The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The weather is good. It looks like the daytime surface temperature will be above the magic 50 degrees Fahrenheit at which point we are obliged to remove the oil cooler cover plate. Most airplane engines have an oil cooler. Some are mounted directly to the engine, some like mine are mounted some distance away. In either case it is like a tiny radiator, engine oil circulates through and is cooled by air flowing through the engine compartment. In cold weather the cooler is too efficient so it is desirable to reduce the amount of airflow. On my Cherokee this is accomplished by removing the air duct that delivers cooling air, inserting a specially constructed aluminum plate and reconnecting the duct. There is no low temperature at which I must install the plate, but it must be removed above 50F.

This is also a good time to re-install the wheel pants. Wheel pants are fiberglass covers that reduce the drag caused by air flowing around the wheels. In the winter time, snow slush and ice can get jammed in the pants. This is as bad for the plane as it sounds because during a flight this can freeze the wheels solid making landings difficult or unsafe.

While getting this intimate with the airplane it is also a good time to look at every thing in and around the engine and landing gear to see how things are wearing, aging etc. Everything looked good. The test flight went well, everything stayed attached so I went for a long enjoyable tour around the local area.

So what could be bad, or ugly? It seems last night a Cessna 172 had a hard landing, collapsing the nose wheel. No one was injured. I don't know any of the details, and it would be unfair to speculate, but some things are know to all pilots. Tricycle gear equipped airplanes have relatively delicate nose wheels. They are designed essentially to keep the propeller out of the mud and steer on the ground. They are not designed to take the forces of landing so pilots are trained to land on the main gear first. When the nose gear breaks on landing, the propeller no longer has adequate clearance. With the engine turning the prop strikes the runway repeatedly getting curled back along its length. The engine is shock loaded to the point where an inspection or over hall is required. An accident like this can easily result in the insurance company writing off the airplane.

No pilot likes to see the result of an accident sitting alone and forlorn where is was dragged off the runway. To me the bent, twisted and crumpled aluminum that used to be an airplane is ugly.