Originally Posted by
roscoe1
Sometimes it takes an adamant pilot willing to risk their employment but wishing to fly another day.
Reminds me of the day I was walking through our shop and was talking with one of the guys about a customer machine ( R44 ) he was working on. He had a component of the rotor head apart ( I'm trying to be a bit vague here on purpose ) and I mentioned my surprise that a particular part had a tapered bolt in it. I couldn't see any reason such a part would be designed that way. I was informed that it was
not supposed to be tapered, it had just worn that way! 50% of the bolt was missing at the most worn position.
The story is that the ( young, probably first real job ) pilot complained about the flying characteristics, his company flew in a couple of ( A Star ) mechanics who looked it over and gave it a clean bill of health. The pilot, junior as he was, was smart enough to demand someone with extensive experience in type look at the ship, thus our involvement and discovery of the worn component.
There's no doubt in my mind that the bolt failing would probably have been fatal. I was, and still am impressed that the junior pilot would stand up to the company on that issue. A lot of people, especially at the start of a career, are not going to push back when a couple mechanics have declared a machine safe to fly.
He probably saved his own life, or the next guy who flew that machine.