Ben wrote:
The disregard of Russian pilots and engineers for safety goes further.I saw a photo of a Russian airliner taking off with tires that the canvas below was exposed, is it a recipe for troubles?
I also saw how a Russian engineer torqued the bolts that hold the main rotor blades on an helicopter. The torques meters that were available were out of (calibration) date, so he took a metal tube, measured (by the eye) 1m arm and gave it yank and that’s it. When questioned he said that this is ok.Eastern Block aircraft are built like tanks but the safety culture is lacking. Now you know why I don’t fly with “Eastern Block” airlines.
As a person born and initially taught to fly in Russia, I can say that the safety culture is often direly lacking indeed, especially in two aspects: CRM and the culture of doing things exactly by the book. Sometimes things get eventually corrected, sometimes not. In this particular case, the resonance was huge, including a circular on deicing practices being issued by the Russian CAA. If I remember correctly, the pilots in question kept their jobs but were officially reprimanded and probably lost their bonus pay.
On the other hand, some instances appearing to be safety violations are actually fine – for example, the tires on most Russian airliners have an official wear limit down to the third layer of cord, which explains what you saw on the photo. Tightening rotor blade bolts without a torque wrench is probably not OK in this case, but I have seen similar procedures officially mentioned in older manuals – one instance I remember offhand is the T-34 tank, where one maintenance procedure says “extend the wrench with a 1.5-2 m length of pipe and tighten the nut with the force of two men” (that’s one big f*ing nut!). If the nut/bolt is secured with safety wire, a split pin or a similar device, the torque need not be very precise anyway. Anyone who has been torquing nuts for a reasonable length of time will tell you the right torque is easy to achieve by feel – I am not advocating the use of this practice where a torque wrench is mandated, but at least it’s reasonably safe when push comes to shove.
Ultranomad wrote:
Anyone who has been torquing nuts for a reasonable length of time will tell you the right torque is easy to achieve by feel – I am not advocating the use of this practice where a torque wrench is mandated, but at least it’s reasonably safe when push comes to shove.
I can agree that doing it so many times helps but we are talking aircraft not T-34s. If a nut gets loos the aircraft might come down. A friend of mine crashed during his first flight after maintenance because the nut on the other end of the bolt that connects the elevator trim tab to the trim worm got loos and fall out, then, the bolt came out, the nose pitched up and my friend and his engineer had to push HARD (one with his feet) on the yoke to avoid the stall, they both walked away but the aircraft was totalled.
Ben wrote:
the nut on the other end of the bolt that connects the elevator trim tab to the trim worm got loos
