Anyone got a story of your checks saving your aircraft.
 

How obvious was the fault, engineers, weather damage, vandals etc?

This is already off the thread track, but does have some relevance!
For obvious faults I don't think you can go past the supposedly true story of a student at RAAF 2FTS in Pearce WA in the days of the Macchi who was particularly slack at doing his walkaround.
His instructor one day teed up the maintenance crew to nominate an obviously unserviceable aircraft for their flight, and sent Bloggsie off to preflight it.
A little while later the instructor strolled out to the aircraft, requested our hero to unstrap, and took him round the aircraft once more to spot any little things that could possibly have stopped them getting airborne.
After some prompting, this aviating Sherlock Holmes finally noticed that the lack of an engine might perhaps have led to a few problems getting out of the carport.

In my experience it's often the obvious things that get missed. Found quite a few instances of helicopter cowlings etc left closed but unsecured by hassled engineers after their daily check "A". I once lifted an RAF Puma to the hover and the entire instrument panel fell down across the cyclic. The securing clips were fastened but not engaged, allowing it to pivot backwards. Fortunately we were two pilot ops that day and the other pilot lifted it up very quickly....

On the other hand, I once left the oil cap off a helicopter engine oil reservoir and rustproofed the entire engine bay, fortunately without losing all the oil. Silly me!

Spotted a disconnected static pipe at the water trap in the lefthand footwell of a C152. They decided it had probably flown 100 hrs plus since it had come out of maintenance like that.

Once fitted an extra nosewheel (from a pram, very nice with shiny chrome spokes) on the towing arm attachment lug of a Puma to see if the Squadron "Ace" would find it on his walkround. He didn't and because he kicked the tyres and lit the fires so quickly we got taken by surprise and had a bit of difficulty stopping him getting airborne with it still attached. Won't do that again! :rolleyes:

Several years ago after having shut down at a base for lunch & a break (that didn't happen often!) I went out to my AS350D & noticed a couple of grackles perched on the engine intake screen. These birds will eat anything, & aren't my favorite species. The LTS101 Lycoming engine installed in the Death Star has the air intake on top of the engine, & a screen covers most of it, but a couple of inches at the rear is open. On a hunch, I climbed up & looked down in there. The grackles had found someone's discarded Kentucky Fried Chicken, & dropped the bones down inside the engine intake. It took some doing to get them all out, & if I hadn't checked, those bones would have soon been through the engine & out the exhaust, along with some compressor blades, I expect. During the summer, 206's sometimes have tree frogs go through the engine - usually they're small enough that there's just a hiccup, but sometimes it causes a forced landing. We install intake covers during the summer to try to keep them out.

I've also had a mockingbird build a nest in my intakes, & it wouldn't give up. Twigs, bits of wire, whatever it could find, it kept putting in there until I installed the intake plugs. It then built a nest in a BO105 on the next pad, inside the engine cowling.

Found an empty coke can in the exhaust of an L-1 once that some idiot vandals had left. That made the rest of the walkaround pretty detailed!

Big thing to watch for is dirty/discoloured oil sight glasses. Always nice to check closely that there is oil behind the glass. I've had a tail rotor drive failure as a direct result of that and I know there was a Lynx fatal for a similar reason.

A mate of mine ended up in ground resonance in a Wessex because he didn't spot that one of the blade damper locks had been left in - he didn't spot the 2 foot long red tag attached to it because the engineer had helpfully wrapped it tightly around the lock so it was almost impossible to see at 4 am on a rainy Belfast morning.

I was taking the new Sqn EngO flying in a Wessex in Cyprus and he helped on the walkround by climbing up the port side to open the transmission decking as I did the same on the starboard side. As we faced each other acroos the decking I noticed an 8 inch long paintbrush wedged amongst the control runs from the mixing unit to the jacks. Needless to say we didn't go flying and the engineers quickly discovered it was not a good idea to embarrass their new boss!

