Page 18 - Volume 18 Number 9

Twin Proficiency:Thomas P. TurnerThe Beechcraft Baron pilot was en route from Wichita, Kansas to Kansas City Downtown Airport. It was a short hop, filed for 45 minutes en route with a moderate tailwind. The weather was as forecast; it was a gray, drizzly day down low, the Beech twin was cruising at 7,000 feet between layers and just above a solid undercast. Flight visibility was good in that hazy white beneath the high cirrus.About a third of the way into the flight, the pilot noticed the right engine’s oil temperature was running higher than normal. It was still well below redline, but higher enough than usual that it was cause for concern. As the oil temperature crept upward, the oil pressure on the same engine slowly dropped – it looked like the problem was real, not just an indication anomaly. The pilot opened the cowl flaps and reduced manifold pressure a few inches on the right engine. It was time for a decision.Flight planningA Member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who is also a pilot recently told me the Board is concerned that IFR pilots are often not filing alternates when the weather conditions require it, or filing alternates that meet minimum requirements but are not far enough away from the planned destination to get to significantly different weather if conditions are lower than forecast when arriving at the end of a trip. NTSB’s fear is that IFR pilots are not putting enough effort into preflight planning. The Baron pilot was in the latter16 • TWIN & TURBINEcategory – he filed nearby Kansas City International as an alternate, although, to his credit, he had plenty of fuel on board to go farther if necessary.The flight had begun with a climb through light rain and fog into a 400-foot overcast. Although the skies lightened for a bit during climb, suggesting indistinct layers of clouds but no clear breaks, the climb was in solid IMC until just below leveling at 7,000 MSL. Destination weather at Kansas City Downtown, was only a bit better – 600 overcast and three miles visibility. International (KMCI) had the same forecast, which, given its ILS approaches, made it just good enough to qualify as a declared alternate.The Baron pilot had self-briefed. As do many pilots, he had focused his attention on the weather at his departure airport, the destination, enough about the alternate to know it met alternate minimums, and the expected conditions at cruising altitude en route.So, when the engine’s oil temperature began to climb and its pressure began to drop, and the pilot was beginning to evaluate what he might do, he naturally felt he had four options in mind:• Return to Wichita• Continue to Kansas City Downtown• Divert to Kansas City International• Land somewhere along the route of flight• These options are what I call “magenta line thinking,” a seemingly common mindset thatconsiders only a narrow range of options along the planned route of flight.• The Baron pilot also had three possible actions for dealing with the problem:• Continue running the engine for as long as possible.• Reduce power on the affected engine, in hopes that will halt or delay the oil temperature increase.• Perform a precautionary engine shutdown and proceed on one engine to a landing.Disclosure timeIt’s probably fair at this point to tell readers that this event was taking place in a simulator, with me in the instructor’s seat. I had provided the pilot with printed weather information for the trip beforehand – this was in the early ‘90s, when custom weather briefings,SEPTEMBER 2014Decision