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The year is 1984, an individual has recently completed construction of a Chinook single
seat ultralight aircraft. The craft is powered by a 277 fan cooled Rotax engine using a
belt drive and spinning a 48 inch wooden propeller. This kit took over a year to obtain,
as the local dealer, for the craft had gone out of business, and the owner had to settle
for parts and pieces from several kits in order to finish his off.
The craft was finally assembled, the Ontario Distributor was called, he came checked the
plane out, and after a careful preflight, test flew the aircraft. Other than a little back
pressure required to fly the craft, it was reported to be flying quite well. The
backpressure, it was explained could be taken out simply by putting a trim tab on the
elevator. The owner at this point in time had no flight experience, as his flight training
was to be included as part of the original deal for his aircraft.
He contacted another dealer, on the Airfield By Appt Only for training, explained his problem, the
dealer new all about the problems this pilot, plus 15 other pilots and students were
having. In an effort to promote the sport offered to train, the now defunct schools
students as a group, for whatever it cost in fuel, for his aircraft. The deal was struck
the pilots began their training.
Two months later the pilot was soloed, on the dealers aircraft, and had about 5 hours of
flying in his plane, but because winter had arrived he decided to put the craft away for
the winter.
The wings were removed and the craft put into a garage for storage. Winter, turned to
spring, spring to summer, and the pilot decided to get his plane out of storage. Thinking
perhaps he could take the plane off from the road in front of his house he assembled it at
home rather than take it to the flying field. After the plane was assembled he decided
better, and contacted the dealer who had given him his flight training, asking if he could
come over and take the craft off from the road.
The dealer arrived looked at the situation, considered it a little tight but since it was
a country road, with little or no traffic he would give it a shot. The dealer was told
that the plane had been thoroughly preflighted and was ready to fly. The dealer decided to
do a preflight anyway, and found that the bolts holding the leading and trailing edge
spars to the main root tube had NO LOCKING NUTS, or for that matter no nuts at all. Nuts
were found for these bolts, and no other problems could be visually seen.
The dealer brought the craft out onto the road. With someone positioned at both ends of
his "runway" he took off. Proceeding to a sod field he used for training, he
arrived, did some touch and goes, some deadsticks, practiced sideslips, in all flew the
plane for about 45 minutes.
The owner then arrived, gassed the plane up and flew for about 3 hours in total that day.
The craft now had about 11 hours of logged flight time. The dealer was approached to fly
the craft back to the Airfield By Appt Only, since it was fairly narrow, located on the top of a hill,
had several obstructions on the sides, and could be very turbulent in windy conditions.
The weather all day had been very calm, but in the last 35 minutes had picked up
considerably, it was also blowing 90 degrees across the runway that the dealer would be
landing on.
He took the aircraft off from the sod field, flew around for a bit then flew over to home
base, and set up for a circuit. The plane was about 1500 feet in the air, coming in on
final (a little village was just off the end of the runway and had to be cleared before a
lower circuit height), the dealer set up for a power off approach, the wind was about 20
mph directly from his left, he positioned the craft so that he would land about 1/3 of the
way down the runway, dropped the nose, and started in. Due to the cross wind and
turbulence associated with this field the dealer decided, an approached speed of 55 mph,
would not be unreasonable.
At an altitude of about 800 feet, the pilot noted that there was no "feel" on
the stick, no pressure, and the plane was picking up speed, moving the stick back and
forth, nothing happened, the crafts speed was now over 75 mph, no matter what the dealer
did with rudders, or joystick, the plane would not respond. The craft was now about 150
feet in the air and headed for the very end of the runway, (in fact later the pilot
indicated he didn't think he would make the end of the runway, rather he would fly into
the side of the hill,) when the plane experienced a sudden lifting action, the plane
actually started to climb with nose down, along with the lift came a fair amount of
turbulence, and all of a sudden pressure returned to the joystick.
The pilot landed the plane, several onlookers rushed to the craft, including the owner.
The dealer sat in the plane for several minutes, gathered his thoughts, then climbed out.
A check of all control systems, found no problem. The elevator worked, the ailerons
worked, no cables were broken frayed or, disconnected.
A check of the washout on the wings revealed, a slight deviation from factory specs but
only a very slight difference. This plane has not been flown since, in fact the owner has
sold off most of it in parts and pieces. The dealer can not explain what happened, he had
no control over the craft for nearly 1,000 feet. In fact the only reason he was able to
regain control was the thermal activity, and turbulence off the end of the runway.
The pilot indicates he does not believe he was caught in a thermal, or shear, or anything
of that nature. He had no control of the aircraft, on any control system. With the engine
turned off. |
