Puchacz New Cautionary Tale/Tail

Folks:

You will not yet find this on any accident/incident reports.
There were no fatalities.

A pilot called me to relay this story.
The SZD-50-3 Puchacsz was bought used from Europe and
imported to the US with ~1900 hours. The glider was given a US
airworthiness inspection, and licensed by an FAA
inspector last week Thursday or so. It went into legal service
before the weekend.

On Saturday, following only a few flights, the pilot felt some
restriction in rudder movement, and asked the front seat passenger
to adjust the length of rudder stirrups for more freedom of movement.
The passenger complied, and free movement was "restored."

The flight continued in nice lift, and some mild maneuvers
for perhaps twenty five more minutes prior to landing.
As the glider came to a halt, the ground personnel roared up to the
cockpit
and informed the pilot that there was no rudder on the machine.
All parties were amazed.

A search by air for the missing rudder were fruitless.
I have not seen the Puchacsz.
I do not have pictures or links to any photos.
I cannot comment on the mode of departure.
I do not know if the cables or swedges and thimbles are on
the machine, nor if the vertical hinges are in place on
the rear face of the vertical fin.

I do know there was a mandatory service item to replace the
rudder stop elastic nut on the bottom bolt with a castelated nut
and safety key. I cannot say if this was done, found, gone or
otherwise on the machine in question.

I do know that you should look at the attachments of
controls and moving parts fully and carefully on each
pre-flight inspection. Things change and move over time.

The pilot in this case asked me to put the information out
to the soaring community, PRIOR to any formal incident
investigation, to prevent any possible similar occurrence.

Cindy Brickner
Southern California
www.caracole-soaring.com

On Sep 6, 6:50*pm, CindyB wrote:
Folks:

You will not yet find this on any accident/incident reports.
There were no fatalities.

*A pilot called me to relay this story.
The SZD-50-3 Puchacsz was bought used from Europe and
imported to the US with ~1900 hours. The glider was given a US
airworthiness inspection, and licensed by an FAA
inspector last week Thursday or so. *It went into legal service
before the weekend.

On Saturday, following only a few flights, the pilot felt some
restriction in rudder movement, and asked the front seat passenger
to adjust the length of rudder stirrups for more freedom of movement.
The passenger complied, and free movement was "restored."

The flight continued in nice lift, and some mild maneuvers
for perhaps twenty five more minutes prior to landing.
As the glider came to a halt, the ground personnel roared up to the
cockpit
and informed the pilot that there was no rudder on the machine.
All parties were amazed.

A search by air for the missing rudder were fruitless.
I have not seen the Puchacsz.
I do not have pictures or links to any photos.
I cannot comment on the mode of departure.
I do not know if the cables or swedges and thimbles are on
the machine, nor if the vertical hinges are in place on
the rear face of the vertical fin.

I do know there was a mandatory service item to replace the
rudder stop elastic nut on the bottom bolt with a castelated nut
and safety key. *I cannot say if this was done, found, gone or
otherwise on the machine in question.

I do know that you should look at the attachments of
controls and moving parts fully and carefully on each
pre-flight inspection. *Things change and move over time.

The pilot in this case asked me to put the information out
to the soaring community, PRIOR to any formal incident
investigation, to prevent any possible similar occurrence.

Cindy Brickner
Southern Californiawww.caracole-soaring.com

There is a mandatory service bulletin/AD to replace the lower rudder
mount bolt. If the nut on the old bolt unscrews, the rudder can fall
off! The cables drive a plate with vertical pins that fit into the
rudder. The cables are not connected directly to the rudder. This and
several other AD's and service bulletins should have been checked on
the annual inspection. Another biggie is to replace the aluminum turn-
buckles that are bolted directly to the rear rudder pedals with steel
turn-buckles and an 8" cable to get them off the rudder pedals where
rear pilot can/will kick and bend ..............do that a few times
and the aluminum turn-buckle breaks.....................then you are
in a world of hurts!
Who did the annual?
JJ
JJ

On Sep 6, 6:50*pm, CindyB wrote:
Folks:

You will not yet find this on any accident/incident reports.
There were no fatalities.

*A pilot called me to relay this story.
The SZD-50-3 Puchacsz was bought used from Europe and
imported to the US with ~1900 hours. The glider was given a US
airworthiness inspection, and licensed by an FAA
inspector last week Thursday or so. *It went into legal service
before the weekend.

On Saturday, following only a few flights, the pilot felt some
restriction in rudder movement, and asked the front seat passenger
to adjust the length of rudder stirrups for more freedom of movement.
The passenger complied, and free movement was "restored."

The flight continued in nice lift, and some mild maneuvers
for perhaps twenty five more minutes prior to landing.
As the glider came to a halt, the ground personnel roared up to the
cockpit
and informed the pilot that there was no rudder on the machine.
All parties were amazed.

