Hobbes meter in the book to….you get the idea.

For the second preflight he just watched me, providing feedback and making sure I didn’t miss anything from his lesson the day before.

The night before, I had read through the 152’s POH, leafed through the ASA book on the Cessna 152, and reviewed some online articles about the preflight. As a result, John didn’t find much fault with my preflight process.

I was a super-eager student, having just finished the arduous process of defending my PhD thesis, ready for a new challenge in which to pour all my energy. These lessons were my graduation present from my wife, who was so relieved that we had “gradual school” (it took me over a decade to graduate) behind us that the expense of me acquiring a pilot’s certificate didn’t bother her otherwise frugal personage one whit.

On the morning of my third lesson, John remained seated at his desk. I was surprised when he handed the plane’s book to me without even looking up.

“I don’t need to bore myself any more watching you preflight. You have it under control. Go do it, get strapped in, and I’ll be out in a minute.”

I grinned happily at achieving this early milestone of trust with my instructor and eagerly reached for the book, just to have John pull it back towards him and out of my grasp. He looked up and looked me in the eyes.

“I know these planes fly almost every hour from sun up to sun down, so you probably aren’t going to find any issue with them during your preflight that hasn’t already been squawked in the book the day before,” he told me. “But some morning I will go out there before you get here and mess with something on the plane, and if you don’t catch it, we don’t fly. Got it?”

While John was a jovial, easy-going guy, I knew he wasn’t kidding, and skimping on the preflight would certainly result in a cancelled lesson. I vowed there and then to never let him surprise me with his “gotcha.”

Several pleasant lessons went by. The routine was almost always the same: Go out to KCVO first thing in the morning, maybe do a ground lesson, grab the book from John, preflight, putter in the pattern or the practice area, debrief, go to work for the day, wake up, and do it all over again.

I never found a “gotcha” during preflight, and started to wonder if perhaps that was just John’s idle threat to ensure I didn’t relax my vigilance. But I didn’t want to let my instructor down. I definitely didn’t want to miss it if and when John sprung his surprise, and I most definitely didn’t want to suffer a no-fly day.

One morning John could tell something was different as he started to strap into the airplane beside me.

“OK, what’s with the cat-ate-the-canary look on your face this morning?” John asked after taking the briefest of looks at me. “You sure look pleased with yourself. Maybe you’re thrilled we will be jetting around the pattern a few knots faster in this freshly washed airplane, eh?”

“Ha!” I exclaimed in triumph. “You thought you had lulled me into complacency on the preflight gotcha thing, didn’t you? Well, you didn’t! I caught your little booby trap! You didn’t need to be so obvious, though. I actually spotted your ‘gotcha’ just walking up to the plane, hadn’t even touched it yet.”

John looked at me blankly. I decided I wouldn’t want to play poker with John. Then the possibility crossed my mind that he might have forgotten his little preflight game and threat. I started over.

“You told me that someday you would come mess with the airplane before I got out here to see if I caught it in preflight. Well, I caught you! You put office tape on the static port, the stall horn, the pitot tube, even the avionics cooling port — way too obvious!”

Understanding dawned on John’s face, as did some consternation.

After uttering a few choice words, he unbuckled, got out of the plane, and walked over to the other trainers on the flight line. I saw him shake his head and briskly walk back to the FBO office.

I got the entire story from John when he came back a few minutes later. Turns out the FBO had just hired a new hand to help with marshaling, fueling, providing customer aid, and the other odd jobs that crop up at an airport on a regular basis. One of those odd jobs was washing the planes the FBO offered for instruction and rent.

The new hire, who was also new to aviation, had been instructed to use tape to block all the unwelcome places water might enter before washing the planes, but then had neglected to remove the tape once done.

Also, instead of using the eye-catching bright blue colored painter’s tape kept around for this purpose, clear transparent office tape had been employed.

As the first renter of an airplane the morning after the evening washing session, my preflight game with John had revealed the issue. John had gone back to the FBO to leave a cautionary note for the other office staff. I suspected a cautionary conversation was in store for the newly hired hand later that morning as well.

Our early morning lessons came to a sudden, abrupt end. One weekend in 2014, John was helping ferry a Cessna 206 in Latin America with its new owners that flew too low for the terrain. Word is the CFIT might have been the result of some kind of ATC mess-up on assigned altitude.

Many years later, his lessons live on in my flying. To this day, every time I go to preflight my airplane, I fondly pretend that John got out there ahead of me, has somehow messed with it, and it’s my job to catch what he’s done.

I almost always find that John hasn’t messed with the airplane and it’s good to go. Then I get ready to fly and put some of his other teachings to good use.

I wipe my eyes, I smile, and I remember Cap’n John.

Rajeev Pandey is a private pilot with nearly 500 hours logged. He owns the more expensive half of a 1976 Grumman AA-5B Tiger, based in Albany, Oregon.