In Flight Emergency

Originally Posted by

What caused the aileron jam, if known?

Hi Bruce

We had a bailout from a Discus CS in February at the Auckland Gliding
Club as a result of aileron controls becoming jammed. The pilot is
pretty happy he was wearing the expensive seat cushion. He departed the
CS at about 1600' AGL

:-) Colin

Hi

The parcel shelf was incorrectly installed and it allowed some pickets to fall into the controls. It's alleged that the pilot had some concerns before launching over full and free movement of the controls but launched anyway.

What is not alleged but proven in this case is that the expensive seat cushion can at times save a persons life when all other things have failed

The link is to a New Zealand CAA airworthiness notice. (It initiates a download)

https://www.caa.govt.nz/Airworthines...7-008_Rev1.pdf

Colin

Hi Bruce

We had a bailout from a Discus CS in February at the Auckland Gliding
Club as a result of aileron controls becoming jammed. The pilot is
pretty happy he was wearing the expensive seat cushion. He departed the
CS at about 1600' AGL

:-) Colin



I nearly had a similar incident in my Discus 2A a couple of years ago. The baggage compartment fiberglass shelf that slides in above and behind the spar was not installed properly. It slides into two slots and it's quite easy to miss one of them. After loading all my "stuff" into the baggage compartment, the shelf sagged down and interfered with the controls. Just before takeoff, I did a control check... moving stick in all directions while operating the dive break. Moving the dive brake caused the ailerons to move. I quickly released and moved off the take off line to resolve the problem. Now... I extremely careful above installing that baggage shelf. I hate to think what would have happened without the pre-take off full control check.

Walt Rogers WX