In article
,
a wrote:
That brings up an interesting topic
for aviators -- when and why did you last return to your tiedown
without taking off on a planned flight? Or, not left the tiedown or
hanger because the airplane was not, in your view, airworthy?


Used to have a share of a really pretty C-140 that was chronically
broken. Naive bunch that we were, when we bought it, we were fooled by
the nice paint (never skimp on the pre-buy inspection).

During preflight found completely broken welds on the upper motor mount
cluster weld. Broken enough that daylight was shining through the broken
mount. Of course, the engine was still warm from one of the other
partners having flown it earlier.

On another day: Found that the horizontal stabilizer was loose. The
mounting hardware had broken. Again, the engine was still warm from
someone having flown it that day.

Other problems: Found that the bolts holding the struts and wings on
were not aviation grade fasteners. Found that the primer leaked more
fuel than it pumped into the carb and that there were various electrical
system problems, such as bad wiring and no voltage regulator, in close
proximity to the leak. "Yellow tagged" mags were actually not and had
been rebuilt using stuff like bent paper clips (no kidding) and were
permanently "hot". Had a brake failure taxiing out to the runway. Had
tires going flat in the hangar or while taxiing. Tailwheel fell off. The
worst: the crankshaft broke in flight (previous owner had an
"undocumented" prop strike). Lucky that the crank broke just on entering
downwind, and we were all glider drivers anyway, so the landing was
interesting but not too scary.

It should be no surprise that we found that the logbook was pretty much
entirely fraudulent. Eventually everything was put right and it's a nice
airplane now. Still, I hated that airplane.