The Great Static Wick Fraud

The story you are about to read (perhaps) actually happened. It just seemed
so trivial in respect to other things going on in my life that I have
previously neglected to report that:

In preparation for an extended trip to the great Pacific Northwest, I felt
it prudent to take an IPC. You just never know when the weather is going to
suck in Oregon and Washington. A colleague is a CFII, the owner of a C421,
not to mention a USAF reservist recently home from Iraq. Thank you, Randy,
for your service, and by the way would you mind making sure that I won't
kill myself between here and Portland?

Middle of August, I called up Randy and asked him if he wouldn't fly with me
and check me out. During the preflight I noticed a piece of debris on the
pavement at my tiedown. I think I even pointed it out to Randy and joked
about the poor ******* whose airplane must be falling apart. Of course I
assumed that it was debris from someone else's airplane. We went out and
flew for a couple hours, I passed my IPC, and all was well.

A couple days later, I was preflighting my airplane for the flight from Palo
Alto to Eugene (3.5 hours or so) and I noticed the same piece of debris.
This time, for whatever reason, I picked it up and realized that it was my
own left inboard static wick. Now while the wick itself is designed to be
screwed into a threaded socket, this piece of FOD was more complex....

In my hand I was holding not just the static wick but the wick and the
threaded socket, and part of a 1/4 inch aluminum bracket. The whole thing
is supposed to be riveted to the aileron. But it's broken off right at the
trailing edge of the aileron. When I looked closely, there was a big wad of
what looked like plastic model cement, probably epoxy, right at the shear
point!

Conclusion: At some point in the history of my airplane, someone managed to
break off one of my static wicks (probably with their forehead). Unwilling
to admit their mistake and fix the problem correctly, they GLUED the static
wick back onto the aileron with no electrical connection. I never even
noticed until the thing eventually fell off entirely. Even then, the best
evidence of the crime was due to the fact that the wick fell off right there
at my parking spot and not somewhere 9000 feet over the Central California
farmland.

Clearly it wasn't an act of vandalism. The "repair" was deliberate and took
some time to effect. This must have happened at some shop or FBO, or
perhaps it's been like that ever since I bought the airplane! I've owned
this airplane for 3.5 years, and I think I do pretty reasonable preflights,
and this one just completely blindsided me. Wow.

In article ,
Craig Prouse wrote:
In preparation for an extended trip to the great Pacific Northwest, I felt
it prudent to take an IPC. You just never know when the weather is going to
suck in Oregon and Washington.

This week we're importing weather from the LAX basin area. Mid 90s,
haze so thick you have to factor it into density altitude calculations,
and visibility low enough to get the AWOS off the "10SM" peg.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/

Gees, the guy must have ran out of duct tape and that epoxy was all he could
find. That's got to suck thinking that you might have dealt with this
individual and paid him money for other work. If it was your mechanic, what
else might he have glued together?!

--
Jim Burns III

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"Craig Prouse" wrote in message
...
The story you are about to read (perhaps) actually happened. It just
seemed
so trivial in respect to other things going on in my life that I have
previously neglected to report that:

In preparation for an extended trip to the great Pacific Northwest, I felt
it prudent to take an IPC. You just never know when the weather is going
to
suck in Oregon and Washington. A colleague is a CFII, the owner of a
C421,
not to mention a USAF reservist recently home from Iraq. Thank you,
Randy,
for your service, and by the way would you mind making sure that I won't
kill myself between here and Portland?

Middle of August, I called up Randy and asked him if he wouldn't fly with
me
and check me out. During the preflight I noticed a piece of debris on the
pavement at my tiedown. I think I even pointed it out to Randy and joked
about the poor ******* whose airplane must be falling apart. Of course I
assumed that it was debris from someone else's airplane. We went out and
flew for a couple hours, I passed my IPC, and all was well.

A couple days later, I was preflighting my airplane for the flight from
Palo
Alto to Eugene (3.5 hours or so) and I noticed the same piece of debris.
This time, for whatever reason, I picked it up and realized that it was my
own left inboard static wick. Now while the wick itself is designed to be
screwed into a threaded socket, this piece of FOD was more complex....

In my hand I was holding not just the static wick but the wick and the
threaded socket, and part of a 1/4 inch aluminum bracket. The whole thing
is supposed to be riveted to the aileron. But it's broken off right at
the
trailing edge of the aileron. When I looked closely, there was a big wad
of
what looked like plastic model cement, probably epoxy, right at the shear
point!

Conclusion: At some point in the history of my airplane, someone managed
to
break off one of my static wicks (probably with their forehead).
Unwilling
to admit their mistake and fix the problem correctly, they GLUED the
static
wick back onto the aileron with no electrical connection. I never even
noticed until the thing eventually fell off entirely. Even then, the best
evidence of the crime was due to the fact that the wick fell off right
there
at my parking spot and not somewhere 9000 feet over the Central California
farmland.

Clearly it wasn't an act of vandalism. The "repair" was deliberate and
took
some time to effect. This must have happened at some shop or FBO, or
perhaps it's been like that ever since I bought the airplane! I've owned
this airplane for 3.5 years, and I think I do pretty reasonable
preflights,
and this one just completely blindsided me. Wow.

This might not be as ugly a story as you think.

Control surfaces are carefully balanced to avoid destructive flutter at
higher speeds. If you even repaint one, you have to have it rebalanced. A
missing static wick would have more effect on balance than just differences
in thickness of paint.

Since one missing wick wouldn't seriously compromise performance even in
IMC, it would be reasonable to glue one on temporarily to preserve balance
until a permanent repair could be made. (That's reasonable, not "legal",
"smart", "honest", or "ethical")

Perhaps someone did this and then forgot about it. Dumb, but less sinister.

The important thing is to remember that a missing static wick on a control
surface can cause you much more serious problems than static. It could tear
the control surface off if you let the speed get too high.