A Preflight Moment: "holy ****, look at that!"

[timwinters]

I went flying this today, for the first time in two weeks & had an iteresting discovery during preflight that I thought was worth sharing.

Conditions:

The plane is kept in an unisulated hangar w/ roof and walls, but no doors.

Temps here over the last few days:

Today........................Yesterday.........................Friday
Low 18, High 45...........Low 23, High 35.................Low 24, High 40

I'm finishing up the preflight and hop up on the ladder to confirm the fuel levels and...holy ****. Look at that!

From wingtip to wingtip there is a line of ice and it's up to 8" wide and 1/2" deep in the middle. Woaaaahhhh.

We all know how the underside of an uninsulated steel roof on a hangar (or barn) likes to sweat in the mornings as the temps rise. Well, in my case, a purlin is centered right over my wing for the full length and since the moisture tends to drip at the purlins, it drips on my wing. Apparently, the plane's skin stayed below freezing over the last few days and, as the building was taking its morning sweat, the water froze in a line the full length of the wing.

This discovery was made about 10:30 am and the temp was already 38* so I pulled the plane out into the sun and let it warm until the sun started the ice melt process (confirming the plane's skin was above freezing) and then hosed it off. The ice melted away, and I let the plane sit until it was essentially dry.

Then I had a great flight!

Interesting find and one I hadn't run across before.

Be careful out there.

 

[dmccormack]

One of the biggest preflight surprises I had was on a C150. We pulled up to refuel and I noticed water dripping from the tail.

I pushed down on the rear bulkhead and water started gushing out -- gallons came out.


I quickly imagined what would have happened to the CG on rotation....

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Same thing happened to me yesterday - 'cept it wasn't frozen - just wiped it down with paper towel (in spite of the fact that AWOS was claiming -2C).

 

[Jack Spectre]

One of the biggest preflight surprises I had was on a C150. We pulled up to refuel and I noticed water dripping from the tail.

I pushed down on the rear bulkhead and water started gushing out -- gallons came out.


I quickly imagined what would have happened to the CG on rotation....

You gotta wonder if stuff like this is the cause for some of the accidents that occurred for "undetermined reasons".

 

[Fearless Tower]

One of the biggest preflight surprises I had was on a C150. We pulled up to refuel and I noticed water dripping from the tail.

I pushed down on the rear bulkhead and water started gushing out -- gallons came out.


I quickly imagined what would have happened to the CG on rotation....

Hmmm....Tire spiders had an indoor pool installed???

 

[Skylane81E]

One of the biggest preflight surprises I had was on a C150. We pulled up to refuel and I noticed water dripping from the tail.

I pushed down on the rear bulkhead and water started gushing out -- gallons came out.


I quickly imagined what would have happened to the CG on rotation....

I see this a lot on planes where the drains haven't been kept clear

 

[dmccormack]

You gotta wonder if stuff like this is the cause for some of the accidents that occurred for "undetermined reasons".

Oh I'm sure the NTSB would have read, "A commercial pilot witness reported observing the accident airplane enter a steep climb, then a 60 degree bank..."

Probable Cause: Pilot's failure to maintain airspeed. Contributing factors include low level aerobatics..."

 

[kgruber]

One preflight found that a small log tending tugboat had crashed into the elevator of my Super Cub.

What was bad news is I was hundreds of miles from a place to fix it.

 

[Fearless Tower]

One preflight found that a small log tending tugboat had crashed into the elevator of my Super Cub.

What was bad news is I was hundreds of miles from a place to fix it.

My dad had a similar experience (but a little closer to civilization).

The line guys from Jim's Air at SAN (now Landmark) backed our Lance into a hangar and put a significant gash/dent in the elevator trim tab. Sad thing was they never said a word about it......until my dad had the "holy #@!%" moment on pre-filght!

 

[kgruber]

Also, another story. Col. Bill Hicks----flew in three wars.........wondered why I didn't do a mag check on the Kidprice Lake before takeoff.

I told him we were a million miles from nowhere and there was no way to repair any mag and I didn't want to know about it anyway.

 

[rottydaddy]

Reminds me of the time I was preflighting a 172 that was parked outside, near a flat-roof building, on a very cold but sunny morning after a warmish, snow-melting day with strong winds in the late evening.... the plane had flown the previous afternoon, and the ramp was clear of snow and ice.

First thing I do with those electric-flap 'hawks is turn on the master and lower the flaps, for thorough inspection and to confirm the ammeter is responding. As the flaps started down, there was a very loud noise, like a gunshot! Scared the crap out of me.

Turns out there were a few good-sized "blobs" of very hard ice spattered here and there on top of the wing, including in the gap between flaps and wing. The flap mechanism had actually strained against a couple of these blobs, until the ice broke. I'm guessing water got blown off the nearby roof and froze on contact... I'd never seen or heard of anything like that before. And there was no ice on the ground, not that I'd noticed, anyway.
Since then, I always have a quick look at the upper wing surface under such conditions, just in case.

 

[bgdriveway]

There's a lot of truth to that....

Also, another story. Col. Bill Hicks----flew in three wars.........wondered why I didn't do a mag check on the Kidprice Lake before takeoff.

I told him we were a million miles from nowhere and there was no way to repair any mag and I didn't want to know about it anyway.

 

[Jaybird180]

Oh I'm sure the NTSB would have read, "A commercial pilot witness reported observing the accident airplane enter a steep climb, then a 60 degree bank..."

Probable Cause: Pilot's failure to maintain airspeed. Contributing factors include low level aerobatics..."

Funny, but not really funny.