In episode 201 of Behind the Prop, hosts Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhearn dive into the critical first five minutes of flight, covering the high-workload period from engine start through initial climb. They share practical advice on managing radios, passengers, checklists, taxi and IFR clearances, sterile cockpit procedures, run-up flows, and go/no-go decisions to help pilots avoid getting behind the aircraft. The discussion emphasizes repeatable personal flows, checklist discipline, and proactive decision-making for safer operations in both training and personal flying.
Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhearn open the episode by celebrating the milestone of reaching 201 shows and reflecting on listener engagement from Oshkosh and beyond. The main topic focuses on the first five minutes of flight, the phase where workload spikes as pilots manage engine start, avionics, passengers, and clearances before taxi. They stress the importance of sterile cockpit discipline once the engine is running to prevent distractions that can lead to incidents like runway excursions. Wally shares his approach to control checks before engine start and using checklists as verification tools rather than to-do lists. The conversation covers common checkride mistakes such as incomplete taxi readbacks that omit the assigned runway and failing to anticipate instructions by listening to other traffic. During the taxi to run-up phase, they highlight situational awareness in congested areas like the delta ramp at Hooks Airport and the value of positioning to allow space for others. Bobby outlines his three-part mental model of setup, decision point at run-up, and final go/no-go assessment while advocating for finding reasons not to fly rather than reasons to proceed. The takeoff decision includes the fifty-seventy rule for aborting if rotation speed is not achieved halfway down the runway and personal flows like lights, clocks, and fuel. In the initial climb they stress completing the after-takeoff checklist promptly to avoid configuration issues such as forgotten flap retraction. The episode closes with a listener challenge to develop and test a personal first-five-minutes flow along with a candid confession from Wally about once departing with a rudder gust lock still installed.
00:00
Behind the Prop Intro
Welcome to Behind the Prop, the podcast for pilots, by pilots. Here are your hosts, Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhearn.
00:00
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally?
00:00
Wally Mulhearn
Hey, Bobby, how are you?
00:00
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. This week, and I didn't do a good job last week. Like, last week was a big deal, 200 episodes. Like, not too many people get past episode number six, and we made 200. This is 201. Did you ever think you'd do 201 episodes of a podcast? That's crazy. I, I mean- I, our what, what's our average episode? Maybe forty five minutes? So we got, I don't know, that, that's a lot of talking. Let's say it's a lot of, that's a lot, big number, yes. And you were at Oshkosh, I didn't get to go this year, but, the four flight team, they always stay in the same houses, and last year I stayed in one of those houses, and a young man, I'll have to get his name so I can give him a shout out, but he is still thrilled to death that I stayed in his house last year. He thinks I'm a celebrity, I'm not a celebrity. people at, at Oshkosh went and took pictures, selfies with my daughter so that they could say they were- acquaintances with the podcast guy, my daughter's new husband didn't know this was like a really big deal that people listened all over the world. He thought it was like some thing I just did in a closet by myself, and he's kind of excited to be married to the podcast guy's daughter now. So, two hundred shows is a really, really big deal, and I talked to a listener today that says if I'm doing podcasts twenty years from now, he's gonna keep listening. I think you did one of his check rides, his name's Robert, and It's still fun and doesn't cost the listeners anything, and I love doing it. So, this is episode two oh one, and it is called The First Five Minutes. This is something that I've- And, like, go- Go ahead.
00:45
Wally Mulhearn
Just, just dovetailing on what you're saying, two hundred one episode, six hundred forty-two thousand ninety-seven downloads. So six hundred and forty-two. Now maybe people aren't listening, but they're downloading. I hope they're listening. So, they're listening. I've told this story before, but when I was at Oshkosh last year, one of the coolest things was in a crowd of people, a lady turned around and said I know you, you're Bobby Doss, and she hadn't seen me. And I said, "Well, how do you know that?" She goes, "Your voice." My husband listens to your podcast all the time in the truck, and I have to listen to you, and I knew exactly who you were. I was like, "Okay, I'm, I got a famous voice in the Navy." it's great, it's a lot of fun, we love doing it, and hopefully, all of you listening, learn a little something and become better pilots for sure.
