Was it me ??

[Dewdrop]

Flying solo circuits yesterday (beautiful day) in the club 172, I started my 3rd and was on climb out and pitching up for best rate of climb, trimmed back, and all of a sudden the elevator controls became very heavy, and I mean very heavy. I was pulling back with all my strength and with both hands just to maintain the required rate of assent. I asked for immediate return and the tower was excellent. As I still had a positive rate of climb I did a gentle 15 degree turn and managed to attain circuit hieght (1000ft), called down wind. In level flight there was no problem with the controls, and I was able to make a normal approach and landing.
On return to the club we crawled over the aircraft, elevators fine, full deflection on trim tabs etc. Trouble is I now find that I am trying to convince myself that it must have been me ! and that there wasn't a technical problem. The best I can come up with is that after my second landing the trim tab may have stuck temporarily.
I'd be grateful for any input, so I can stop beating myself up !

[Circuit Basher]

Are you flying a C172 with mechanical trim (ie) the standard Cessna wheel, or have you got electric trim? (not sure of this, but believe there are some out there with electric trim?).

Sorry if this sounds patronising, but are you sure you'd retracted flaps on that particular roller, as trim would be way out of kilter if you'd missed them. I'm a 170 hr PPL and I have still been known to miss the flaps....

[Dewdrop]

Mechanical Trim, flaps definately up and checked visually while I was fighting the yoke.

[Hairyplane]

Heavy trim

Hi Dewdrop -

Sounds like a bit of finger trouble to me - we are all human.

The sequence as you describe suggests that you might - just might - have rolled the trimmer the wrong way.

Nobody will shoot you down for a bit of finger trouble - we all make mistakes and learn from them.

Biiiiig trim changes on the Cesspit - lots of pulling and pushing required and easy to lose a bit of concentration elsewhere as you focus on maintaining the correct nose attitude - especially if you aren't that experienced.

Could I be right? You may never know for sure - so easy to say to ourselves 'I would never do that'.

I've been flying for 27 years and often say to myself 'I can't believe I did that'.

HP

[Flyin'Dutch']

A tale,

Many moons ago when I was a young and inexperienced gliding instructor one of the less self confident pupils came to me and told me about the difficulty they had experienced in trimming the glider they had been flying that morning. The person was very light and the thermals that day were quite powerful.

So the gathered masses had a long discussion about weights, trimming and a load of other possible explanations why this glider (a K23) would have been difficult to trim.

A very old and wise mechanic walked off with some tools to the cockpit removed the seat pan and found..........a screwdriver!

This was lodged in the the trim mechanism.

We did a quick testflight to confirm all was well and subsequently the student flew the machine as well again confirming that there were no problems anymore.

I learned about flying from that.

FD

[Whipping Boy's SATCO]

A few months back I took off from Fairoaks and, during the roll thought "This is a bit tardy today". Anyway, I faffed with the aircraft a little and finally found that I still had the brakes on (I am now 600m along a 800m runway). Anyway, I eventually got airborne and congratulated myself for, yet again, being a Sky God. It wasn't until a few minutes later when I realised what a numpty I had been in:

a. Leaving the brakes on.

b. Not aborting at the first indication of a problem.

[Mike Cross]

and with both hands just to maintain the required rate of assent

ahhhh... happy days in the back row of the one and nine's - oops sorry about that

slapped wrist etc.


Mike