When you fly the Saab-340 in the Great Lakes region you don’t
worry about the weather… because you’re normally stuck doing approaches,
landings and departures in the slop most of the time anyway. Most of the
devices on the aircraft work great, when they’re not deferred, and as long as
you stay within their published limitations.
Aboard the SF-340 one casual device is the windshield wipers.
The wipers serve two real purposes. First, they are great for clearing rain and
wet snow from your view. Second is they are an unintended icing alert. That’s
because when you get into the ice, they are the first thing to accumulate the
super-cooled precipitation. Additionally, when they start to ice-up, they “whistle”
a sound that every northern SF-340 pilot knows very well. It’s great at night
when you’re in the stuff. They wipers, however, have two limitations on their
use. In “slow” setting it is 130KIAS and in the fast mode it is 160KIAS, neither
of which you’re likely to need them on an approach or landing.
One somewhat rainy morning we picked up our assigned
aircraft at CID for the regular run to MSP then back to CID and a short drive to
the crew crash-pad. My captain noticed while I was out pre-flighting that his
wiper would not stow. Instead, every time he cycled it, the stinking thing went
to the stowed position and then sprang back up to an annoying position nearly
at eye-level. He knew it had a speed limit, but couldn’t recall off the top of
his head what it was. I’d just come back from re-current and remembered it was
130 and 160. Now we’re gonna take a delay while he went into Ops. and called.
They said the mechanic said it was good to fly like that and last night’s crew
had flown it that way.
Our answer was to simply fly to MSP at 160 rather than
normal cruise. Hey, we were getting paid by the flight hour- this was good “doggage.”
Thus, we chugged to MSP with that wiper blade just mocking my captain all the
way. When we called in-range the captain ordered that he wanted the mechanic to
meet us on the ramp. Considering that I was close to my captain’s up-grade, I
tagged along to watch the show.
Now an equally annoyed captain and mechanic came face to
face. The mechanic, however, was one step ahead. He had the service manual and
a protractor. Fully prepared he informed us that, A. The speed restrictions
were for operations only and didn’t apply to the parked position, and B. The
manual said that as long as the stopped position on the windscreen was not more
than (and please DO NOT quote me on this, because it was many years ago and I
do not have the exact numbers) 42 degrees, the aircraft was good to fly, Then,
he took my captain up and showed that his mechanic’s protractor showed something
like 33 degrees. So, we were good to go no matter how annoying it was.
On the leg back CID, my captain just sat there and stewed.
He’d been fed up with the company for more than a half dozen years and this
added to his frustration. In fact, his normally talkative self was absent. We
were cruising at max continuous temp. just so he could burn up some of the fuel
we had inadvertently saved the company on the previous leg and our indicated
air speed was snuggled up near the barber pole.
Suddenly, he reached up and hit the wipers! The annoying
blade gave “snap” and it was gone!
Not wanting to put anything on CVR that may get us into some
sort of hassle, I just looked at him and said,
“What was that!?”
“It was buggin’ me,” he replied calmly.
Next, he looked at me with a smirk and said,
“Hand me that squawk sheet.”
He wrote simply,
“Wiper went away.”
It was no longer our problem.
Posts