02:45
Bobby Doss
So as I was saying, episode two oh one, this is called the first five minutes, and this is the five minutes, we've talked about preflight actions, we've talked about the flights a lot, this is the five minutes between really the preflight actions and, call it three hundred feet off the ground. It's, it's the time where most people get behind the airplane, in my opinion, it's where I, I would say I struggle with the vision jet, like you're burning jet fuel, you wanna get off the ground, you wanna get going where you're going, and, and maybe you rush, maybe you get behind some of the technology or some of the automation. This is some really good critical thinking stuff that you all need to figure out your own way of doing it. We're just gonna give you some guidance on some of the big buckets where you need to pay attention and do a little bit more thinking and thorough checking during this first five minutes. It's, it's, it's the radios, it's the passengers, it's the checklists, it's the taxi clearances, it's the IFR clearances, it's all that stuff starts to pile up on you. I would say, and we were talking about Jeff flying today a little bit, me and Robert, I did twenty-five hours to get my PIC stuff done, and I bet I only flew like an hour, meaning stick and rudder skills was about an hour. The ground time was probably like four hours that, that doesn't really get in the logbook. The other, the twenty-four hours in the air, that's pretty easy, like you're not doing a lot, you're not normally overloaded unless you get diverted or something, but it's all that time on the ground when the engine's running and you're trying to get to moving the plane that I think piled up for me in the Vision Jet, and probably would on a flight in a Cessna, 'cause I just don't fly that much anymore. I think that's where the workload happens. Is that where the workload happens for a professional pilot, Wally?
04:45
Wally Mulhearn
Absolutely. you know, that, that's where the, that's where the, the, yeah, I mean, that's where the majority of what you're doing is, you know, the crews. you're, you're taking advantage of the automation. I'm not gonna say you're not, you're not flying, but, you know, you're, you're more You're more of a manager at that point, you're managing the automation, typically. but, yeah, I would, I would say that for sure.
05:15
Bobby Doss
So we hope to build a clean, repeatable flow from engine start all the way through the initial climb to help pilots figure out what they should be doing in the first five minutes to not get overloaded or overwhelmed. Part one is gonna be about the engine start to ready for taxi. So Man, I can remember, and I still see it in a lot of new pilots at the fly school, where just starting the plane's a lot of work, right? you, you've never started a plane, it's really loud, there's a lot going on, but once that engine starts, then the work begins, right? but w- I can remember on a flight one time with a very seasoned pilot that I might have leaned it too much and the engine quit running, and I just reached down and started it. The engine again, and she was very helpful and said, "Don't do that." She wanted me to turn all that electronic equipment off so it didn't get overloaded and maybe burn up some radios or tear up some screens or something. I didn't know that was important. What do you do in your car if it stops running? You just push the button again and start that thing, right?
06:15
Wally Mulhearn
Right.
06:15
Bobby Doss
But she probably saved me some avionics. So before you start the plane, you gotta check a bunch of stuff to make sure it's all turned off, that you have the fuel selector in the right Where they need to be, circuit breakers in. Hopefully we're all using our checklist for that phase. But once we start, man, go back and listen to some of our shows about cold and hot starts. I hear engines cranking all day, every day on my flight line, and it's probably because someone's starting a hot engine, they probably flooded it. Like, read the POH, know what you're gonna do to get the engine started. But once it starts, that's where we're gonna begin, begin this episode, and the key things are oil pressure Ammeter, vacuum suction, engine instruments are in the green, and then you can probably take a deep breath. What are your, what's your flow or thoughts when you start, start the Saratoga, right after you pull, right after the engine starts spinning?
07:15
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, all, all that stuff, as you said, and, and I will say this, the, this is a, man, this is a pet peeve of mine. Almost every checklist for every small airplane, and we're, we are talking about small airplanes, somewhere out towards the, the end of the runway is when you're, you're doing a control check, you're checking your controls. Now, I'm gonna say this, I don't ever recall there being a problem with controls. so But I, I'm not saying not to do a control check. But I will say this, if your ailerons are backwards, let's say they are hooked up backwards, okay? You turn right and the ailerons are giving you a left turn. What's the point of even taxiing out? So, I, I used to tell, When I was, I was teaching my daughters in, in your travel there. And, and I don't remember what the, the rate was for that airplane, but let's just, let's just make it easy math and say it was three hundred and sixty dollars an hour. That's six dollars a minute. And I used to say to her, I says, "Why don't we do the control check without the hobs running?" So before we even start the engine, let's do the control check, okay? Checklists, and, and just-- Stay with me on this one. Checklists are not do lists. We don't have to do everything in that order. A checklist Is there to check that you did it. So we can hop in an airplane, check the controls, and then on the before takeoff or the taxi checklist or the after start, wherever it happens to be on your airplane, when it says controls checked, well, you've already checked them, okay? So you can check that box. You can literally check that box. So if I ever, if I ever build in there I was gonna say if I ever build an airplane, that's gonna be part of the pre-flight checklist, is the controls. Now, bigger airplanes, sometimes you've got, you know, the, the big jets, they're, we've got hydraulically boosted, controls, so we, we can't check them until we get the engines going and get hydraulic pressure. So that's, that's a different scenario, but most little airplanes, we're just moving cables.
