Hard on Equipment

[Shiny Side Up]

I think there's a Corb Lund song about that somewhere. What's with people who just aren't gentle on stuff? I get the idea that if we were still riding horses around everywhere these people would be riding the poor things to death.

Was moseying across the ramp today and noticed some guys land and taxi off in their Cardinal. After they shut down, they bailed out and slammed the doors so hard it was like a pair of gunshots. Made me flinch it was so harsh. Jeebus people! There's a difference when you see things that have been lovingly worn down, and things you see that are just beat to shit.

I've seen where people rip door handles off, yank mixture, throttle and carb heat knobs out of the dash. Someone once pulled the dash off one of the planes. Don't try to jack your self up in the seat. Its a seat adjuster, not a two ton wheeljack. I've taken to plastering the aircraft with NOT A HAND HOLD labels. Not sure why some people suppose that a quarter inch of plastic is going to hold their weight.

Something people need to think about: Airplanes are designed around the smallest possible user, which as it turns out is a fouteen year old kid. If you're an adult, you're never going to have to put your full muscle against something in the plane, or at least if you get the urge to, please consider that you might be doing something wrong.

Also, the airplane controls never need to be jammed, booted, kicked, stomped, yanked, jumped on, hit, punched, two-handed, reefed on, rammed in, hammered, or heaved. But I always hear pilots talking this way. Unless maybe you're flying a B-52, you're not driving a Mack truck around the sky.

[PilotDAR]

+1 SSU

Though in fairness, we have to keep repair shops in business somehow.... (sarcasm)

It is awesome that these 40-60 year old planes are still offering reliable service, let's keep treating them gently.

One of the worst examples I have seen, an operation known to us all, for whom their sole 182 was kept around just for pilot proficiency. The maintainer asked me to have a look at some damage to the 182, with a view to a design change, to prevent occurrence. There are a total of eight anchor nuts under the floor beams/bulkheads, and the floor skins, to which the four paired rudder torque tubes are bolted down to the floor. Most of these had been ripped right through, certainly releasing the rudder torque tubes, so the rudder and nosewheel steering was affected, and damaging the underfloor structure so as to require rather expensive parts replacement under there.

I stood in awe of the incredible pedal pressure which would be needed to cause such damage, many times that which could ever be needed to control a 182 no matter what had happened. I told the maintainer that this would be a very costly repair design approval for the damage, cheaper just to buy all the Cessna parts, and repair it. "Again...." he muttered, as he walked away deflated. Apparently this was the second time this poor plane was damaged so.

EVERY pilot who could fly that plane was at least experienced CPL, with most being ATPLs. Each would have to sign for the plane to fly it.

[AOW]

I wholeheartedly agree with you on this topic.

my late Saturday night sense of humour wasn't appreciated by anyone; sorry!

[Big Pistons Forever]

Primacy matters. It is extremely important that the inherent fragility of the airframe is impressed upon students at the start of PPL training and instructors make a point of treating the airplane gently.

[Shiny Side Up]

Primacy matters.

Indeed it does, but this seems to be a trait learned long before one gets to pilot training. You can probably pick out the kids who wreck their toys and the ones who don't. If Mom and Dad just keep replacing them, they never learn to care for nothin'. They will always have a tendency to revert to this base methodology, and the general theory is that when something goes wrong, you get a bigger hammer.

[Jet Stream]

Green and White Cardinal???

[Shiny Side Up]

No. It was a blue and white one visiting. Some fresh CPLs though. If they were one of mine I would have put my foot in his ass.

[iflyforpie]

I don't know the circumstances but sometimes 'being hard on equipment' is the result of other factors too.

Cardinal doors catch the wind very easily for those who are unwary.

Just about none of the carb heat controls I see have the 90 bent in them for safety, and almost all of them are very Mickey Mouse installations.

Instrument panel isolators are often forgotten during inspection, and typically there are only two of six or more rubber mounts actually holding the panel on.

Seats are also neglected other than the AD. A bunch of Aeroshell 17 or other moly based grease on the screw jacks does wonders for the height adjustment.


