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Full throttle at startup – lessons learned.
So I am going to share with you a quick story of something that could have ended badly this evening. I am sharing my oops with you all to raise awareness of a potential mistake that should be avoided in the hopes you all take away a lesson I learned the hard way.
I went to the hangar today to fly with my 11 year old daughter. Preflight inspected more thoroughly than usual – even used a laminated checklist! Go to start the trike and notice it’s taking a bit longer to start than usual – 3 or 4 seconds of cranking and then fires up and goes to FULL THROTTLE! I try to hold the trike by jamming on the brakes – but the brake pedal drops to the floor and losses pressure – something broke! I steer the trike away from any obstacles and other planes as I try to figure out what is happening while gaining speed on the tarmac. Finally – something clicks and I shut down the engine with the key and roll to a stop about 50 feet from where I was parked. After 60 seconds of silence I look to see what would have caused this to occur and discover the issue.
I fly a Revo and it comes with a dash mounted throttle cruise control. It was pulled all the way out. On preflight I checked the foot throttle AND rear mounted instructor throttles but NOT the cruise throttle. All were at idle. In 8 Years of flying it’s never been out like that. I shut down the trike at idle and park her in the hangar. I’ve never thought to check it because why would it be out? Why would I pull it out except when in flight to hold the throttle. I know how instructor throttles sometimes get slid forward to full throttle so I check that. every. damn. time. You can’t simply pull out the cruise throttle by force – you really need to use the instructor or foot throttle to set the cruise throttle. I’m still unsure of how that was pulled out to full throttle like that. In fact, it’s so strange I’m considering foul play at hand as I share a hangar and others may have been in contact with my trike but that DOES NOT absolve me of my responsibility to check these things before start up.
The lesson learned here to be applied in all future cases – Inspect ANY hand throttles as part of the preflight AND MOST IMPORTANTLY – never take your hand off the KEY until the trike is started and all is nominal. That key will save your life – as it did mine today. If anything seems off – turn it off. Even with THREE hydraulic disc brakes – they won’t hold the fury of 100 ponies in the back pushing you along. Don’t try to troubleshoot the issue while it’s happening.
In the end all that broke was the AN3 bolt that sheered off allowing the front caliper to wrap the stainless steel brake line around the axle and an AN3 90 degree fitting that sheered off. Very minor – and almost an inconvenience more than anything – considering what might have happened.
I hope sharing this incident with you all raises your awareness for a time and adds a few checks to your checklists and the importance of that key in your hand at startup.
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6 Replies
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Thanks for sharing that! Will be added to the preflight checklist. To add just a bit to the discussion … make sure seatbelts are secure, helmet is on and fastened, and the bungee is removed from the control bar before starting. I think I picked that last bit up from Larry at some point.
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Agree 100%. We were all strapped in and ready to fly. That last part about the bar in hands is critical. I’ve read about at least one fatality that was caused by that bar being strapped to the compression strut and that person having a similar issue with a full throttle start up.
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It is not a matter of IF but WHEN you start up at full throttle. Besides what’s mentioned above, I will say also positioning the trike in a manner that full throttle prop blast behind the trike and as much run off space as possible in front of the trike are considered before getting in it.
Since I sell the parts I can tell you that no less than probably 10 of our trikes have been damaged by running into something on full throttle start ups. You might think high time pilots/instructors are not the ones, but that’s not true. We even had a leading edge strike into a trailer and the pilot assumed his wing was OK and then flew it with a massive turn at trim. He called me and we grounded and repaired the plane with a new leading edge. So check list or no check list, BE PREPARED to shut down IMMEDIATELY on high power starts. As I say it could be a frog caught in your carb, so don’t try and assess the problem, just kill the engine. Also remember some brake systems can hold 100 HP start including the REVO, but not after it’s moving. So a little extra brake pressure on start goes a Long way. And ALWAYS have seat belt on and bar in hand. ALWAYS!
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Two rules that stuck with me for start up, never start facing something your not willing to hit. And one hand on start button the other on magneto switches. I don’t always unstrap the bar during warm up but i will from now on. Thanks for the tip and sharing your story. As a fairly new pilot the information really helps to remind me and reinforce what I was taught as well as learn new things.
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Yes, Bar in hand. About 6 months ago or so there was a video of a full throttle start up with the bar locked to the front strut in Brazil I believe. Maybe someone here has the video they can share. It was a double fatality all because the control bar was locked. Possibly the only thing worse than hitting something is taking off only to stall whim seems to happen above 50’in the air. We have had a handful of fatalities that way… 2 years ago a guy out in TX started up full throttle into a rolled hay bail which proved fatal.
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Quite common for CFI in back seat, especially when airplane pilots are used to pushing both pedals down on startup for the brakes. Yes, most trikes cannot hold trike still with brakes at max throttle. Always have hands on kill switch for startup AND taxi.
Note CFI training FIRST STATEMENT – HAND ON THAT KILL SWITCH. Thanks all for more of “the long story” https://youtu.be/PUGIe2sWXbM
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