Sapphire Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 Years and years of preflight checks can reveal nothing worth worrying about until one day..... Print out any things you found that could have caused an accident. I'll start with preflighting a Sapphire [pusher prop] Found a strip of rubber about 50 cm long press fitted on a strip of metal attached to the engine and partly hidden under the cowling. It has partially come loose and that loose end sticks out a bit into the airflow. The rest pulled off easily. Possible worst case scenerio, the rubber hits the prop and causes a blade to come off. The vibration from an unbalanced prop tears the engine from its mounts. The shift in c of g renders your pitch uncontrolable. Sounds like an exaggeration? A piece of metal about 1" by 12" lying on a runway brought a Concord down. Anybody not doing their preflight checks would have nothing to report here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 Best one was with an Auster. Just happened to see some saw dust near the right inner wing on the ground. Undid a zipper and the spar was 1/2 chewed through by rats. Nev 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pudestcon Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 Found a damaged cable bracing the tail empennage - blood on the finger hurt a bit but maybe not as much as might have been if the cable had let go at the wrong time. Fitted a new one, job done and I can sleep easy.... until next time when I find something. Pud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sapphire Posted June 19, 2012 Author Share Posted June 19, 2012 Best one was with an Auster. Just happened to see some saw dust near the right inner wing on the ground. Undid a zipper and the spar was 1/2 chewed through by rats. Nev That's incredible. Do rats chew through fibreglass? Those Sapphire wings had evidence of rats living there for a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayne T Mathews Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 Rats/mice can/will chew through damn near anything that isn't as hard as metal or glass... They're not overly fond of chewing through plastics, but they will do it if they've a mind to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RKW Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 Rats can chew through just about anything from communications cables including optic fibre to anything that presents itself as an obstacle to the little blighters. Bob PS They make good pets! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultralights Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 Preflighting the Savvy one fine morning, noticed a small crack in the propellor hub. thurther inspection revealed severe corrosion inside the hub/blade interface that had partly crushed one blade base, and crack extended internally from hub centre to end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sapphire Posted June 19, 2012 Author Share Posted June 19, 2012 Rats can chew through just about anything from communications cables including optic fibre to anything that presents itself as an obstacle to the little blighters. Bob Another one from me I just thought of. Checked the prop bolt torque and found it to be from 3 ft/lb to 12 ft/lb/ requiring I think 16 foot pounds. Checked it very regularly after that always requiring some tightening up and the prop got thinner and thinner. Has anyone seen this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boingk Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Nothing too dramatic here as I've only been flying for 60 hours, all of them this year on hired aircraft. Some of the worst were fuel readings being 20L out from what the gauge told me (always do physical checks!), oil being below minimum and oil being on the limit of change interval overtime (Owner: She'll be right mate... where you headed? ). Mostly, though, I just show up and fly without too much drama. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
68volksy Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Most thorough i've seen was a guy preflighting the old vision that the school used to have who picked up the smallest of hairline cracks in the prop hub. They had it x-rayed and it went most of the way through. The instructor has kept it and it's always a challenge to find the fracture. Part of the reason I love hiring the flying school aircraft is that the owner/CFI is so passionate about pre-flights and every student/flight preflights before every flight. When there's a dozen or so people looking over it each week i feel i can trust it! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sapphire Posted June 20, 2012 Author Share Posted June 20, 2012 Most thorough i've seen was a guy preflighting the old vision that the school used to have who picked up the smallest of hairline cracks in the prop hub. They had it x-rayed and it went most of the way through. The instructor has kept it and it's always a challenge to find the fracture. Part of the reason I love hiring the flying school aircraft is that the owner/CFI is so passionate about pre-flights and every student/flight preflights before every flight. When there's a dozen or so people looking over it each week i feel i can trust it! Those who do not do preflight checks need to ask themselves one question:"Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya punk? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 They work on the old saying. "don't think about it and it will go away" and "when your times up you're going anyway". . Don't fly with/near these people. IF you are not sure check it again is a better approach. Another interesting one. A near new motor in a chipmunk wasn't maintaining oil pressure well when hot. so kept flying for a bit and then removed the top of the crankcase and had a feel of all the bearings. OK so play with relief valve etc still no good so strip engine. Found crankshaft broken diagonally through the front crankpin and only held together by the conrod. De Havilland motor with very low hours from new.. IF thing aren't right keep looking.. Nev 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yenn Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 I've found several things during a preflight. Lots of water in the fuel of a skyfox, lots of missing screws holding inspection covers on Cessnas and a broken tail wheel block on the corby. I look at it as looking for a reason to not go flying. I also like to do a look around and mag check at shut down time. