DO YOUR CONTOL CHECKS!

I lost a good friend to this 3 years ago.

He took off with his elevator disconnected in an ASW20A-L.
The aircraft ballooned on tow and he impacted the ground from around 100ft.

The sad part about all this is he had "a positive control check" from a
friend who to check the elevator just held the surface down feeling the push
up against the control by the disconnected rod did not lift the surface to
check the control pull against the pressure.

People learn how to do positive control checks properly!!
Always pin your hotellier's and double check the control integrity on any
aircraft using hoteliers. You never know when a control rod could be rattled
off by towing the aircraft to the launch point.

Al

"Bullwinkle" wrote in message
...
I saw this exact thing happen at Stennis field, Bay St Louis, MS, in the
early 80's. The pilot was the best at the field, at least he was the only
one who flew in competitions. He and his wife both flew ASW-20's.

He assembled one day, began his aerotow, nose went up like he was on a
winch/auto tow, and he released at perhaps 40 or 50 feet.

His wife's back was turned, as she gathered dolly, etc that needed to be
stowed. She missed the whole thing. I was sure I was watching a low level
stall/spin happening before my eyes.

Then the nose came down, then back up again, then down again, and at the
bottom of one of these oscillations his wheel touched down, he dumped the
flaps and he got on the brakes and stayed down. Stopped a couple of feet
from the airport fence.

Turns out his elevator hadn't been hooked up, or had popped off between
assembly and tow. He claimed that he had been able to control pitch with
the
flaps, but I (personal opinion, no data to back this up) think he just got
incredibly lucky.

The best news: no damage to aircraft or pilot.

The absolute most amazing thing: He walked the -20 back to the launch
point,
Inspected it for damage (found none), hooked up the elevator, and promptly
took off. I'd have been shaking for a week after a near miss like that,
not
have taken off within 15 minutes.

Long way of saying that I agree: DO YOUR CONTROL CHECKS!


On 4/4/04 2:58 PM, in article ,
"Martin Gregorie" wrote:

On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 11:40:06 +1200, Bruce Hoult
wrote:

In article ,
Stewart Kissel wrote:

http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/brief2.asp?...0417&ntsbno=CH
I04CA090&akey=1

That looks more like: "if the manufacturer issues an AD [1], you'd
probably better do it, whether you legally have to or not".

-- Bruce

[1] in this case, installing a locking device onto L'Hotellier
connectors.

This is the subject of a BGA AD in 1993 for the ASW-20, so I don't see
where you get the "manufacturer AD" bit from, even though it does
appear in ASW-20 TN-17 on extending the service life beyond 3000
hours.

As the AD in question refers to the requirement for a locking pin in
the Hotellier, I'm a bit gobsmacked that these couplings could ever
have been used without a locking pin or shroud: there's no way you
could inspect the check hole after assembly (other than poking
something through it) on wing control circuits in the ASW-20 and other
gliders. Admittedly you can see the check hole for the elevator, but
that's the only one that is easy to check by inspection on a '20.

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :