Was I wrong?

esa17 said:
Mine too.
Click to expand...

Goes both ways indeed, I always hated that supposed mutual distrust. I bought a couple of our mechanics coffee the other week and they loved it! They were blown away that I offered and I was blown away they were so surprised.

We are all in this together :beer:
 
esa17 said:
What do I care? Well, that's easy. Believe it or not being a mechanic can be quite stressful. It's a lot more complex than just turning wrenches which sometimes means I go home with one hell of a headache because I spent the day figuring out how not to kill someone.

I don't care that I get paid by the hour but I do care that I don't kill someone. The problem that a lot of the posters in this thread are failing to realize is that sometimes a 40yr old airplane is going to have quirks and do things it was never intended to do, sorry. I watched a 172 nose gear come in which was solid as a rock a few days ago but had play in places it shouldn't. As soon as we shimmed it up tight it shook the hell out of the plane. We did everything right and it still didn't behave. I guess instead of telling the owner what to look out for while we figured out what to do we should have turned the plane into a popcan.

I hate the statement "what do you care" Actually it makes my blood boil because I care a lot as do most mechanics. Next time the plane you fly most goes down for inspection help the mechanics out. You'll be surprised how many times things show up that pilots missed, ignored, and just plain didn't know about. Now, if you're the perfect pilot who has never missed something I'll gladly eat my words.

Please take the time to learn what's going on instead of making the decision to run a flight school out of business.

If the pilot screws up, the pilot dies. If the mechanic screws up the pilot does. At this point in my career I'm having to be extra vigilant because often times I'm the mechanic and the pilot. So yeah, I care a lot.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how billing a customer $16 for making a safety decision and then sending him out the door dissatisfied and then letting him post a thread like this is going to keep a flight school in business.

Last week I squawked a seat for being too uncomfortable because the bar in the back was driving up my students spine and it forced him to call the flight after .6 (the lesson was supposed to run for 1.5). The mechanic got on my case for not deferring it since it was 'cosmetic'. In my mind having a plane that a customer wont come back to fly is bad for sustaining business and should be addressed. I want happy mechanics but when shoddy work is cutting into my income, I get a bit irritated.

And trust me, we are well aware of the fact that our lifespan is directly affected by our mechanics.
 
Codyjp said:
I'm not sure how billing a customer $16 for making a safety decision and then sending him out the door dissatisfied and then letting him post a thread like this is going to keep a flight school in business.

Last week I squawked a seat for being too uncomfortable because the bar in the back was driving up my students spine and it forced him to call the flight after .6 (the lesson was supposed to run for 1.5). The mechanic got on my case for not deferring it since it was 'cosmetic'. In my mind having a plane that a customer wont come back to fly is bad for sustaining business and should be addressed. I want happy mechanics but when shoddy work is cutting into my income, I get a bit irritated.

And trust me, we are well aware of the fact that our lifespan is directly affected by our mechanics.
Click to expand...

Where did I advocate making him pay for the .2? In fact I'm pretty sure I backed his play totally.

My objection was to the putative grounding of the plane because of a smug attitude.
 
bike21 said:
I would say you did the right thing. Adding back pressure is a technique to temporarily get around a bad nose wheel and not a permanent fix for sub-par maintenance. This is one thing about GA that really bugs me, in that flight schools and mechanics often accept sub-par fixes and improvised technique to get around fixing it correctly.
Click to expand...
100% true. "They ALL do that" is no excuse to not fix the gorram problem.
 
Good communication between all parties can head off unnecessary issues.
CFO states " keeping the psi off the nosewheel will help keep
maintenance costs down- which is safe and thrifty, too!
There's no . 2 billing and student continues with insight.
 
good ole Cessna nose wheel shimmy. I've had it happen to me in a 152, 172, 177, and even a 210.

On one of my first x-countries after i got my PPL i had it happen to me so bad in a 172 it set the ELT off. Scared the crap out of me.
 
msmspilot said:
I didn't bother to read all the replies, but here is my opinion:

Cessna nosewheels are known to shimmy. There are a couple of known reasons why they do this.
1) the bolts and bushings in the scissor linkage going bad
2) underinflated tires
3) tire out of balance

If these items are taken care of, the shimmy dampener is almost unnecessary. With that said, the shimmy dampener could be a problem.
Click to expand...

