Why you should tie down / tiedown methods

That’s one curious thing I’ve noticed.
When I lived in the US, I don’t think I ever went to an airfield where there weren’t tiedowns provided.

However, in Britain it seems exceedingly rare to find tiedowns in transient parking spots, the most you seem to find are some wheel chocks.

Horrible! Relevant METAR available?

Tiedowns seem common in non-UK Europe, and the are used too.

In the UK a lot of pilots use water filled jerrycans which will do almost nothing.

Cessna specifies tiedowns with 700 pounds capacity for it’s singles, and in some cases four tiedowns to the plane. I once ferried through prairie Canada, landing in very windy conditions to find that four planes were on their backs from a windstorm earlier that day. Three had tiedowns, whose ropes had broken, or anchors pulled out of the ground. When I brought the 182 RG from California this Past May, we were stopped for fuel in Michigan, parked in a tiedown, but not tied down, as it was only a fuel stop. I was sitting with my back to the plane in the lounge, to have my wife say “you’d better go an tie it down”, and she sure was right! I got it tied down, but had I not, I would have lost it! A very sudden front passage created a huge burst of wind.

When I arrived to Bremerhaven, Germany in late October, during the first huge wind storm, at the airport, there was the trusty 172, tailed into the wind, with only small ropes on the wings. The rudder and ailerons were slamming away. I could not believe it stayed put. The airport wind gusts exceeded 120 km, and 80 km away in Helgoland, they recorded a record peak of 191 km!

What are the chances of control linkage damage if the locks are not in place?

One can get some severe slamming against the stops.

One can get worse stuff however if somebody else does their engine tests behind you while turned with their back towards yours One “pilot” did that to me recently, in a PA28. It was absolutely vicious and caught me totally by suprise. He was however doing as trained i.e. power checks into wind no matter how inconvenient and no matter how light the wind is. It’s a very “UK thing” I suspect.

One can get worse stuff however if somebody else does their engine tests behind you while turned with their back towards yours…

Or a large helicopter hovers close by.

From the video it looks like a very light aircraft, stalling speed 45kts or less. From the tailplane incidence the control stick seems to have been tied back, rather than forward as it should be. Although in that wind probably nothing would have stopped it.

This shows how useless the tiedowns usually used in the UK can be – from Manston airport after the recent strong winds