A search by air for the missing rudder were fruitless.
I have not seen the Puchacsz.
I do not have pictures or links to any photos.
I cannot comment on the mode of departure.
I do not know if the cables or swedges and thimbles are on
the machine, nor if the vertical hinges are in place on
the rear face of the vertical fin.

I do know there was a mandatory service item to replace the
rudder stop elastic nut on the bottom bolt with a castelated nut
and safety key. *I cannot say if this was done, found, gone or
otherwise on the machine in question.

I do know that you should look at the attachments of
controls and moving parts fully and carefully on each
pre-flight inspection. *Things change and move over time.

The pilot in this case asked me to put the information out
to the soaring community, PRIOR to any formal incident
investigation, to prevent any possible similar occurrence.

Cindy Brickner
Southern Californiawww.caracole-soaring.co

Who do you blame for this incident? The glider or the inspector?

Jacek

How could you fly a glider without a rudder and not be able to tell
something is very wrong????

Was the yaw string missing too?

Boggs

On Sep 6, 9:09*pm, GARY BOGGS wrote:
How could you fly a glider without a rudder and not be able to tell
something is very wrong????

Was the yaw string missing too?

Boggs

Some students wouldn't know if the rudder fell off, because they never
use it anyway! It (the rudder) must weigh a good 20 pounds or so and
that much weight lost way back there would surely shift the CG out of
the forward limit. OK as long as speed is sufficient to keep elevator
authority. No Guy, my Puchacz went to Brazil and all the ad's were
complied with!
Cheers,
JJ

On Sep 7, 1:09*am, GARY BOGGS wrote:
How could you fly a glider without a rudder and not be able to tell
something is very wrong????

Was the yaw string missing too?

Boggs

I agree with Gary.. How could the pilot not notice the rudder is gone?
Our club DG200 had the rudder pop out on a winch launch and it fell
back and hung from the rudder cables. The pilot felt both pedals go
forward and get stuck. He completed the launch and from the ground he
was told that his rudder came off so he made gentle turns and landed
without trouble. A few days later we got the AD calling for a larger
washer on the lower hinge bolt...
With no rudder he could only make very gentle, shallow turns without
having the yaw string all over the place.

Regards,

Juan Carlos

At 04:09 07 September 2010, GARY BOGGS wrote:
How could you fly a glider without a rudder and not be able to tell
something is very wrong????

Was the yaw string missing too?

Boggs


My thoughts exactly!

Whilst not wishing to undermine the obvious safety message about
ensuring the rudder is firmly attached to the aircraft, this missive
has the distinct odour of urban myth...

If I recall correctly, one of the very first lessons in gliding is the
secondary effects of using the controls. This includes adverse yaw
due to aileron movement without rudder!

Going on some years of experience maintaining three high-time Puchaczes,
I'd say these are your options:
- Rudder not properly installed after maintenance. The only thing holding
the rudder in place is a castelled nut (visible from the underside of the
fuselage, behind the tailwheel). To remove the rudder for maintenance,
remove the split pin and castelled nut, and the rudder may be lifted off
upwards. The rudder cables are attached to a rudder drive - butterfly
shaped - that automatically connects when the rudder is refitted. Lovely
system, actually. Now, sometimes people do not take out the lower
(castelled) nut, but the nyloc nut that holds the bottom rudder hinge pin
to the rudder itself. That saves some time fiddling with splitpins (while
working upside down), but also creates the hazard of rehanging the rudder
without fitting this nut, and to a quick inspection from the underside of
the aircraft it looks OK (bottom castelled nut properly fitted), while it
is actually loose in the aircraft (top nyloc missing). I had one of these
when I did an annual after maintenance, lovely situation to catch in
time...
- Service Bulletin BE-058 not complied with, not checked or improperly
done. It says to check the bottom nut. If another type of nut is there
(e.g. nyloc), it needs to be replaced by a castelled nut. Shortly
afterwards, a Puchacz in the UK lost its rudder: it had a nyloc replaced
by a castelled nut, but the inspector in question had overlooked that a
hole for the splitplin was already there when he drilled a new one,
weakening the bolt which subsequently failed. All other SB's relating to
the rudder system, were regarding the attachment of the cables to the
rudder pedals (which were a completely different although very important
problem altogether).
- A structural problem. There's two known weakpoints in the Puch's
rudder attachment. First (a minor one) is the plywood (vertical) support
under the rudder cable drive (the butterfly shaped thing). The glued joint
on the topside (to the horizontal plywood mount of the butterfly lever)
tends to fail sometimes. However, this alone should not result in the
rudder to depart the aircraft, or even the rudder controls to become
difficult. Then there's also the problem the GFA alerted the world about
(but which has not yet made it into an SB or AD) of cracks found in the
horizontal support plywood of the butterfly lever. This however, should
result in the rudder becoming inoperable, but it should remain on the
aircraft since the mounting is not affected. Then there's always the
chance of a different hitherto unknown structural problem altogether...

