Smitty Two wrote:
In article .com,
"Harry K" wrote:

Flyingmonk wrote:
I'm pretty sure they noticed... Maybe gettherenitis and not wanting to
admit fault (machismo) made them continue.

Bryan

Now I can accept that the plane could fly, better 'stay in the air',
that way. What I can't accept is that any knowledgeable pilot would
continue a flight for -2 hours- in a plane that heavily damaged or that
the passengers would agree to it. I can't feature fighting the
controls in an out of trim plane for that long. I suspect that if this
story is true, there is one pilot without a license now.

Harry K

Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan flew the Voyager around the world, a
non-stop flight of 10 days, with both winglets having been torn off
during the takeoff roll. They actually had to shake them loose by
manuevering, because the drag they were causing in the dangling form was
making the plane handle poorly. Still they were left with loose skin,
rough jagged foam sticking out, dangling wires, etc. Not to mention that
the tips had been added to correct a tail-heavy condition. I don't
recall that their licenses were revoked...

Hardly the same thing. In that case, the damage was symmetrical and
involved only a small fraction of both wings. In the current case the
damage involved a significant fraction of just one wing.

Harry K