Tarver Engineering release for service
From: Stan Gosnell
Date: 3/2/2004 5:26 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

"The CO" wrote in
:

Well the only tiny grain of truth in that statement is that a static
port can be occluded by a
foreign object. On the ground this can be something like an insect
setting up housekeeping
in it, in flight ice is probably the biggest risk factor. Since loss of
the static port will bugger up
3 basic flight instruments (altimeter, ASI and VSI) this is non-trivial.

Or masking tape left in place after maintenance. At least one airliner has
crashed because of this. Many fatalities.

--
Regards,

Stan


Masking tape should NEVER be used to wrap pitot tubes or cover static ports.

As far as leaving the tape on the maintainer is supposed to write it up, the
maintainer is supposed to remove the tape when he is done and document it, the
pilot is supposed to read the forms, the pilot is supposed to preflight the
aircraft which specifically includes checking the static ports etc.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired