Annual + First Flight = look under the cowling

sba55

sba55

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sba55
We got the plane back from its annual today. The mechanic had been around the pattern in it, and everything seemed pretty good.

I decided to do a rather lengthy pre-flight since I was nervous about flying the plane (and right over water after takeoff) right after the annual. As I was about to check the oil, I felt (I'm too short to really see anything) something that isn't usually there. It felt like some tubing of some sort, and I figured that it had most likely just shifted.

Anyways, it only takes 30 seconds to open the cowling, and I was glad I did! Someone had forgotten some rather large pliers and they were sitting right there on top of the cylinders! The shop seemed more than embarrassed when I returned them :p

I'll never understand why these things happen. They ought to use a checklist before closing up the cowling....

-Felix
 
Hollywood....You should have asked for a discount on the services you were provided since you returned thier tool. :D
 
sba55 said:
Anyways, it only takes 30 seconds to open the cowling, and I was glad I did! Someone had forgotten some rather large pliers and they were sitting right there on top of the cylinders! The shop seemed more than embarrassed when I returned them :p
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There are some that take the view that any tools left on the airplane become the property of the owner of the airplane.
 
These sorts of things amaze me, too. When the club plane came back from annual recently, I did my preflight before going up solo and noticed that neither the landing light nor taxi light were functioning (I always check those, nav lights, and strobe lights even when I'm not going to need them). The guess is unplugged, but I'm not sure if it's been looked at yet. I know they worked bef6re the annual...

I thought the point of sending the plane in for its annual was for it to come back in better shape? :dunno:
 
Got a nice shop lamp that way. It was left under my rightside rudder pedal. Good thing I had to run right to get onto the active, otherwise I wouldn't have discovered the problem until after I took off. Guy puts me in danger like that owes me a shop lamp.
 
Always be careful in flying a plane right out of an annual ot 100 hour inspection.

I had an oil line let loose on me on a plane just out of 100hr inspection. IIRC it was the oil line that hooks up to the hobbs meter in the 172. thankfully I wasn't current, so I was doing T&Gs to be able to take a friend along. The first 2 patterns were ok but on the go after the third, I checked the engine gauges after turning x-wind, and noticed the oil press gauge going down. Needless to day I was very glad to be in the pattern. Callled the tower to tell them I was doing a close pattern, and had them call the club tug. I think I ended up ejecting 4 or 5 qts by the time it was shut down (oil press never hit the red).

Moral of the story.... Trust, but Verify.

Pete
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I thought the point of sending the plane in for its annual was for it to come back in better shape? :dunno:
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The term for these is "maintenance induced failures". I think we had another thread on them a while back involving a rag left in the engine compartment. Sometimes caused by working on older planes that are full of brittle, aging parts, but, as we see here, not always!
 
Greg Bockelman said:
There are some that take the view that any tools left on the airplane become the property of the owner of the airplane.
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Indeed. Maybe it was their present to you for you being the XXXth customer whose aircraft they've neglected. I got a bunch of free shop towels from inside the engine for the same thing a while back! Oh, and a free voltmeter that was left on the wing. It's like the free toy the dentist used to give you, but now it's for grown-ups.
 
gprellwitz said:
The term for these is "maintenance induced failures". I think we had another thread on them a while back involving a rag left in the engine compartment. Sometimes caused by working on older planes that are full of brittle, aging parts, but, as we see here, not always!
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Certainly as a former old Jaguar mechanic (not to be confused with "classic" Jaguar), I know very well about "sympathy failures" where one part of the car gets some attention, thus making another part feel neglected and fail. However, those kinds of problems being discussed here (leaving tools in the car, forgetting to reconnect stuff) are things that I did in my first month or two. After the boss yelling at me a few times (rightly so! I'm lucky he didn't fire me), I learned my lesson and have since always checked to make sure all my tools, rags, etc. are removed from underhood, or wherever else I was working, before driving somewhere, doubly so if it's someone else's car.

To have this be the case, much less commonplace, on aircraft is, to me, insane. At my shop we had very few call backs for repairs we performed. I guess the standards are lower for things that fly than for old British rust heaps? :no: :no: :no:
 
Greg Bockelman said:
There are some that take the view that any tools left on the airplane become the property of the owner of the airplane.
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I have a pair of channel locks, two pairs of pliers, and Craftsman ratchet with a spark plug socket on it courtesy of several automobile oil changes at various oil change places around the area.
 
I am amazed that shops don't have a Tool Accountability Program of any kind. Every maintenance action performed on an aircraft in the Navy (ok, back in the "old days" - may be different now?) had a sign off that included "TAF" (tools accounted for) The shop supervisor performed a visual inspection of the tech's tool box, where every tool had a marked slot or spot. If a tool was missing, that aircraft was down until the tool was found or QA released the bird after a very thorough search.
 
Didn't they lose a wrench in the space shuttle once, grounding it until they found it?

I thought I lost a pair of safety wire pliers once...after changing my oil filter, I couldn't account for the pliers. So I assumed they were somewhere between the departure end of the runway and the approach end of the runway :D

Turns out, fortunately, they somehow ended up under the back seats in the Ford Explorer....whew!
 
Jebert said:
Didn't they lose a wrench in the space shuttle once, grounding it until they found it?
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I don't recall. I left after STS-7 but the few times I had to go out to the pad there was a check to make sure anything your brought in that was not supposed to stay had to come out.

In the Apollo 1 fire investigation there was a wrench found behind one of the panels that had been left their by a Grumman employee. It did not cause the fire but it was an indicator of perhaps sloppy procedures.
 
smigaldi said:
I have a pair of channel locks, two pairs of pliers, and Craftsman ratchet with a spark plug socket on it courtesy of several automobile oil changes at various oil change places around the area.
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I've got a pair of pliers that I found inside the driver's door of my 1954 Buick Special. Found them in 1975 (or early 1976). Been there since the car was built. Still have them in my tool box.
 
Alright, now I feel silly for returning the pliers!

Let's hope there won't be another surprise today....

-Felix
 
I've never found any tools or other inappropriate items on my aircraft engines, but one time a nice mechanic at a Mazda dealer left me a pack of cigarettes. Unfortunately he left them on the exhaust manifold and they caught fire and melted a spark plug wire or two. The service manager insisted it wasn't possible that any of his technicians could have left their smokes on my engine but they covered the repair anyway. Given that neither my wife or I have ever smoked and the problem occurred the day after the shop changed spark plugs on that car I'm certain of what happened.
 
I think I found about everything under the cowlings and floorboards. I found a service manual, timing light, flashlights, a pair of safety wire pliers, dead frog, lots of change, an altimeter, one roll of duct tape, voltmeter still hanging by its wires. After 30 years of this, the list just goes on. I really needed the safety wire pliers, mine had just broken. I even found a 1,000 check last week under a rear seat. It comes down to double checks on everything, we always have two people look over the engine before the top cowl goes on. People do make mistakes, I know I do.

Kevin
 
steingar said:
Got a nice shop lamp that way. It was left under my rightside rudder pedal. Good thing I had to run right to get onto the active, otherwise I wouldn't have discovered the problem until after I took off. Guy puts me in danger like that owes me a shop lamp.
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That's a joke, right? I would say a guy who doesn't check controls free and correct, especially coming out of maintenance, perhaps deserves what he gets right after takeoff.

And you did return the unhidden, easy to find, in plain sight, shop light....
 
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I seem to remember the old Discovery Wings channel had a show where someone built a plane- he had all his tools on a peg board with an outline around each tool. All his tools were on the pegs when he went home. It looked easy to see what was missing...
 
steingar said:
Got a nice shop lamp that way. It was left under my rightside rudder pedal. Good thing I had to run right to get onto the active, otherwise I wouldn't have discovered the problem until after I took off. Guy puts me in danger like that owes me a shop lamp.
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You've got to be kidding me? Getting on a shop for missing something simple, but not taking responsibility for the retarded move of starting a plane and taxiing without CHECKING THE RUDDER PEDALS FOR FREE MOVEMENT?

Yikes.
 
Ghery said:
I've got a pair of pliers that I found inside the driver's door of my 1954 Buick Special. Found them in 1975 (or early 1976). Been there since the car was built. Still have them in my tool box.
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That was likely put there on purpose.

Back in the day, union employees POd at management would often leave stuff in difficult-to-get-to areas of cars that they were building in order to annoy the customer. There are documented cases of tools and metal bars being left in doors so they would rattle as the car was driven (and hopefully cause the customer to complain to the dealer costing warranty money, or in the end causing customer to buy elsewhere).
 
kmead said:
I think I found about everything under the cowlings and floorboards. I found a service manual, timing light, flashlights, a pair of safety wire pliers, dead frog, lots of change, an altimeter, one roll of duct tape, voltmeter still hanging by its wires. After 30 years of this, the list just goes on. I really needed the safety wire pliers, mine had just broken. I even found a 1,000 check last week under a rear seat....

Kevin
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It sounds to me like you have squirrels and pack rats living in your engine compartment! lol :rofl:

That or you have your mx done by a school of A+P wannabe's... :rolleyes:
 
SkyHog said:
You've got to be kidding me? Getting on a shop for missing something simple, but not taking responsibility for the retarded move of starting a plane and taxiing without CHECKING THE RUDDER PEDALS FOR FREE MOVEMENT?
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Depends on the airplane. In mine, standing on one rudder pedal on the ground will scarcely get it to deflect at all if you're stopped, never mind free travel. Now if you're making a right angle turn, that's a different matter. Would you do 360s in each direction as a matter of course?
 
Ken Ibold said:
Depends on the airplane. In mine, standing on one rudder pedal on the ground will scarcely get it to deflect at all if you're stopped, never mind free travel. Now if you're making a right angle turn, that's a different matter. Would you do 360s in each direction as a matter of course?
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Probably not, but Ken, this was a Shoplight. Holy cow. Just as bad would have been:

"I almost crashed my plane because some crazy person put a cinderblock brick under my right pedal, and I missed it!"

How does one not look at the plane before entering it, and miss something that bad....and then have the nerve to blame the person who put it there for almost causing you to get into an accident? :dunno:
 
Heres a good one for u all

I purchased a cherokee 6 back in 2000. The logs said the plane was repainted in 1996. During the pre-buy we found a pair of vise grips...:hairraise:...:yes:


How many of you have looked at the aliron counterweight in your preflight..?:dunno: :yes:

Yep thats right....for 4 years it was missed; thank god no one died.:no:
 
PS - my current pre-flight checklist is 52 items long........:D
 
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