09:45
Bobby Doss
So I would say When I fly with passengers, and you probably see it on checkrides more, where the applicant wants to make sure you're happy, that I'm overwhelmed in this phase of flight where I have other people in the plane with me, and it's really important to have a sterile cockpit. I think we talk about a sterile cockpit when we're approaching the runway or approaching the airport from a cross country flight of some sort, but you need to have a sterile cockpit In this phase of flight, you're the pilot in command, and you have to figure out how you're going to manage all of this with a sterile cockpit. I think it's probably overlooked a little bit in GA because We're normally flying with friends, we're buddies, even if we're CFI and student, we're talking and-- but this is a very important piece of not getting overwhelmed, not looking to be rushed to get the work done. we are both aware of an incident we had at our flight school where two commercial pilots were taxiing, the one doing all the work was the one talking, the other one wasn't doing anything and, Juliet Bravo went into a ditch and almost got totaled. I mean, That was a, a horrific thing to me. I'd, had just bought the plane, and it was two prof- almost two professional pilots. They were commercial students. I mean, they were almost done with their commercial time, but to think that they put a plane in a ditch That's kinda shocking, when, if you had that enforcement to yourself of, "Oh, this is gonna be sterile cockpit until I get to the whole short line and then until I get to cruise," that's not that hard to do, but when you, when you get sucked into that conversation, it's pretty easy to get overwhelmed and get distracted. What, what are the rules? I know you have rules, you can share those rules. What are your rules for sterile cockpit once those engines get started or you start, you get backed off the terminal?
11:45
Wally Mulhearn
Well, it's very simple, that there's, you know, we're not supposed to have any conversation that's not-- I, I can't tell you how it's exactly worded in our, our manual, but not pertin-pertinent to the flight. So you just keep your mouth shut. I-- and, and I will say this with my applicants, I, I tell my applicants to treat me as a passenger. I, I don't need you to tell me what you're doing. I, I, I kind of, I've done this once or twice, so I, I can watch and I, I know what you're doing. So I don't need you to tell me that, okay, we're turning left, so I'm depressing the left rudder pedal to turn the-- You know, I don't, I don't need that. So to me, that, that's violating sterile cockpit. I just, I did, I did two check rides today. And one of 'em, the applicant was just, over the top telling me everything, so much that we were missing ATC calls. ATC was calling us on the ground, and he was missing 'em because he was telling me that we're gonna hold short of Taxiway Juliet up here as directed by ATC. But in the meantime, we missed ATC telling us that we could go Pass Taxiway Juliet because he was telling me we were gonna hold short, and several times I had to tell him, "Just stop talking, stop talkin', you know, two ears, one mouth." I use that, that phrase a lot, so listening might be more important. The other thing is, when you're briefing a, a, a layperson, a person who isn't a pilot, you're taking your mother for an airplane ride, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever. Saying we're gonna keep a sterile cockpit doesn't mean anything, doesn't mean anything to a non-pilot. I will joke with people, they'll say, "We're gonna keep a sterile cockpit," and I'll look around, I'll say, "This cockpit doesn't look very sterile to me, it looks filthy." And, and they, they, oh, yeah, okay, yeah. And, you know, so maybe rather than brief your passengers that we're gonna have a sterile cock-cockpit, maybe say, "We're gonna keep non-essential, talk to a minimum." Well, we're not gonna do it. now if you see, you know, you see a, a, another airplane or a, we, we just gotta A, a no-tem issued at, at my home airport where I keep my airplanes that a bull, a bull, yeah, like a, a B U L L was loose on the airport, and, they said they're gonna, they're gonna be out the next morning to, to try to capture the bull, and then we got another email that said they couldn't find the bull. So There, there literally was a bull loose at the Cleveland, Texas airport. They found the bull, by the way, so, all good. yeah, I mean, this is Texas. Yeah, yeah. If, you know, a passenger sees a bull and, and the pilot doesn't see it, that might be a, an appropriate time to speak up, say, "Hey, there's, there's a, there's a bull about to be in front of us." So, I, I don't know, I, I just, I, I feel like, now, now I know, I know on a checkride, the applicants are trying to, show off a little bit, maybe that's not the right word, they're, they're, they're trying to show-- tell me that they know all this stuff, and, and I'm more concerned about Adhering to clearances and not hitting stuff and not busting airspace and not stalling, I think that's more important than them telling me all their knowledge. and, and again, I want them to act like it is a real flight, you know? So, is there anything else that you see that's messy during this minute and a half where they start the engine? And they probably are turning avionics on and trying to start getting ready. Is there anything else that's messy, that's a common flaw that pilots do during checkrides that you see?
