Flying after bumping the wing during taxi
I am a heli pilot so know nothing of aeroplane flight / safety.
At Redhill yesterday I witnessed a small GA aircraft taxi along and its right wing hit a parked van. The van must have been a couple of inches taller than the clearance under the wing. The machine tipped up visibly to go over the roof, and then dropped sharply as it finally cleared the rear. So one part of the wing ran along the corner of the roof of the van. I expected the pilot to stop (I thought he must have noticed that!) but he made to line up 18.
My friend called the tower to tell them of the impact and warn the chap, and subsequently he reversed course and pulled up. Then he exited the machine and inspected his wing. He walked back to the van, and took a good look at the floor around about (he did not seem to pay much attention to the van itself). Then he got back into his machine, fired up and lined up 18 for departure.
I went down to the white van, which had red paint from the wing scraped along the roof edge; so the impact was enough for that at least.
Now, being a helicopter pilot whose machine performs public transport work I would have needed an engineer to sign-off that my machine was safe to fly if I bumped anything at all.
Was this pilot's actions really all that is needed to go flying in a non-public transport aircraft?
Last edited by John R81; 20th May 2012 at 18:35.
Reason: Removed "club" as I don't know that it is