FLASHLIGHT on Board?

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MoonlightVFR
Posts: 624
Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:55 pm

FLASHLIGHT on Board?

Post by MoonlightVFR »

Intent of this post is to encourage pilots to always have a fresh flashlight on board their aircraft.

Always, always - even if you do not plan to be out after dark.

Decades ago I survived an incident with a small pen flashlight held in my teeth. Will write an article later.

Suspect that there exist pilot flashlights with dead batteries. Please correct.

I am in St Louis MO and aviation has just suffered a tragedy. Father /Son C 150.

A working flashlight may have helped save lives.
gradyb, '54 B N2890C
flyboy122
Posts: 324
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 2:30 am

Re: FLASHLIGHT on Board?

Post by flyboy122 »

I was doing some night time for my commercial and decided to swap a burnt out bulb on one of the instrument lights. Dumb idea, as in the process I managed to short something and all the lights went out. Doh! But no problem as I had a flashlight in my flight bag. Grabbed it only to find out the batteries were dead. Kids must have been playing with it. Ach!! Now I started to worry. I knew I could feel around and reset the breaker, but along with the short came a whiff of smoke. Most likely it was just the bulb, but what if it wasn't? So I whipped out my iphone and downloaded a flashlight app (why hadn't I done that before?). Used that to verify no smoke, reset the breaker, and all was good until I landed.

Now I carry a dedicated light in the plane so the kids can't kill it. Plus the one in the flight bag that I check before a night flight. Plus my phone app. And finally a neat little power cord I stole from my wife for charging my tablet off the lighter socket that has a built in light.

DEM
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Ryan Smith
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Re: FLASHLIGHT on Board?

Post by Ryan Smith »

MoonlightVFR wrote:Intent of this post is to encourage pilots to always have a fresh flashlight on board their aircraft.

Always, always - even if you do not plan to be out after dark.

Decades ago I survived an incident with a small pen flashlight held in my teeth. Will write an article later.

Suspect that there exist pilot flashlights with dead batteries. Please correct.

I am in St Louis MO and aviation has just suffered a tragedy. Father /Son C 150.

A working flashlight may have helped save lives.
Good ADM and a handheld radio would have been better...a flashlight is actually a regulatory requirement per 14 CFR §91.503(a)(1). As I understand it, an airline pilot and his son were bringing a newly-purchased airplane home and suffered an electrical failure at some point. A family member was reached via cell phone (most of which have a suitably bright LED for viewing items in the cockpit) to illuminate the runway with headlights. Not sure if the airport didn’t have lighting, or the electrical failure precluded the use of pilot controlled lighting.

I would not ferry an airplane home for the first time at night, nor do I particularly care for flying at night without a handheld radio. I have my students land with no landing light on an airport with runway lighting, and also with no landing light at an airport with runway lights. I’ve had both scenarios happen to me in the real world—landing light burned out after departure (they’re not required for anything other than commercial ops anyway) where I landed with only the runway lights. The airport I taught at was prone to losing electrical equipment (pilot controlled lighting module among those) after a particularly violent lightning storm because of the amount of pyrite in the soil. Last May, I had to attend a funeral back home during the middle of my work week and didn’t want to drive the 3 hours to get to work, so I arrived back to the airport where I taught/lived around midnight after a summertime thunderstorm in 56D to finish out my work week only to have no runway lights. I stay very night current, so that was a non-issue. I’ve also had an electrical system failure with a student in a Cherokee that necessitated landing with only runway lights that were keyed up via handheld. Just a few weeks ago, member Kennet DeJesus invited me over to his home for dinner and some night flying in his ‘54 170B. We saw some thunderstorms about 75 miles south that were slowly moving northeast as we were pulling his airplane out, but we were good for a couple of hours. Upon returning back to the airpark where he lives, the pilot controlled lighting module was dead. Two unsuccessful approaches back in coupled with a rapidly approaching rain cell had us retreat back north to Piqua. His wife was undoubtedly happier driving to come get us than answering a phone call from the coroner had we persisted. CRM and ADM saved the day there and truthfully was a non-issue.

Don’t let your ego write checks your skills can’t cash. It’s easy for anyone to get complacent and complacency in an airplane is the enemy of being alive. I’ve seen far too many folks I know be pulled out of airplanes and placed in body bags for my liking, and any time I consider a risk analysis for an abnormal situation, those images are burned in my mind. As an airline pilot, I have a huge support network of dispatchers, controllers, and a captain that make difficult flights into bad weather pretty much a non-event. I must consciously be aware that I must fulfill ALL of those roles in a piston single, so I tend to be much more cautious in a Part 91 environment.

A little sense of self-preservation goes a long way.
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GAHorn
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Re: FLASHLIGHT on Board?

Post by GAHorn »

When I was an FO I never had a captain make a difficult flight into bad weather because I made it a non-event. I made sure he agreed to go around it...or we wouldn't go. :lol: (Vividly remember being called into the DO and Chief Pilots office to explain why I had refused to get onboard the airplane Feb 2, 1975 because the captain would not upload sufficient fuel for the closest legal alternate. That old B52-pharrt learned I meant what I said when he boarded pax and started No. 2...while the pax watched me thru their windows as I stood in the terminal with my arms-folded staring at them for about ten-minutes. He finally shut-down and sent the line-men scurrying for the fuel trucks.)

My flashlight is one that lives in the cigar-lighter-plug and is automatically re-charged every flight. I use it to pre-flight the airplane (including looking into dark places like the engine compartment) so I always know it's condition as part/parcel of my preflight. The cell-phone app is a great idea. Not sure I'd have thought of that altho' I have the app. 8O
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention.
An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons. ;)
hilltop170
Posts: 3481
Joined: Sat May 06, 2006 6:05 pm

Re: FLASHLIGHT on Board?

Post by hilltop170 »

My iPhone came with a flashlight function already installed from the factory. Just swipe up from the bottom and it's in the bottom left hand corner.
Richard Pulley
2014-2016 TIC170A Past President
1951 170A, N1715D, s/n 20158, O-300D
Owned from 1973 to 1984.
Bought again in 2006 after 22 years.
It's not for sale!
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bsdunek
Posts: 425
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2004 6:42 pm

Re: FLASHLIGHT on Board?

Post by bsdunek »

Always have one in my flight bag. Just have to remember to keep a fresh battery in it. You know the definition of a flashlight - "device for storing dead batteries".
Bruce
1950 170A N5559C
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gfeher
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Re: FLASHLIGHT on Board?

Post by gfeher »

I keep both a flashlight (small LED Maglight) and a headlamp (one of those hunting/hiking type with an elastic head strap) in the cockpit at all times. If the power goes out while flying at night, I can slip on the headlamp and have light hands free. Wotks really well. Also, my headlamp allows me to select either white and red light. So i have that option. By the way, if you take the batteries out of your flashlight, they much last longer. I keep my flashlight and its batteries loose in a ziplock bag in the cockpit and put them in the flashlight just before taking a night flight. Justs takes a few seconds and the batteries last much, much longer.
Gene Feher
Argyle (1C3), NY
'52 170B N2315D s/n 20467 C-145-2
Experimental J3 Cub Copy N7GW O-200
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