Interesting landing

[Yenn]

A friend of mine had an interesting landing this morning. He had just taken off when his Stbd rudder cable came adrift. He was at about ten feet when he realised what had happened and I heard him shut the throttle and he disappeared from my view behind a hangar. Then others told me he had ground looped.

 

When we looked at the rudder cable it had a clean cut end, not a frayed break as expected. The crimped connector had given way. The pilot had done this connection himself and knew who to blame. He had bought aluminium crimps and they ad not been up to the job. It is all fixed now with better quality crimps fitted, under supervision of all present "experts"

 

The moral is don't use aluminium crimps on aircraft, at least not for control wires.

 

The good thing is that he is regularly practicing engine failures at take off and his practice placed him in a good position to handle the problem.