15:45
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, yeah, I, I see people, very much struggling with taxi instructions, and, you know, a lot of times if you're at a busier airport If you just listen to what the, the airplanes in front of you are getting, you're probably gonna get about the same thing. If everybody is having to hold short of runway two seven on taxiway Bravo, you're probably gonna hold short of taxi, of runway two seven on taxiway Bravo. So I will already have that written down. You know, I will have, when I taxi out of, a given airport, I will have written down what I think my taxi instructions are gonna be. Now, I can cross it out very easily if they just say, if they give me something totally different, all it takes is a big X over this, and I can, I can write something else down. But I have a kind of a default, I've already got it written down. Now, a-and this, this is what I, I see a lot. we get this when, when ATC issues taxi instructions, the first thing that they will do is tell you what runway you're going to. System one two three alpha bravo, taxi to runway three six. And then they'll tell you how to get there. Okay, so they may say, "Taxi to runway three six via alpha." Charlie, hold short of runway two seven. And then what the applicant will typically do is they will read everything back except the runway that they're going to. It's kind of a minor, well, it's, it's not a minor thing. I mean, really, ATC should have you come back and read back the runway you're going to. So, the taxi instructions may be, one two, Cessna one two three alpha bravo, taxi to runway three six via alpha bravo, hold short of runway two seven on bravo. So your readback should be Taxi to runway three six via Alpha Bravo, hold short of runway two seven on Bravo. But what I would say ninety percent of the applicants will do is they will say they'll just read back the instructions, alpha bravo hold short of two seven on bravo, and they will leave out the runway that we're going to. and, and really if, if ATC wants to be a stickler, they, they would just say, hey, I need you to read back the runway that you're going to.
18:45
Bobby Doss
Yep, that's That's important information for sure, because especially in that, that scenario you just gave, those are crossing, crossing runways, and they're not-- you're not gonna take off on two seven, that could be a big mistake if somebody got confused for sure.
19:00
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah. And I, I would say also, you know, I, I, I use this phrase a lot, read the room. When you're listening to ATC, before you key that mic and start talking, just read the vibe of how things are going. Man, it's a stressful day today at X Y Z Airport, and, you know, treat it appropriately and, and give that controller, you know, I, I, I told a young man today, I said Alright, we, we wanted to come back to the airport, and we wanted to do some things that were a little bit unusual. We wanted to request, some stop-and-goes. And, and I, I said to him, I said, "Look, we gotta be very careful the way we ask for this, and we are going to ask for it, and, you know, we're gonna kinda be respectful." I said, "Imagine this, imagine you're an, a sixteen-year-old who wants to borrow the car on Saturday night to take your, your..." Girlfriend out, you know, how are you gonna, gonna go to dad and ask for those car keys? Are you gonna say, "Dad, I'm taking the car"? Are you gonna be pretty respectful, you know? So, so just, you know, I don't know, just read the room, if that makes sense. I think in, in my younger days, it would have been something like, "Dad, you want me to wash the car tomorrow? I'd like to take my girlfriend out tonight. Can I borrow the car?" I would lead with what I'm gonna do for him.
