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What is it - the flap switch is shaped like a flap by FAA mandate (no, it's not an accident the flap switch looks like that!) and the gear switch is shaped like a wheel.

Despite all this, activating the wrong system still happens. I'm not going to chastise anyone that's messed up the gear with the flaps. Hey - in the beginning - when we're learning to fly a comples, we're all very careful. As we gain time, it's human nature to EVENTUALLY miss something and make an error. And with the additional complexity of birds as we move along, the number of systems grows. For example, manifold pressure vs. rpm, pressurization, turbocharging systems, gear systems, flap systems, to say nothing of the increasing complexity of radio panels, nav systems, ad infinitum. Then, make it a multi.

Oh yeah.

You know, this thought has crossed my mind several times. Normally, complex aircraft move pretty fast, and you have so much less time to do stuff. Meaning, you have got to plan ahead and stay ahead of the airplane. Way ahead. Combine that with a single pilot IFR, and it's easy to see how the human factor can easily and completely get overwhelmed. Like I said, I'm not going to chastise anyone for something that happens - there but for the Grace of God go I. Proficiency and currency go a long way, but still, it only takes a distraction.

I'll tell ya something here. Yup. I'm guilty - not of a gear up, but of having a switch in the wrong position - like on my handheld radio input. On the way up to CWI, I was wondering why the number two rig had no ears.

Uh huh. Check it when I land, and yeah - there it was - in the "AUX" position. Radio electrically disconnected. In my own defense, I'll admit that I hadn't flown Mary Lou except once in about a month and a half. The last time I flew her - in late May - before she went in for annual, was when I brought her back from the avionics shop that installed the switch. I neglected to place the new step of "Radio antenna switch to Number Two" in the checklist I use every time i step in the bird. I flat out missed it. Still - no excuse - I should have been THOROUGHLY familiar with my bird. Believe me, I've kicked myself over this oversight. What a moron.

What I'm going to do this week is see if I can just bring it back to the shop, pull out the junk they installed, and just install another comm antenna and run some coax to the panel. I don't know whay they didn't do it like that in the first place. The arrangement now is so stupid - rf leaking into the marker beacon and modulating the lights as I talk. Plus it has no ears over ten miles out. Mary Lou will be lookin' more and more like a porcupine with all the antennas on her. But hey...at least it'll work.

We really fly some of the most simple airplanes around and when you come down to it, while there's a lot to do ustrairs and on the ground, it's in no way comparable to what some of our more complex bretheren have.



Anyway.... back to the original issue - take the extra half second to verify. Use a checklist - and I learned to keep it current.


"Uh.... say again please???"