Thank you! This is exactly what I was taught at my former flight school and I did a LOT of balancing nose wheel tires while I apprenticed (and did my PPL training) there. I rarely saw the shimmy dampeners being overhauled, and the majority of the time when there was a shimmy it was caused by the nose wheel being out of balance. The adhesive sticking the little lead weights to the inside of the wheel hub wears out and the weights fall off, causing the tire to go out of balance. During several years of flying their 152s I never experienced more than very minor shimmying on takeoff.

The tailwheel shimmy after doing a crappy landing in a Citabria (the "improper technique" Sundog referred to) is a different story entirely! :eek:

Take the above for what it's worth as I wasn't able to complete my A&P apprenticeship, but that particular issue was pretty memorable.
 
If it is that violent at 30 knots on takeoff roll, it has had the problem for some time and needs to be addressed. You did the right thing. You are the customer, and more importantly, the PIC. If you don't like it, don't fly it.
 
mojo6911 said:
If it is that violent at 30 knots on takeoff roll, it has had the problem for some time and needs to be addressed. You did the right thing. You are the customer, and more importantly, the PIC. If you don't like it, don't fly it.
Click to expand...

Exactly. At horrible shimmy at 30kts means it's been that way for a while. There's no excuse for that. But too many people are just satisfied with "oh, cessnas do that."
 
esa17 said:
Stupid vowels!
Click to expand...


No I understood what you were saying, I just ignored the typo. I really hate that saying because it suggests that we, as mechanics, don't have a personal interest in the flights that take place because of our maintenance.

I take care of airplanes that my friends fly regularly, I'm sure you have it the same way. So I get to wake up from nightmares on occasion that not only did an airplane I work on crash, but that some of my friends are on board.

Not a happy feeling, right?
 
MikeD said:
That flippant comment is simply a statement of ignorance by pilots who either don't truly understand what A/Ps or Repairmen do, who look down upon them as lesser people, or who simply don't care to learn what it is they do.

At least thats been my experience.
Click to expand...

Your experience is lacking in that regard then. Or maybe you just tend to jump to conclusions about what you think is a flippant comment.

While it should make no difference to the mechanic what he's working on, if he's in the middle of something that he can't just drop in order to fix something relatively minor, he has some magic words that he can say: "Sorry, but I won't be able to get to it until later". I've done it myself before- many times.

Kind of along the same theory of telling a controller "Unable" if he tells you to do something the airplane isn't capable of, or you just don't think is safe, or might lead to an unsafe situation. Don't tell me you've never done that.
 
Cubs, Champs, Chiefs, Luscombes, Cessna 120/140's, Taylorcrafts - none of them ever get nosewheel shimmy. You should try them!
 
Is this really an issue? No one will say a shimmy is worth turning down a plane for. It seems the only issue is that the OP didnt know what was going on. I'm not slamming the OP for returning the plane. If he wasnt comfortable flying it, then he shouldn't fly it. But, what if i wasnt comfortable flying a plane with an altimeter that was 100ft off in VFR conditions? It seems like a non issue to me.
 
Mike H said:
Your experience is lacking in that regard then. Or maybe you just tend to jump to conclusions about what you think is a flippant comment.
Click to expand...

Hardly. I don't have a history of shooting from the hip here. You do.

While it should make no difference to the mechanic what he's working on, if he's in the middle of something that he can't just drop in order to fix something relatively minor, he has some magic words that he can say: "Sorry, but I won't be able to get to it until later". I've done it myself before- many times.
Click to expand...

What context are you meaning "makes no difference"? If you mean has no pride in his work or the work doesn't matter, or he should just treat it like it's the local Firestone, then that would be a broadbrush statement. If you mean, isn't able to multitask or won't, then thats a different story.

Kind of along the same theory of telling a controller "Unable" if he tells you to do something the airplane isn't capable of, or you just don't think is safe, or might lead to an unsafe situation. Don't tell me you've never done that.
Click to expand...

Only if that's what you're referring to, however your post didn't make it clear of this meaning, and came off as flippant.
 
Depends on how bad the shimmy is. On a 150/152 a bad shimmy can break the engine mount and collapse the nose gear. It's not something you want to ignore for any length of time. If I'm busy I'm busy, I'll get to it when I can, I promise. Yes, holding the yoke back can make it better, No I'm not going to make a PIC decision for you. If there's another airplane available take it, if not then I apologize but maintenance issues happen.
 
cmill said:
Is this really an issue? No one will say a shimmy is worth turning down a plane for. It seems the only issue is that the OP didnt know what was going on.
Click to expand...

Not everyone is a super badass thunderstorm plowin', ice breakin', wind shear plowin' freight dog like yourself, sir. Yes, it is an issue, on multiple levels.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top