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boingk Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Ditto on the mag check at shutdown and a general look-over. The flightschool guys say its not neccessary but I treat their craft as I'd treat my own. Cheers - boingk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric McCandless Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Most thorough i've seen was a guy preflighting the old vision that the school used to have who picked up the smallest of hairline cracks in the prop hub. They had it x-rayed and it went most of the way through. The instructor has kept it and it's always a challenge to find the fracture. Part of the reason I love hiring the flying school aircraft is that the owner/CFI is so passionate about pre-flights and every student/flight preflights before every flight. When there's a dozen or so people looking over it each week i feel i can trust it! Hmm, scary. This makes me want to look at the propeller even harder from now on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying Librarian Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 I may have to have a closer look at the props in future. I only seem to pick up the obvious things like loose engine mounts, loose head bolts, wheel spats with one screw left, sticky elevator controls. All in different planes at different fields 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turboplanner Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Flying schools have a big advantage here, but there's nothing to stop owners checking each other's aircraft every now and again. A different pair of eyes will often find and issue you've been subconsciously ignoring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Apart from all the standard things like, screws missing, wheel spats falling off, flat spots on tires, loose tail wheel leaf springs, missing inspection covers in fabric wings, or loose ones, stiffs controls, loose cables, weeping fuel drains, cracked spinner, leaking prop (CSU) etc... the most surprising thing I discovered was a broken spark plug on a Rotax 582. Only reason I found it is I have the habit of checking the leads on the plugs and as I wiggled it, it came off in my hand, with half the plug in-side it! And no, I didn't bend it and break it off! Upon inspection it had been cracked for some time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sapphire Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 Apart from all the standard things like, screws missing, wheel spats falling off, flat spots on tires, loose tail wheel leaf springs, missing inspection covers in fabric wings, or loose ones, stiffs controls, loose cables, weeping fuel drains, cracked spinner, leaking prop (CSU) etc... the most surprising thing I discovered was a broken spark plug on a Rotax 582. Only reason I found it is I have the habit of checking the leads on the plugs and as I wiggled it, it came off in my hand, with half the plug in-side it! And no, I didn't bend it and break it off! Upon inspection it had been cracked for some time... Broken plugs easily happen when you are tighening them up with a lot of sideways force. Your "Solitaire" looks like a Sapphire with a name change. I had some interst in it as well, but it is four or five thousand miles from me. I would put in another CDI you can switch to. The guy I sold my Sapphire to had the engine stop dead while taxiing-electrical problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
68volksy Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Check the prop hub next time you're out at Goulburn Eric if you haven't already - it's in the office and I can never find the crack whenever I look! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadInTheClouds Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Loose screws on the plastic cover that covers where the landing gear strut attaches to the body of the aircraft. Not a structural issue as it is only a cover for cosmetics and for improved aerodynamics but still Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virago Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 The most significant preflight "find" for me was to discover that one exhaust manifold pipe had broken away at the cylinder flange (IO-470K) on my (ex) Beech C33 Debonair. As my proposed trip was from Jandakot to Yulara, I consider this a life saving find. I actually went looking for an exhaust defect as my GEM engine monitor had shown high CHT and low EGT on that cylinder during the previous flight. Another time (many years earlier) I discovered a hole the size of a five cent piece in the rear of a Pawnee muffler, immediately in front of the firewall. As the fibreglass fuel tank was right behind the firewall, I grounded the gliding clubs tug for the weekend. Some club members were incensed at this and I actually got dropped from the tug pilot roster because of it. Thirty years later, I still fail to see that I did anything wrong. I wanted to fly as much as they did! John. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sapphire Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 Loose screws on the plastic cover that covers where the landing gear strut attaches to the body of the aircraft. Not a structural issue as it is only a cover for cosmetics and for improved aerodynamics but still Worst case scenario the cover flys off and jams in your elevator and you save the day by moving your weight back and forth to land the plane. A glider pilot did roughly the same to save himself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 You did the right thing Virago. The people who penalise you shouldn't be in aviation.You are not the first or the last to suffer. Nev 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickH Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Hey 68volksy Can you remember the brand of the prop. RickH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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