Bird strike (Spain)

Neil well spotted, got fooled by Patrick’s avatar picture, and I guess Pawnees are quite rare on the rental market.

I don’t really see any problem in flying some more hours with that dent. Even more knowing that the structure has been now inspected by two trained mechanics.

Anecdote: when I was doing my PPL, one day I was waiting for the school’s C-150 to arrive. A pair of CPL students have left eairlier that day to do some crosscountry flying and they were late. When the arrived, they apologized for the delay, and told me that the have hit the fuel truck with one wingtip in some other airport while taxiing, so they spent some time there thinking wether it was safe to fly back during almost 3 hours or not. Then I looked at the wing in astonishment, noticing a clear swept back in the Cessna should-be-straight wing…

Thirty three years ago I learned to fly in a C150 which had several small dents in the leading edges of both wings, apparently as a result of minor bumps, hangar rash and perhaps bird strikes. It flew normally, and as a student I wouldn’t have known whether stall behaviour was unusual anyway.

A couple of years ago I came across the same aeroplane which had just flown into an airfield I was visiting.

Most of the dents were still there….

As much as it may be fine, I doubt it is legal unless signed off by an authorised EASA (assuming European reg) engineer. Did the guys at the airport sign your tech and say you are good to go with a release to service?

RobertL18C wrote:

In sympathy with Jacko’s comment, the strutted Cessna wing has excellent in service history and I can think of several examples with modest bird strike dents which were OK’d after checking, as your friendly engineers have done for you.

Isn’t this an un-strutted Piper?

In sympathy with Jacko’s comment, the strutted Cessna wing has excellent in service history and I can think of several examples with modest bird strike dents which were OK’d after checking, as your friendly engineers have done for you.

I used to fly a GA type twin around commercially doing various bits and bobs, one of which was a cargo run at night. One night when one of the other guys was flying the cargo delivery truck reversed into the stabilator leaving a dent very similar to this one. Our engineers had a look at it and said it was fine and would be repaired at the next scheduled mx, however when flying the next night the aircraft was ramp checked in none home country, and was ‘grounded’ in a strange way by that countries inspectors who essentially said ‘we won’t ground you here, we will let you continue your flight back to your home country (which did NOT coincide with home base) but then please send us a scan of the tech log entry’.

So basically then after completing the next leg the aircraft was grounded and we had to ferry over engineers and parts to fix it.

I have to admit, that I wouldn’t have thought there was much of a problem. The plane flew fine afterwards, and as it was an airborne incident, it was free to turn on impact (to absort the impact and minimise any damage). That’s very different to a ground incident where the landing gear creates a resistence to turning.

But in the end, even if you’re happy to depart, it will be the club’s engineer’s call. I’d call them (as you have) and ask advice. They say “good to go” then I’d go. They say “No way. Need to get it fixed” then that’s what you have to do.