20:30
Bobby Doss
Right. Right. Alright, part two, taxi to run up. So we've been sitting there, we've copied the weather if we're, gonna depart, and we've got the avionics on, we've briefed our passengers, and now we're ready to taxi. again, things could, could really get overwhelming at this point. assuming I've got that. Even if I'm a solo student, I should give myself a briefing. I should think through where I'm going, what I'm gonna do, and then I need to think about the, all the things I'm gonna do once I get to the run up area. Every airport's a little different. We both fly a lot out of HOOKS. There's a delta ramp that many people do their run ups at, and it's pretty congested. There's Sometimes there's as many as six or seven planes there, pieced together with engines at full bore and people doing run-ups. You gotta think through everything you're gonna do. like you said, it's not a race, to get this done. You gotta follow that checklist. What, when you are observing pilots, what mistakes are they making in this? Taxi to run up phase that, that you wish you could fix with a magic wand.
21:45
Wally Mulhearn
Oh, that, that's an easy one. They're, they're, they're in, they're, they have tunnel vision. They're not looking out. well, I mean, they are looking out, but they're not paying attention to the environment outside. And, and the environment is dynamic, it's changing. It, it's- It's not always the same, you know? I'm, well, well, you, we'll stay with hooks as, as the example. Yeah, I'm gonna go to the, the delta ramp. Well, the delta ramp, if, it could probably fit, what do you say, maybe five airplanes, maybe four? Yeah, you know, I think five. Yeah. So, I mean, if, if I go to the delta ramp and there is Nobody there. I'm still gonna go to the far end, to a, you know, it, it's, I, I don't know how many of our listeners, listeners are males, but we've all gone to into public restrooms and there's a whole row of urinals, you know, you- If there's three, it's kinda guy code, you, you don't pick the middle one. You know, you, you pick an end one, so when the next guy comes in, you don't have to stand next to him. It's the, kinda the same way in the run up area. but a lot of times people, you know, you'll see airplanes, they just go right smack dab in the middle, and, you know, it, it, it just, I, I don't know. It, it, it's, it's a lack of self-awareness, you know? There are other people out there. I joke with a lot of my applicants, I'll say, "You know, hey, I, I checked the notams today, and there wasn't a notam issued saying that you were gonna fly today. In other words, the airspace didn't get shut down for you." but, but a lot of, a lot of the applicants kind of act like it is, like, "Hey, I'm the only one out there." so just, just be aware of, of what is going on with other airplanes and listen to them, you know? They're, you might, you might hear, you know, you hear some, some anxiety in another airplane's voice. Okay, well, maybe I'm gonna give them a little bit more room. maybe I'm gonna give them a little bit of grace by the way, you know? Hey, I, I just heard one, two, three, echo, Charlie, was a solo. Student. So now I'm over at an unt, an untowered airport, and one two three echo Charlie is over there doing some landings. You know, okay, it's, it's a s-student solo. Let's give that student solo maybe a little bit of grace. Maybe they said something that wasn't quite right. Let, you know, just be aware, just be aware of your surroundings.
25:00
Bobby Doss
I kinda think of three things during this phase of flight. It's really my setup, how do I get everything set up, my radios and all that stuff. How do I use the run up as my decision point to where I'm either gonna continue or stop, kinda maybe a hurdle where I make that decision. And then a final, am I ready, yea or nay, kinda go/no go. The run up, I, I think I see when I, I don't fly too terribly often with other pilots, but when I do, it seems like it's a race. Like, and I'm s- assuming you see this in check rides where they're trying to show off or make sure you know that they've studied and are really well prepared, but they try to go through stuff too quickly and maybe don't even understand all the signals or all the information they're getting back from the airplane itself. But the magneto check isn't something that- And it should be raced. pulling the carb heat and the engine doesn't die right away, and pushing it right back in one tenth of a second later, might not be giving you the real information you want on a carbureted engine. you might want to let it go all the way to idle and see if that engine dies. lots of information that you could be garnering there. For me, it's, it's kind of the decision point. One, my instructors have always taught me, find a reason not to go. I think too often we might be looking for a reason that we can go, like, "Hey, it was a pretty big mag drop, but the other one wasn't, I think we're good." Like, the, those words aren't in my vocabulary. I'm looking for a reason not to go. I wanna catch a problem before I'm on the runway.
26:45
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah. Yeah. And in the final, I'm ready, right? I'm, I'm looking for the reason that I now can go. I've, I've, I've tried to find all the reasons I can't go, now I'm looking for a reason that I can go, and I make the call out to myself that I am ready and I'm gonna go.