Just giving you information to work out the problem at hand. Not pointing
fingers here (which is a pointless thing to do anyway).

Eric

On 9/7/2010 11:10 AM, Eric Munk wrote:
Going on some years of experience maintaining three high-time Puchaczes,
I'd say these are your options:
- Rudder not properly installed after maintenance. The only thing holding
the rudder in place is a castelled nut (visible from the underside of the
fuselage, behind the tailwheel). To remove the rudder for maintenance,
remove the split pin and castelled nut, and the rudder may be lifted off
upwards. The rudder cables are attached to a rudder drive - butterfly
shaped - that automatically connects when the rudder is refitted. Lovely
system, actually. Now, sometimes people do not take out the lower
(castelled) nut, but the nyloc nut that holds the bottom rudder hinge pin
to the rudder itself. That saves some time fiddling with splitpins (while
working upside down), but also creates the hazard of rehanging the rudder
without fitting this nut, and to a quick inspection from the underside of
the aircraft it looks OK (bottom castelled nut properly fitted), while it
is actually loose in the aircraft (top nyloc missing). I had one of these
when I did an annual after maintenance, lovely situation to catch in
time...
- Service Bulletin BE-058 not complied with, not checked or improperly
done. It says to check the bottom nut. If another type of nut is there
(e.g. nyloc), it needs to be replaced by a castelled nut. Shortly
afterwards, a Puchacz in the UK lost its rudder: it had a nyloc replaced
by a castelled nut, but the inspector in question had overlooked that a
hole for the splitplin was already there when he drilled a new one,
weakening the bolt which subsequently failed. All other SB's relating to
the rudder system, were regarding the attachment of the cables to the
rudder pedals (which were a completely different although very important
problem altogether).
- A structural problem. There's two known weakpoints in the Puch's
rudder attachment. First (a minor one) is the plywood (vertical) support
under the rudder cable drive (the butterfly shaped thing). The glued joint
on the topside (to the horizontal plywood mount of the butterfly lever)
tends to fail sometimes. However, this alone should not result in the
rudder to depart the aircraft, or even the rudder controls to become
difficult. Then there's also the problem the GFA alerted the world about
(but which has not yet made it into an SB or AD) of cracks found in the
horizontal support plywood of the butterfly lever. This however, should
result in the rudder becoming inoperable, but it should remain on the
aircraft since the mounting is not affected. Then there's always the
chance of a different hitherto unknown structural problem altogether...

Just giving you information to work out the problem at hand. Not pointing
fingers here (which is a pointless thing to do anyway).

Eric

I don't normally like to repeat an entire post, but (and speaking as someone
who has never actually seen a Puchacz in the flesh) this one deserves it IMHO.

Thanks, Eric, for an informed, informative and hugely useful post in response
to a (we can hope!) isolated if bizarre incident that could fairly easily have
ended badly. If I ever buy (or see) a Pooch, I know one area where I'll be
peering more intently, now!

Regards,
Bob W.

On Sep 7, 7:46*am, JC wrote:
On Sep 7, 1:09*am, GARY BOGGS wrote:

How could you fly a glider without a rudder and not be able to tell
something is very wrong????...clip...

Boggs

I agree with Gary.. How could the pilot not notice the rudder is gone?
Our club DG200 had the rudder pop out on a winch launch and it fell
back and hung from the rudder cables. The pilot felt both pedals go
forward and get stuck. He completed the launch and from the ground he
was told that his rudder came off so he made gentle turns and landed
without trouble....clip...

We don't recognize when something has gone wrong with the rudder
because
a - we normally don't practice not having a rudder
b - really don't understand, in the seat of our pants, what it feels
like not to have one
So -- all we know at first is that *something is wrong*. (Note that
Juan Carlos points out that the pilot was TOLD his rudder was off.)
What that *something* is, ain't all that obvious. This is true for
MOST airplane malfunctions, not just rudder malfunctions. And the
emotional upset ("alarm") that we feel during the event hinders
rational analysis.

I speak as an expert, having once many years ago flown a Blanik L-13
with the rudder cables reversed. All I could tell was the rudder
*wasn't working*. So I put my feet on the floor. Which worked fine
until they quietly snuck back onto the pedals during the turn from
base to final. My personal mantra, "Speed is my friend" saved the day.

(Then, after the repair, one of us five guys who'd all missed the
rudder reversal, found the safety missing from the castellated nut
underneath the elevator bell crank and saved someone's life. An
airplane flies awkwardly but safely without a good rudder, but the
pilot dies without an elevator.)

DJ