About 6 weeks ago whilst carrying out an A check on a 206 with the owners son in law. I found the thomas coupling bolts on the tail rotor drive shaft loose. This is the shaft from the oil cooler fan to the tail rotor drive shaft. This aircraft had been flown several times in this state including a flight by the chief pilot of the maintenance organisation,after annual inspection. This item is subjet to an AD and this had not been completed. The CAA have been investigating this incident so therefore no more to be said. Beware the B**T**Ds will get you if you depend on trust.:eek:

Thanks guys for that, motivation needs reality.
 

It is easy to get lax, stories like these keep the mind active, I am still hoping to find something wrong, oh well, if I keep checking maybe someday!

My first was when my licence was still wet, frayed tail rotor control cables on a Bell 47, you're allowed three frayed cables, there were three left holding. Also found a cooling fan belt holding on by threads. Found an engine oil line untightened after an inspection on a 206, found rags and tools under a 206's cowling more than once, and there was a transmission cap left off. On twins there's engineers taking a good look at the birds prior to us crawling all over them every morning so not much gets missed, although I do know of a 76 thats had the engine cowling flap up into the rotor system while in flight for a missed latch, flashlights flying across the ramp when the heads engaged, and oxygen bottles left on the gear door that planted themselves firmly into someones driveway when the gear were put up through 500 feet.

Timely topic, as discussion has been going around our op of letting the engineers handle the walk-around and pilots just doing the control checks. It probally won't go, while our base engineers are first rate, some of our third world ops don't have the same level of confidence, and it would have to be a company wide SOP.

I rather enjoy climbing up onto the ole girl to have a look before lighting the fires.

Remember reading on a previous post (can't remember where or where or who) about someone who preflighted his jetranger, started her up, noticed some funny vibration, shut her down and on examination couldn't find a tail rotor. Apparently his friend had borrowed it for his machine. :rolleyes:

This one is for those of you that fly with Fenestrons.

Moons ago, in Norway, flew to a distant outpost in support of Infantry. It was a two day exercise. Weather lovely and sunny but this was only a benefit up on the mountain tops. Down in the valleys it was brass monkey cold. During the pre-flight the morning of day two I was busy clearing the snow off the fuselage and when at the Fenestron discovered that the fenestron blades were firmly stuck to the ducting by ice. Luckily I had by this stage not hand turned the main rotor blades nor of course started the rotors. So now, no matter what the weather, I always check that there is no debris in the fenestron - ice or otherwise before doing anything else.

This one was pure luck that I spotted it. Doing a walk round prior to flight one afternoon. This H300 had flown already that day and was still warm. As I scanned down the port skid something caught my eye. Something looked awkward/not quite as I was used to. Upon closer inspection I found that the skid was cracked radially just infront of the front upright and was at a slightly higher angle than normal. We were planned to do running take-off and landings as part of a limited power review. Didn't fly that machine. Another H300 on another day. Noticed that the locking wire was broken on the nut which hold the tail rotor drive shaft to the tail rotor drive and that the nut had backed off a good way.

I have a wonderful collection of mechanics tools as I believe that what I find hidden away after a Servicing is mine. Spanners under MRGB's are difficult to retrieve. The military have a stringent tool control system and I can say that none of my tools have come from that source.

Post engineering is perhaps the most critical time for all sorts of demons to lurk.

In most cases within the wording of the flight manuals is mention that on close down after flight one should listen for strange noises.
Had this been done by the previous pilot the fault I found during a pre-flight would have been discovered, snagged and the fault rectified. In the early 70ties I was doing my pre-flight on an Alouette 2 and swinging the rotor blade round found that I couldn't move the rotors round. Initially thinking that the rotor brake was locked in the 'ON' position, I returned to the cabin to release the brake. It was 'OFF'. The problem was that the MRGB was seized for some reason. I snagged the aircraft and signed out another for the flight.

I shudder when I see pilots walk up to their helicopter with nothing more than a cursory glance and fly away. I'm not that trusting.
Fuel caps left off by refuellers is a favourite.