Not giving an excuse to be ham-fisted. The opposite, actually..... lots of times the plane isn't as airworthy as you think. I try and operate everything as if it is made out of lead crystal and hanging on by a thread.

[Shiny Side Up]

Cardinal doors catch the wind very easily for those who are unwary.

There was no wind, these ones were hurled against the fuselage like they were on a 79' cordoba.

Not giving an excuse to be ham-fisted. The opposite, actually..... lots of times the plane isn't as airworthy as you think. I try and operate everything as if it is made out of lead crystal and hanging on by a thread.

Well that's the issue, but then not even old farm trucks deserve this kind of treatment.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Primacy matters.

Indeed it does, but this seems to be a trait learned long before one gets to pilot training. You can probably pick out the kids who wreck their toys and the ones who don't. If Mom and Dad just keep replacing them, they never learn to care for nothin'. They will always have a tendency to revert to this base methodology, and the general theory is that when something goes wrong, you get a bigger hammer.

Yes there are some students that are naturally ham fisted, but the vast majority don't, in my opinion, really understand how to manipulate the moving parts and controls of the aircraft because it was never explicitly covered in their training. Sadly many already have a CPL.

My experience has been if you show new students how to correctly move parts of the aircraft when first teaching the walk around and when they are inside the aircraft you insist that all controls/switches/larches be moved slowly and carefully most people will get in the habit of doing just that.

However if you don't make the effort to teach it right the first time and don't correct the student when he/she rams the throttle in or yanks the carb heat control out, then I think the instructor owns part of the problem.

You do get the occasional guy, and it is always a guy that won't get it. For those I find the FISR method of instruction is required.

[jamesel]

Speaking of guys that won't get it: FISR?

Fault Isolation & Service Restoration
Flying Instructor Survival Reaction?

[Big Pistons Forever]

Speaking of guys that won't get it: FISR?

Fault Isolation & Service Restoration
Flying Instructor Survival Reaction?

The 4 elements of effective instruction: Fear, Intimation, Sarcasm, and Ridicule

[PilotDAR]

In my opinion, it should be very rare that wind catches doors. If the wind is strong enough that it could catch and damage a door, the plane should not have been parked downwind to begin with. Yes, I know that some ramps tend aircraft to park downwind, but if you've ever seen that one lonely white and yellow 150 parked backward in the row, so it is into the wind - it was probably mine!

Airplanes with delicate doors have delicate flight controls too, and are generally pretty easy to move by hand. Shut it down into the wind, put the external control locks on, close the doors (or at least get them under control), then turn it around if you must.

I have ferried many planes across the continent, and from one continent to another, and once to a third. If I break it, or allow it to become broken: A), I must explain this to the person who entrusted the plane to me, and B), that's my ride which just became unserviceable.

Treat the plane as though you need it to get home in - you might!

[Justinh789]

I've seen a couple of times now where another student walks into the hangar holding the rotor brake from an r22/44 in hand

[Heliian]

Guess what guys, this has been going on for at least 15 years. I have seen experienced cpl's doing this kind of shit too and it infuriates me. It goes right back on the instructors and I think as they should be ingraining the "soft" touch to their students right from day one, it should be basic airmanship but we all know that airmanship is dead/dying.

In general, most nowadays have no self awareness or perception of the world around them and can only focus on using up valuable resources to sustain their bodies. All kidding aside, people being hard on their equipment is great for the AME business as a part that should last the life of the a/c now will only make it a year or two before some idiot figures out how to break it.

Just this year alone our company has made thousands repairing/replacing components damaged or broken by hamfistedness.

[Chris M]

Being someone with a decent amount of mechanical experience I have sympathy for machines and try not to treat them harshly. Mostly because I don't like fixing things more often than they need it.

From a flying perspective though, what opinion do folks here have on yoke/rudder? I was berated by an instructor for not recovering from what he later called a spiral dive aggressively enough. I say "what he called a spiral dive" because I don't particularly consider steep bank, nose up, no elevator input and low power to be a spiral. Or a dive. But that's another story. I made what I thought was an expedient but not abusing recovery. His response was to demo a recovery that involved wailing the ailerons off the stops.

