Another story while I am at it, illustrating another perspective.
At around the same time, while I was an instructor in Melbourne, I was sitting in the instructor crew room drinking coffee. (I did a lot of that in those days
) Looking out the window, which had a nice view of the runway approach path and touchdown zone I saw a Partenavia approach at a great rate of knots, slam onto the runway and lose some of its gear
Apparently what had happened (all of this second had, and from memory, so don't quote me
) was that a pilot had hired the aircraft from another school, but had returned it saying "That the controls check felt funny."
One of the instructors from that school jumped in, performed a control check and decided to fly a quick circuit. Getting airbourne he found
no pitch response at all. He flew the rest of the circuit on the trim, with the touchdown mentioned above - all in all a pretty good display of aircraft handling.
It turns out that the clamp from the control run on the stabilator was loose, so while the elevator moved a bit on the ground, airbourne the aircraft had no pitch control at all. Again I don't know how the control check was performed - or even if you can see the elevator in a Partenavia, but I suspect so.
All the good stuff happens in G.A.