After a night stop 'in the field' (back of a Hotel!!) found dor of 206 open! Yep drunks had decided to play airwolf and nicked the firstaid kit and emptied the fire bottle. Very detailed walk round followed.
Just goes to sho that no matter how secure you think some place is, some c@nt will spoil it for you.

MBJ

Yes that lynx story is true, I knew the crew very well, in fact the pilot was the last chap I flew with when I left the AAC and it happend about 3-4 months after I'd left. Funnily enough that's one of the things I really do check on my BF, things like that stick when they are closer to home.

One engineer asked me to do a ground run on a 205 once, I walked back in after ten seconds and asked him to put the main rotor back on first!
Red faced or what?

I always do a better postflight than preflight inspection,anyway, climbed up to the rotorhead on a B206 after spraying powerline right of ways for 6.5 hours to find a cracked main rotor grip through the blade bolt hole. It was big enough to put the blade of my pocketknife in.....

So Bladestrike.....

Do you know something about that cowl latch we should know? Perhaps you have chatted to those pilots involved?....No?
Interesting accusation considering you were not there and don't know all of the facts.

So Steve....

Interesting accusation indeed! I didn't get this moniker for being perfect, just adding to the theme of the thread. Though I did take credit for all the many scew-ups I've made.

No, I'm sure the latch failed and no-one was to blame, my heart-felt apologies to the crew involved.

My memory is failing me due to "Oltimers disease"
 

I had one case where my inattention could have caused a crash. I tanked up an HO3-S 1G for an early morning flight to look for a lost girl. The pilot ran out of gas about ten miles out and made a successful autorotation. It seems that someone siphoned the gas during the night.

However I had several face saving incidents where I prevented a crash. At an air show in Everett, Washington I was strolling about looking at rotorheads with my camera that had a 35-105 lens with a 2X multiplier. I looked very closely at the rotorhead of an UH-60 Blackhawk. I noticed a piece that seemed to be missing and I told the pilot about it. He told me that I was mistaken and what I thought was a missing part was really an accumulation of Mastinox which is a water sealant. I told him what I thought and left. About an hour later I returned to find the pilot standing on the roof of the Blackhawk staring vacantly into the sunset. The helicopter stayed there for several days until a replacement rotorhead could be installed.

On another occasion in Germany I attended a small airshow and doing what I do I was looking at rotorheads and tail rotors. On a brand new B-206 EMS helicopter rotorhead I spotted what I thought was a crack. I found the pilot and I told him about it. He took a look from the ground and he told me it was a streak of grease. I looked again from several different points and told him it was a crack. He climbed on the roof and verified that it was indeed a crack. This helicopter came out of the factory with the crack. The helicopter was trucked back to the home base.

:cool:

Parked the machine on a hospital helipad once. About 8 hours later came and preflighted it. Nothing unusual.
Had my helmet under the seat dragged it out - just about to stick it on the old noggin and saw something in it - a fist size ball of ants with bits of grass, sticks and ant larvae. That would have felt good if I'd got it on before I notice the nest.:eek:

I wonder if this is more a reflection on the smell of the inside of my helmet

Now part of my preflight is ensure there's a thin circle of grease around the skid strut:D :D

Just got my FAA CPL and was time-building in Long Beach, so very "professional" with my pre-flights. (= actually did one before every flight)

One R22 had just had an NDB antenna plus associated co-ax cable replaced. Can we go off and test it? Opened the cowl to find that the avionics man had tie-wrapped the new cable to the tail-rotor control rod as well as the aircraft frame.

A few months ago I was flying the same R22 every couple of weeks and so got quite familiar... to the extent of cutting my pre filght to a quick walk round, sightglass and con rod check, light up and drive off.
This rapidly changed when an older private driver, watching this young pup asked how confident I was with my checks? To keep this short he pointed out that despite the fuel guage showing about half in both tanks, actually dipping the tanks revealed that I was about to attempt an hours flight with roughly half an hours fuel.
Now, I physically dip the tanks EVERY preflight.