In a true emergency situation I can understand being rough on the airplane, but in the practise area do instructors expect students to hammer a 20K hour 172 through a recovery?

[sidestick stirrer]

Wholeheartedly agree with the tiny exception of moving an electrical switch slowly.

[Colonel Sanders]

wailing the ailerons off the stops

There is a far more important consideration
that you may not have considered, apart from
mechanical linkage.

It is quite easy to stall a flight control. Students
do it to me all the time.

For example, hammerhead needs full left rudder.
Too fast, and you can stall it. But if you are
progressive with it, it is more effective.

[iflyforpie]

From a flying perspective though, what opinion do folks here have on yoke/rudder? I was berated by an instructor for not recovering from what he later called a spiral dive aggressively enough. I say "what he called a spiral dive" because I don't particularly consider steep bank, nose up, no elevator input and low power to be a spiral. Or a dive. But that's another story. I made what I thought was an expedient but not abusing recovery. His response was to demo a recovery that involved wailing the ailerons off the stops.

Well.... lots of times I demo a spiral like that because they are 20,000 hour 40 year old planes and there is no reason to take them up into the yellow on a spiral dive recovery.... something that is a lot harder on them than just moving the controls to the stops. But your methodology should be the same... power off, roll wings level, ease out of the dive. A split second delay in certain circumstances could have dire results.....

It's like doing stalls in the Utility Category.... really... all you have to do is release a bit of back pressure and you've recovered. But we aren't training you for two people and half tanks in the Utility Category at 3000 AGL... we are training you to recover from a stall at 500 AGL fully loaded with an aft C of G.... so aggressively check that nose forward!

[Docbrad]

There is a far more important consideration
that you may not have considered, apart from
mechanical linkage.

It is quite easy to stall a flight control. Students
do it to me all the time.

For example, hammerhead needs full left rudder.
Too fast, and you can stall it. But if you are
progressive with it, it is more effective.

I have never, ever considered this. Thanks for bringing it up!

[Shiny Side Up]

For example, hammerhead needs full left rudder.
Too fast, and you can stall it. But if you are
progressive with it, it is more effective.

To that end, when it comes to moving the flight controls, a small difference is to describe the movement in most cases as "assertive" rather than "aggressive" to convey how you want the students to move it. Someone showed me that when it came to learning snap rolls (and it made me better at them - go figure), I think (I may be wrong though) that Bill Thomas uses the phraseology in Fly For Fun. Small thing, but it usually heads off any of those wide eyed moments that result from someone heaving on the control column in a panic, or stomping on a poor rudder pedal.

I know one gorilla who's theory was that the airplane needed to be beat around managed to break off the heel brakes in his Champ. Not sure if he changed his tune on how those rudders needed to be kicked after that.

[iflyforpie]

There is a far more important consideration
that you may not have considered, apart from
mechanical linkage.

It is quite easy to stall a flight control. Students
do it to me all the time.

For example, hammerhead needs full left rudder.
Too fast, and you can stall it. But if you are
progressive with it, it is more effective.

I have never, ever considered this. Thanks for bringing it up!

Well.... it is a big consideration in a climbing, turning stall. That's why we never pick up a wing with aileron.

For a rudder or elevator to stall it has to be very aggressive and very low speed since they are relatively unloaded compared to the wing and immersed in the prop wash.

You probably aren't going to stall a flight control in the onset of a spiral....

[Colonel Sanders]

I fly a clip-wing Harvard (experimental/exhibition)
which has really spooky ailerons. You must be smooth
and gentle applying them. Before full deflection,
the stick will be snatched out of your hand. Not
certifiable behaviour.

[iflyforpie]

But certifiable pilots.... right?

[Colonel Sanders]

I guess. My first flight in it, I did solo surface acro.

I rather like it's behaviour. Has character. I
like that. Can't stand a boring airplane.

Flew a then-strange-to-me-Pitts-S-2B some
years back. Control stick jammed on a
vertical downline. Made the landing interesting.
It was love at first sight. Bought it, still have it.