DO YOUR CONTOL CHECKS!

I think there shouldn't be idols at the airports. Simple we can't
afford it. We are just simple people with all those mistakes
Not long ago I moved to another club partly because there were such
untouchable persons in the previous club. They haven't even flow xc for
years but they was known as hot pilots just because they made serious xc
flights several years ago. This attitude also scare away several
newcomers...
Regards,

/Janos

Bullwinkle wrote:

Yes, the towpilot knew. He was doing a bit of shaking himself, having just
nearly had his nose driven into the ground. Yet, he, too, drove on that day.

As I remember it (this was over 20 years ago) the towpilot made a pattern,
landed, towed a couple of other gliders, and then the -20 driver was ready
to go again.

Janos and Mark raise an interesting point, though: this was a highly thought
of pilot, the only one who regularly entered competitions. He went cross
country just about every time he towed, when the rest of us were beating the
towplane back to the ground. Thus, he was widely perceived as the best pilot
on the site. Who would have been in a position to sit him down and have the
"come to Jesus" talk he so richly deserved? Thinking back on it, the
"culture" at that gliderport just wouldn't have supported it.

I wonder how many other places have hot pilots, who are untouchable because
of their exalted status as hot sticks? I'm sure they're immune from making
basic errors due to their overall excellence, but who among us would dare to
counsel Moffatt, Striedieck, Payne, or Knauff if we saw them doing stupid
things at our field? Or harder still, at their home fields? (Again, I'm sure
none of the legends mentioned would ever deserve counseling, just using
their exalted names as examples: no offense intended or implied.)

Food for thought.

On 4/5/04 2:19 PM, in article 4071b12e$1@darkstar, "Mark James Boyd"
wrote:

What is more surprising is that the towpilot
let him hook up again. I sure wouldn't tow him again until
I had at least a long talk and a day later. I wonder
if the tuggie even knew there had been a problem?

Janos Bauer wrote:
Bullwinkle wrote:

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.

I can't believe it! No one asked him to sit down a bit and think about
what he made? The towpilot also could be killed so I think this action
should be investigated a bit more than this...

/Janos


--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA

On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 15:46:35 -0600, Bullwinkle
wrote:

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.

That shows he had read and remembered what's in the POH, which
explicitly says that an ASW-20 can be controlled to in pitch by the
flaps if the elevator control circuit jams and that this control
should be enough to make egress easier or even avoidable.

The best news: no damage to aircraft or pilot.

I'm happy to hear that.


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

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 :

In article ,
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.

I'm really happy the pilot escaped death. This has been fatal in other
accidents.

1. So, assuming there was insurance, would this accident be covered? Or
would the insurer say:

a) you didn't put it together correctly; bad dog, no coverage
b) you didn't comply with the AD; bad dog, no coverage
c) both

2. Will the pilot then say, hey, what about my annual condition
inspection? How come the annual was signed off if the ship didn't
comply with an AD?

3. Then what happens when the mechanic says, gosh, the service I
contract with for AD updates didn't show this AD, so I didn't know to
look for it and would have not signed it off it had I known?

Inquiring minds want to know!

1. So, assuming there was insurance, would this accident be covered? Or
would the insurer say:

a) you didn't put it together correctly; bad dog, no coverage
b) you didn't comply with the AD; bad dog, no coverage
c) both

In my experience, many people do not cover all the critical elements of doing a
crontrol check. I recently gave a presentation on positive control checks,
critical assembly checks, preflight checks and other checks. If you're
interested, here it is:

http://www.mymedtrans.com/personal.htm

You might find elements here that might help you.


Jim Vincent
CFIG
N483SZ
illspam

In article , Jim Vincent
writes
In my experience, many people do not cover all the critical elements of doing a
crontrol check.
Or spelling checks, come to that.
--
Mike Lindsay

I've gone back and forth on this. I've been a big
proponent of the assembly check, and thought the PCC was redundant.
Recently, however, during a PCC a bellcrank broke and
this was caused by the pressure exerted by the "helper."
Nice to have this happen on the ground, and I can't
think of how this could have been detected without
a PCC. So now I think a PCC is useful too...

Good article Jim...it's great to see your insights...

In article ,
Jim Vincent wrote:
In my experience, many people do not cover all the critical elements of doing a
crontrol check. I recently gave a presentation on positive control checks,
critical assembly checks, preflight checks and other checks. If you're
interested, here it is:

http://www.mymedtrans.com/personal.htm

You might find elements here that might help you.


Jim Vincent
CFIG
N483SZ



--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA

Mark James Boyd wrote:
I've gone back and forth on this. I've been a big
proponent of the assembly check, and thought the PCC was redundant.
Recently, however, during a PCC a bellcrank broke and
this was caused by the pressure exerted by the "helper."
Nice to have this happen on the ground, and I can't
think of how this could have been detected without
a PCC. So now I think a PCC is useful too...

WHat aircraft was this, which bellcrank, and how was the helper exerting
pressure? Or was he simply holding the surface steady while the pilot
applied the pressure? What, exactly, broke (bellcrank, mounting of the
bellcrank, a bearing), and why did it fail?
--
-----
change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Was a 2-33. Heard about it secondhand (or I'd give more
detail). I've seen service difficulty reports in Cezznas,
dunno if there are such things for gliders, maybe the
mechanic who fixes it will give official details...I'll
ask...


In article ,
Eric Greenwell wrote:
Mark James Boyd wrote:
I've gone back and forth on this. I've been a big
proponent of the assembly check, and thought the PCC was redundant.
Recently, however, during a PCC a bellcrank broke and
this was caused by the pressure exerted by the "helper."
Nice to have this happen on the ground, and I can't
think of how this could have been detected without
a PCC. So now I think a PCC is useful too...

WHat aircraft was this, which bellcrank, and how was the helper exerting
pressure? Or was he simply holding the surface steady while the pilot
applied the pressure? What, exactly, broke (bellcrank, mounting of the
bellcrank, a bearing), and why did it fail?
--
-----
change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA



--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA