WindOnHisNose
BENEFACTOR
Lino Lakes MN (MY18)
I am going to air out some of my dirty laundry for my friends here on sc.org, in hopes that you will learn from an experience I had on the return flight from visiting the good folks in the Kansas City and 3EX area.
On the way down to KC from the Twin Cities I stopped for fuel at Creston, IA (KCSQ), which had self-serve fuel at reasonable prices and a grass strip running at 04-22. I made a mental note to stop by there on my way home, as well.
I left Noah's Ark airstrip (06MO) on Monday morning early, Laura Johnson being kind enough to drop me off at the airstrip and soon I was on my way home. As is my custom when flying alone in the super cub, I had my backpack strapped tightly on the rear seat and I keep a water bottle on the rear seat floorboard, just in front of a flight bag in which I have my personal 406 ELT and an ICOM A24 radio, in case of radio failure. The flight bag also often contains a granola bar are two in case I am starving on a longer flight. All of that is to the right of the rear control stick, and to the left of t22,he control stick is where I place a spare DC headset. All of this is in a position so that there is no obstruction or limitation of movement of the rear control stick, but within easy reach should I need to get to them.
As usual, I "stirred the pot" by moving my control stick through it's range of motion and it moved freely and easily, and off I went from Noah's Ark, heading north toward the Twin Cities. I had planned to stop, once again, at KCSQ, given the grass strip and the friendly people I had met there. I flew into KCSQ without any problems an hour or two north of 06MO, stretched my legs and refueled, drained my bladder, checked my backpack to make certain it was secure and climbed back into the cockpit, taxiing out for takeoff on 22, given that the wind was 190 at 10 knots. I stirred the pot again, gave N82667 the gas and took off, left wing down so as to crab slightly into the wind, making what was supposed to be a gentle left turn that I intended to hold until I was on the on course heading of north.
All was well until I decided the bank was developing a bit too much to the left, so I moved the stick to the right, wanting to go a bit right of center in order to level the wings. It was then that I knew I had a problem, in that I hit a dead end on stick travel at just slightly right of center. The bank angle was slowly increasing to the left and I moved the stick even harder to the right but could not get it to move past about center. In essence, I was unable to stop the bank or the turn with right stick movement and I could see that I was in deep trouble. I reached behind me to see what the heck was blocking the right travel of the control stick, and I came up empty. The backpack was securely in place, my flight bag was nowhere near the stick and I could feel the headset lying on the floor away from the stick. No luck with identifying the cause of stick movement limitation. I needed to try something else.
I reduced power to slow the plane down and there was a slight relaxation of the bank angle, and application of rudder helped to lower the right wing slightly, arresting the increase in bank angle. I recalled my mountain flying mentor, Tuck Barrett, telling me that if I couldn't figure out anything else to do and I was not in great control of the aircraft, I should put in 10 degrees of bank. "Noone should crash an airplane without first adding 10 degrees of flaps", he told me more than once, so I thought this might be an opportune time to throw on the first notch of flaps, and I did, further reducing the left bank angle to level flight.
At that point I knew that I was going to be turning to the left, and not to the right, and I wanted to get my fanny back onto terra firma, so I decided to make a wide arcing turn around to intercept and land on runway 22. I made a really wide, slow, gentle-banking turn toward the left, aligning with the very wide, beautiful grass runway, using throttle and rudder to bring my onto the runway. I landed and taxied up to the building where the mechanic/cropduster who ran the airport, Larry West, was standing watching me intently. I shut down the engine, crawled out of the cockpit and told him what had just happened. We looked carefully and the backpack was secured and was a non-factor, as was the flight bag. Nothing had slipped out of the flightbag to cause the problem but the the stick was clearly not able to be moved right of center.
I looked at the headset and it was lying there well away from the stick and I was wondering what the heck could be wrong here. Then I looked more closely and found the problem.
The headset was there, with the cord wrapped carefully around it, just as I had positioned it when I left Noah's Ark.
The problem was not the headset, but rather the plug at the end of the cord. The plug had slid down into the cut-out near the aft stick, apparently after liftoff following refueling, and had become a very, very solid wedge between the aft control stick and the stop which limits the stick travel...
This photo was taken on the opposite side (right) to demonstrate the problem that had occurred on the left side. The plug had become an extension of the stop, so to speak, limiting the travel of the stick to the right. This explained the problem I had, and it is now my guess that the jarring of the takeoff induced the travel of the plug to that position.
It was a relief to know what had happened, but I am pretty disgusted with myself in not recognizing the potential danger that objects on the floorboard might pose to safe flight. I really had felt that I might not be able to control the degree of roll and that I would end up inverted should I not be able to lower the right wing.
There you have it. I can assure you that the floorboard was cleaned off when I departed the grass strip subsequently, and it will be free of items that could make this happen again. I am sure that most of you don't keep things on the rear board, but if you do please BEWARE! This could cause trouble.
