C152 Spin Accident

[Luftwaffle]

If you teach spins in Cessna 152 or 150, check the following link, then check your rudder stops.
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/ENG/reports/air/1998/a98q0114/ea98q0114.html

[Smurfjet]

What a load of cr**!! :mad:

And they want us students and instructors to fly a/c that are not airworthy!!

I was planning to go to that same school this summer, now I am not sure I even want to go into a cessna maintained by....incompetent people!!?? :mad:

Oh god! And I have to pay a fortune to fly too! http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif


Fly safe?! http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/confused.gif

Good luck to all
Smurfy

[This message has been edited by Smurfjet (edited 22 July 2000).]

[DING- -DUCK50]

There was another thread on a 150 crash while practising spins on here-does anyone know where it is?

[chicken6]

Thanks for that Luftwaffle, also a good way of showing people why intentional tailslides aren't really that good an idea. Pretty scary when I think the description of the instructor fits me in about six months' time.

Safe flying

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Confident, cocky, lazy, dead.

[Airwitch]

I think any of us that teach aerobatics can tend to get too complacent - you know the thing - send your student out to preflight the plane without checking it thoroughly yourself. This is, if anything, a cautionary tale about checking the plane out immaculately yourself, and explaining to the student why you do so.
We know we can fly the manoeuvres and we assume that by putting the right inputs in that we will be safe when we fly. I personally will now become more cautious than ever about double checking for stress/ wear etc when a student preflights for me.

[Sensible]

Good idea checking the a/c yourself. In this instance, could the sticky tape and drill holes to stop the crack really have missed the attention of all who flew in her ? It surely didn't all just happen since the previous couple of flights !

Sticky tape, drill holes, rubber bands, bits of string @#*!?

[CaptainAirProx]

I never like spinning C152's anyway. Far better to spin an aircraft with a proper harness and a parachute.

The flying club I work for has recently had two Cessna 152's with cracked tail fin strengthners. I am not sure what their correct name is but if you look at the root of the tail fin at about mid chord, there is an L shaped piece of metal bolted on both sides to add to the strength of the fin to fuselage join. On both 152's these had cracks in them. We think the damage is caused by perhaps over spinning the aircraft, or illegal attempted aero's, but most likely recoveries from spins into a spiral dive with full rudder still applied. This causing a large side force on the fin above Va etc.

So don't just check the stops!!!

P.S Don't just assume that all C152's spin the same! I recently found that our C152 Taildragger spins rather well!!!
With nearly full fuel, two blokes, an exuberent entry and a full develop spin can take a good few turns to recover. Started at 6000' recovered at 2000'. It behaved more like a Bulldog. Where was my parachute?

[chicken6]

A few TURNS!!!!!!

Thank goodness for the trousers from Brown & Co. ;)

Safe flying



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Confident, cocky, lazy, dead.

[Grandad Flyer]

I once worked at an organisation where the engineer was not particularly interested in what he was doing and wouldn't fly in an aircraft. Lots of things didn't get done properly. It got to the point where people would refuse to fly aircraft if they had just come out of the engineers workshop. Luckily, he was sacked. Personally I think all engineers should have to have a PPL and should have to go and do a flight test before releasing any aircraft to service. I wonder if this engineer would have gone spinning, knowing what he did.
I know that sometimes we all try to cut corners, but this sounds rather more obviously a corner which could not be cut.
I also always wear a parachute when doing aeros and would want to be recovered by a lot higher than 2000', not that it would have helped in this accident. I think it should be mandatory to wear chutes when doing aeros in any aircraft. That way, they would have had a chance at least. Its terrible for the instructor, he must have realised that the rudder was jammed and there was no chance of recovery. Still, its something that the student survived. If they had gone into the ground I suspect the result would have been even more tragic.

[Luftwaffle]

I know exactly why people consent to fly aircraft that are held together with duct tape. The people who taught them to fly implicitly or explicitly sanctioned it.

The first time a student pilot preflights an aircraft with a missing screw, a bent antenna, or a scratch on the paint, the student either reports it to the instructor, or assumes his all-knowing instructor is familiar with it. The instructor doesn't reject the aircraft, and they fly it. The student learns that that defect is okay.

Say the student reports after preflight inspection that the tail tie down ring is bent. Such damage could indicate a significant impact, and possible airframe damage. But what do you say? "Yeah, it's okay. It's been that way for a long time."

It's a hell of a lot of bother for an instructor to go through tech logs with a student, finding the date of the initial damage, the subsequent inspection and the maintenance sign off. If you couldn't find it, would you demand to know?