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View Poll Results: Have you ever caught a problem during pre-flight?
Nope, never found any issues. 20 6.21%
Yes, only minor issues 134 41.61%
Yes, and once was an issue that could have cause major problems. 89 27.64%
Yes, and more than once I have caught major issues. 79 24.53%
Voters: 322. You may not vote on this poll

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  #61  
Old 10-20-2011, 02:25 PM
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loopfuzz loopfuzz is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: ptown
Posts: 387
Default

Found a half a pint of water in one tank before. I figure it must have been the gas truck that filled it up the night before.
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  #62  
Old 10-20-2011, 02:44 PM
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RVbySDI RVbySDI is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Tuttle, Oklahoma
Posts: 2,563
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rv8or View Post
. . .I found a spanner. . .
Thought I might add some education to those of us not so versed on the world outside of the good ol' USA. For those of us without much exposure to the 'Brits':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanner
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  #63  
Old 10-20-2011, 02:51 PM
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pczar3 pczar3 is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Bolingbrook, Illiniois
Posts: 254
Default A few that could have been trouble

C150 Elevator Hinge worn almost through
Piper Warrior - Birds nest in stab control cone
Piper Warrior - Birds nest top center of engine
Taylor Craft - sloshing compound in gascolator. This was the worst. In doing the pre-flight I noticed some small black flecks in the fuel after draining the gascolator. Tried again with same result. Dropped the metal bowl and it was full of a black slimy substance. Rubbed with fingers and couldn't get it off my fingers! Looked in fuel tank and saw sloshing compound had been removed because last auto fuel had ethanol in it. Had to remove the tank, clean, re-slosh. Sure glad it didn't work its way into the carb but it was only a matter of time!
Paul
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  #64  
Old 10-20-2011, 04:02 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 370
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob'sRV6A View Post
H46--hand grenade with pin pulled in empty peanut butter jar under passenger seat
Ok, enough with the suspense, now I want to hear more about that hand grenade.

- mark
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  #65  
Old 10-20-2011, 05:41 PM
chuckh1197 chuckh1197 is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 43
Default water in gas

Was not in an RV but C172 rental in Los Angeles. Went thru preflight and took full sample of fuel from wing tank and it looked ok. Discarded it on ground and noticed it beaded up. The entire sample was water. Drained a couple of samples from each tank. It had rained the day before and they obviously had bad caps.
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  #66  
Old 10-20-2011, 07:31 PM
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Marc DeGirolamo Marc DeGirolamo is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Saskatoon,Saskatchewan,Canada
Posts: 291
Default circuit with towbar

[quote=Just to be clear, I'm only talking about during the walk-around portion...not run up and control checks and stuff.[/quote]


Nope never have found anything on my -4 but an neighbor RV-6A driver (name withheld) did a circuit with the towbar still on.....Tower says "looks like something is hanging from your plane"......hehehe....all turned out well, no damage even ??......'but, what's that smell' !!
a good walk around after the plane is outside of the hangar would have caught that one
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  #67  
Old 10-20-2011, 07:32 PM
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donaziza donaziza is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 745
Default RV 8 & 737 preflights

Mechanic found screw on the horn of my rudder of my RV 8 that was slowly unscrewing itself. Would have eventually blocked the movement of my rudder. This item is now a regular on all my pre flights. Was preflighting a 737 one day. Suddenly got burning eyes and knew immediately it was atomized hydraulic fluid leaking "somewhere". Had to be the flight controls, flaps or brakes. Finally found it. It was a hairline crack in the left main gear brake housing. Not only a possible loss of all System A Hyd. fluid, but brake assembly could have disintegrated on takeoff or landing roll.

Also had bent fan blades on another 737 years earlier

Had "one" spoiler on top of the wing of an A 300 that had failed to retrack after last crew landed. Would have been an interesting roll effect on the next takeoff

That's 34 years of pre flighting--a real pain--but every now and then, it really pays off.
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  #68  
Old 10-23-2011, 07:01 PM
delusional delusional is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Boston area
Posts: 128
Default just piling on here

Quote:
Originally Posted by az_gila View Post
...and notice how many of the incidents mentioned were the first flight after a mechanic had done work on the plane...

Yup, that seems common. Here's a sampling of some I can recall:

-way too much water in the fuel
-stuck starter C172
-loose tail wires on a cub (nuts not tightened after maint.)
-leaking fuel
-leaking oil
-bad mag (weak spark)
-busted p-lead
-failed idle check
-busted carb heat
-broken trim cable Citabria (more serious than it may sound)

Newbies might assume from this list the author is a grizzled ATP with 10k plus hours; nope, almost exclusively recreational flying in spam cans and cubs with less than 700 hours total.

So check everything, twice the stuff that can kill you.
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  #69  
Old 10-23-2011, 08:11 PM
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DanH DanH is online now
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: 08A
Posts: 9,500
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by az_gila View Post
...and notice how many of the incidents mentioned were the first flight after a mechanic had done work on the plane...
Or even the dumb@$$ who built it.

I was at SERFI on Saturday. Another builder walks up and says 'Hey, you know you're missing a few screws from your cowl?"

Sure enough, about 5 of them. I'd had the cowl off a few days before. Re-inserted all the screws, spinning in each a bit by hand with a screwdriver to assure clean threading, but not tightening until they are all in place. For some reason I obviously never went back to tighten them all.

I suppose the preflight lesson is "Don't overlook the obvious". Those screws are really easy to see.
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  #70  
Old 10-23-2011, 08:54 PM
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airguy airguy is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Garden City, Tx
Posts: 5,145
Default

Opened the hangar to preflight my 172 about 6 months back, scared a sparrow out of the cooling air inlets. Pulled the cowl for a very careful cleaning of the birds nest that I was sure was in there - only found a couple twigs, guess I got lucky and caught him early. Bought a set of cowl plugs the next day and use them every post-flight.
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Built an off-plan RV9A with too much fuel and too much HP. Should drop dead any minute now.
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