27:00
Bobby Doss
Yeah. Yeah. And, and again, I use a checklist as a checklist. Most flight schools, most students, most-- and when I say students, we're all students, okay? So let me just say that right. Someone told me one time that I was being disrespectful by calling pilots students, and, and I, I said, "Well, we're gonna have to disagree to disagree on that one, "because I consider myself a student. "But anyway, I just lost my train of thought. What was, what was that? Oh, oh, yeah. I, I use checklists as checklists, rather than to-do lists. So when I, you know, when I fly my Saratoga, I go out there and I push the power up to 2,000 RPM, I cycle the props three times, I do my magneto check, I go through and I check all my engine instruments without- Referencing a checklist. I pull the engine back to idle, I then pull out my checklist and I go through it. So, you know, and that's the way you'll probably do things at the next level. and we, we, we call them flows, and then we use a checklist to back up the flows. so I, I just find it more efficient. You know, and, and I'm not saying that that's what you should do. I, I'm-- what I'm saying is you should do what your instructor is instructing you to do. But, just, just know that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Just like when I get out there and I'm in the run-up area and it says controls check, well, I checked them ten minutes ago before I started the engine.
29:00
Bobby Doss
Yeah, my vision jet mentor, who's been on the show, Travis Reese, was very- Very much a coach that said, "Let's, let's do everything you think you should do before we look at the checklist and, and put this into a flow for yourself. It's logical. You've, you've flown a lot of different planes, you've gone through this hundreds of times. Let's just do everything." And he would challenge me not to look at even the digital, the digital checklist on the screen and just say, "Go through it. Feel that the plane's good, feel that you know it's all good, and then verify it all with the checklist." And you've, Oh, great. The checklist is there to help you catch what you didn't know to do, and the better you get at that next level of flying, you're gonna do it all, and then the checklist will just be the check that you did it all. You won't be having those gaps that probably a young vision pilot did have, like me, young in time, and he would go through it all and he'd go, "Look, you missed this," and it's no big deal. That's what the checklist is there for. So I like the concept.
30:00
Bobby Doss
Absolutely. I think everyone Absolutely. Alright, Part three, the takeoff decision and the first climb. we did some cool stuff in the last couple weeks with Oshkosh. The first one for me is the fifty-seventy rule. I made a one minute video out there, go to socials and find that one minute video on the fifty seventy rule. But if you haven't reached seventy percent of your rotation speed halfway down the runway, you should abort every time. And again, the guy I talked to today, Robert, he was like, "How many people really brief themselves that if they aren't at rotation speed at hotel, they're gonna abort?" And this is, I'm assuming he was talking about the small runway one seven left at Hooks Airport. I do it every time. Like I have, I can clearly remember we're doing touch and goes on that over and over and over again with my instructors, and if we weren't off the ground doing touch and goes at the hotel, we had to abort. And I just got that in my DNA, primacy from my instructors, but the fifty seventy rule is pretty good. If you think about rotation speed and assess them, fifty five, I'll use Your math and round that up to sixty, seven sixes are forty-two. So if I'm not at forty-two knots halfway down the runway, I'm gonna abort that takeoff, even in a seven-thousand-foot runway. If you don't have a rule, you have no rules at all. and so it's a good rule to apply. It's an easy way to say I'm not gonna go.