OK, the dirty laundry is out there
Randy
On the way down to KC from the Twin Cities I stopped for fuel at Creston, IA (KCSQ), which had self-serve fuel at reasonable prices and a grass strip running at 04-22. I made a mental note to stop by there on my way home, as well.
I left Noah's Ark airstrip (06MO) on Monday morning early, Laura Johnson being kind enough to drop me off at the airstrip and soon I was on my way home. As is my custom when flying alone in the super cub, I had my backpack strapped tightly on the rear seat and I keep a water bottle on the rear seat floorboard, just in front of a flight bag in which I have my personal 406 ELT and an ICOM A24 radio, in case of radio failure. The flight bag also often contains a granola bar are two in case I am starving on a longer flight. All of that is to the right of the rear control stick, and to the left of t22,he control stick is where I place a spare DC headset. All of this is in a position so that there is no obstruction or limitation of movement of the rear control stick, but within easy reach should I need to get to them.
As usual, I "stirred the pot" by moving my control stick through it's range of motion and it moved freely and easily, and off I went from Noah's Ark, heading north toward the Twin Cities. I had planned to stop, once again, at KCSQ, given the grass strip and the friendly people I had met there. I flew into KCSQ without any problems an hour or two north of 06MO, stretched my legs and refueled, drained my bladder, checked my backpack to make certain it was secure and climbed back into the cockpit, taxiing out for takeoff on 22, given that the wind was 190 at 10 knots. I stirred the pot again, gave N82667 the gas and took off, left wing down so as to crab slightly into the wind, making what was supposed to be a gentle left turn that I intended to hold until I was on the on course heading of north.
All was well until I decided the bank was developing a bit too much to the left, so I moved the stick to the right, wanting to go a bit right of center in order to level the wings. It was then that I knew I had a problem, in that I hit a dead end on stick travel at just slightly right of center. The bank angle was slowly increasing to the left and I moved the stick even harder to the right but could not get it to move past about center. In essence, I was unable to stop the bank or the turn with right stick movement and I could see that I was in deep trouble. I reached behind me to see what the heck was blocking the right travel of the control stick, and I came up empty. The backpack was securely in place, my flight bag was nowhere near the stick and I could feel the headset lying on the floor away from the stick. No luck with identifying the cause of stick movement limitation. I needed to try something else.
I reduced power to slow the plane down and there was a slight relaxation of the bank angle, and application of rudder helped to lower the right wing slightly, arresting the increase in bank angle. I recalled my mountain flying mentor, Tuck Barrett, telling me that if I couldn't figure out anything else to do and I was not in great control of the aircraft, I should put in 10 degrees of bank. "Noone should crash an airplane without first adding 10 degrees of flaps", he told me more than once, so I thought this might be an opportune time to throw on the first notch of flaps, and I did, further reducing the left bank angle to level flight.
At that point I knew that I was going to be turning to the left, and not to the right, and I wanted to get my fanny back onto terra firma, so I decided to make a wide arcing turn around to intercept and land on runway 22. I made a really wide, slow, gentle-banking turn toward the left, aligning with the very wide, beautiful grass runway, using throttle and rudder to bring my onto the runway. I landed and taxied up to the building where the mechanic/cropduster who ran the airport, Larry West, was standing watching me intently. I shut down the engine, crawled out of the cockpit and told him what had just happened. We looked carefully and the backpack was secured and was a non-factor, as was the flight bag. Nothing had slipped out of the flightbag to cause the problem but the the stick was clearly not able to be moved right of center.
I looked at the headset and it was lying there well away from the stick and I was wondering what the heck could be wrong here. Then I looked more closely and found the problem.
The headset was there, with the cord wrapped carefully around it, just as I had positioned it when I left Noah's Ark.
The problem was not the headset, but rather the plug at the end of the cord. The plug had slid down into the cut-out near the aft stick, apparently after liftoff following refueling, and had become a very, very solid wedge between the aft control stick and the stop which limits the stick travel...
This photo was taken on the opposite side (right) to demonstrate the problem that had occurred on the left side. The plug had become an extension of the stop, so to speak, limiting the travel of the stick to the right. This explained the problem I had, and it is now my guess that the jarring of the takeoff induced the travel of the plug to that position.
It was a relief to know what had happened, but I am pretty disgusted with myself in not recognizing the potential danger that objects on the floorboard might pose to safe flight. I really had felt that I might not be able to control the degree of roll and that I would end up inverted should I not be able to lower the right wing.
There you have it. I can assure you that the floorboard was cleaned off when I departed the grass strip subsequently, and it will be free of items that could make this happen again. I am sure that most of you don't keep things on the rear board, but if you do please BEWARE! This could cause trouble.
OK, the dirty laundry is out there
Randy