31:15
Wally Mulhearn
If you're not calling out airspeed alive, if you're not saying engine instruments in the green, you're You're gonna have a problem one day that might keep you on the ground in a very, very bad way, so you have to go through those things. Do you have a call out for yourself, lights, camera, action? To me, that's the best one. We also use an acronym called THATS that kinda gives you, gives the pilot all the stuff that they need to do before a takeoff. And if you wanna use THATS, go out and get my free maneuvers guide at maneuversguide.com. It's, it's in that maneuvers guide, but What is your quote-unquote flow and takeoff decision when you're at the hold short line or getting on the runway? Well,
31:15
Bobby Doss
we, you know, I, I, when I say we, at, at my airline job, at United Airlines, we say lights, clocks, and fuel. now I'm on a really, really fancy airplane that the clock starts automatically when we leave the ground, so we don't have to worry about clocks. But it's, it's basically lights and fuel, and, you know, in a big jet, we're just making sure that we do have our minimum fuel, it's not-- But if, if, if we're in a, a small airplane, there are a couple things with fuel, and, you know, it might be turning a fuel pump on, if you're in such an airplane that, that might have that. obviously fuel is, is the mixture, mixture full rich or set appropriate You know, if you're at a, if you're up in Denver, you're not gonna take off with a rich, with a rich mi-mixture. you know, your fuel selector should already be set. I, I also have a rule of thumb of, I don't, in, in my Saratoga, I don't, change the fuel, flip the fuel selector, after the run up. I don't do it after the run up, and my, my reasoning is, if, if I get out to the end of the runway and I switch from one tank to another and I, and I miss it and I go to off, that engine's gonna run for a little while, and at two hundred feet is the place I don't want it to quit. So, you know, if, and if, if I'm ten gallons left less on one side, and, and I happen to be on that side, I'll just go ahead and take off that way. And get up to a nice safe altitude and switch the tanks. But anyway, it's, it's lights, clocks, and fuel, and, that, that's what I use. Yeah, I also was taught, kind of a upside down L flow, right, the floor board, meaning the fuel selector, kind of come up the center console and assess them, check things, carb heat, mixture, all the stuff from that point right to left, make sure I'm on both magneto's, would be kind of the end of the That scenario, but I kinda get, I cover everything one last time right before I, enter the runway and make sure it's all what I want it to be, so there's no surprises. So now you're taking the runway, and we're gonna, we're gonna be looking again for any reason not to go, any hesitation, anything not in the green, anything that feels awkward. I think you've used the example, A couple times where, I, I don't know if someone left the pitot tube cover on or not, but they even said airspeed alive and the airspeed didn't come alive. I don't know if that's, imagining that or not, but that, that happened, right? Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. We, we can, we can create our own expectation bias to where we just say stuff, but we're not actually getting the right information. If you say airspeed alive and it's still a zero, you need to s-say it's zero Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Just stuff like that. But now we're climbing. I think Pat, who's been on the show multiple times, really hates the takeoff briefing where if we're at a thousand feet, we're turning around and coming back. That's not a guarantee, definitely not a guarantee in Houston. The weather was actually really pretty nice today. you said you flew, I, I would think planes performed pretty well today with a three-zero point- 10. That was pretty good altimeter setting for Houston, Texas in the summertime. Yeah, but you know what, you know what else we have? I, as right before we started the show, I checked the adis. 38 degrees, 38 Celsius, 38 doubled is 76, minus 10% is 69, plus 32, 101 degrees Fahrenheit here just, just about an hour ago. And that's hot, but there wasn't that much humidity today, so it turned out to be a pretty good day in Houston, Texas. That's true. That's true. Yeah. But you might not, you know, in the middle of summer, 100% humidity, 100 degree weather, you're probably not gonna get much glide ratio out of that. And it's not always a thousand feet. It's, if it's safe to turn around and come back. And I would say the, the, the little bit of flying I've done with other people, checklist usage is probably the worst at this phase of flight. But there should be a climb checklist. You should know what you're, you're shooting for. You should know your air speeds. There should be no hesitation. You should know that stuff like you know your name. You know, what's my best glide speed? What am I gonna turn to if I, if I do have a problem? You can't make that decision after you have the problem, be doing all of that long beforehand. it'll make that, it'll make that emergency a lot less of an emergency if you've prepared, not trying to figure it out at that time. And so you really have to put some thought into that. What's your pet peeve or something you see from applicants during the initial climb, initial take off and climb that you just wish you could solve with a magic wand?
37:30
Wally Mulhearn
Well, you, you kind of hit the nail on the head. You, you mentioned a climb, climb check, checklist, in some airplanes it may be called an after takeoff checklist, but it's the climb phase. you know, that it's, it's not It's, it's a checklist that we should be doing on a go-around as well. It's not just, a takeoff from the ground. I can't tell you how many check rides I've given, instrument check rides, where we, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna go missed approach on one approach, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna circle out of one, we're gonna land out of one, we're gonna go missed approach out of the other one. And, you know, Process of elim-elimination, you can probably figure out that you're probably gonna land on the last one, and so if you circle on the first one, you kinda have an idea of what you might be doing on the next one. But having said that, I can't tell you how many instrument check rides I have done where we have done the missed approach. And we are now motoring around, we're flying around in the air, maybe we're talking to ATC, and now we're setting up for the last approach, and the applicant hasn't done an after takeoff checklist or a climb checklist or whatever, and they've forgotten the flaps, and we're, we're down at, you know, we've got You know, they've, they've probably made that initial flap retraction, you know, in a Cessna maybe they've gone thirty to twenty or something, but we're, we're just, we're stuck there. And I'll usually make the comment, "Oh, wow, this airplane doesn't go very fast, does it?" And, you know, they'll They'll almost always say, "Oh yeah, yeah, this, this airplane's a dog, this thing doesn't fly." I go, "Yeah, but it's funny, we was doing about 105 knots earlier, and now we're just doing about 88." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Then I'll, I'll say, "Yeah, it's kinda shaking, kinda, kinda..." Some vibrations, I don't recall. Yeah, it's kinda weird, isn't it? I'm, I'm, I'm laying it up for em and go, "Man, get your flaps up." And, I-- there have been quite a few, I won't say quite a few, but there have been more than I can count on one hand notices of disapproval issued, for that very reason.
40:15
Bobby Doss
Well, I'd like to ask the listeners to, to- Challenge themselves to use something. You write it down, you write down your own first five minutes flow, and try and incorporate that in your next three flights and let us know how it goes. I would love to hear some confessions of things that maybe we- Rush or don't do well that we've learned where things might have gone a little sideways. you can send those to me, Bobby, at behindtheprop dot com or post them to social media. We would love to hear your stories, help make everybody be safer pilots. If you master the first five minutes, it'll be a lot better for you for sure. Can I give you a confession? Sure. Yeah, and, I think the stats- You've never made a mistake, have you? Oh, man, man. I, I need more than my hands and toes to count mine. this happened over 40 years ago. This would have been probably about 1983, 84, 85 somewhere in there. I had a gentleman that came in and he wanted to get a CFI. and, Very nice guy, he was, he was older than me, he was probably in his early thirties, a, a really good pilot, and we were flying in a, a Cessna 150, and, the, the, we, we had, in these airplanes, we had a rudder gust lock. That we never used, but they were in the airplane, and it was a little device that you would actually physically go back and put in the rudder in the back. And, it, we, it, I, I'm gonna say we never used it, but that's not quite the case because this particular day somebody did use it. It had this big flag on it that said "Remove before flight." Anyway, This, this guy was, again, working on the CFI, and so he goes out to the airplane and he preflights the airplane, and I came out and I just hopped in. I-- So I'm in the left seat, he's in the right seat, and he's playing, he's playing CFI, and, we, we taxi out, we take off, and he's, he's taking off. And we're, we're climbing out, and he said, "Man, this, this airplane's not flying right." And I said, "Ah, it's, it's all right, we're, we're good." And he says, "No, really, really, some, something's not right. The, the rudders don't feel right." And I said, "Well, let me see." And so I, I-- He gives me the airplane, I take the controls, and, and I, you know, kind of- Try to move the rudder, rudders, and he was right, that something wasn't right. And I turned around and I looked, and here's this big red flag that says "Remove before flight," flapping around out there. You know, we're, we're, we're at a thousand feet at this point. And, and I said, "Well, well, there's our problem right back there." And, we took off with the rudder gust lock installed. And he, he had a little, almost a panic. He said, "Well, what are And I said, "Well, we, we had taken off out of Monroe, Louisiana. I said, 'Well, we can't go back to Monroe.'" He said, "He says why?" I said, "Well, everybody'll laugh at us. We c- we gotta, we gotta fly somewhere else." So I said, "Let's fly over to Rayville, which is twelve miles away, fifteen miles away." I said, "We'll go over here and land and take it out and come back." And, so we, we were climbing out and, I said, "Well, let me try something." And so I kinda just started tapping on the rudder pedals with my feet, and we're looking back there, and we can kinda see this thing vibrating out, and it finally blew out. And so I, I, I always laugh that, that somebody, somebody, you know, they're gonna go out to their front yard to go get their mail, and here's this Funny looking contraption with this big flag that says "Remove Before Flight" that, that we dropped, out there. And, anyway, so I mean, there, there's, there's my confession. I mean, this obviously the mistake happened before we started the engine. yeah, did he miss it? Absolutely. Did I miss it? Absolutely. But anyway, so there, there's my mistake, but, you know, I get to tell a funny story about it. I've made plenty of my own mistakes, we'll save those for future episodes. Thanks for the confession, and if you have one, send it to me, share it with me so I can share it on the show and help everybody be a safer, better pilot. As always, fly safely and stay behind the prop.
46:03
Behind the Prop Outro
Fly safely and stay behind the prop.