I bet you anything I could suck up a rope, say 1-2m long, lying on the ground, with enough power, straight into the prop… (TB20, 20cm prop clearance). Maybe people get away with it because on a flat surface they don’t need more than idle power.
I get very worried about tiedowns because a piece of loose rope can easily get sucked into the prop and it will probably rip a blade right off
I hung around Houston Gulf airport obsessively (which had tiedown ropes on every parking spot) for several years and never saw or heard of this happening.
The only place in the US that I ever saw chains for tie downs was past the Mississippi. But we all know thats wild territory out there.
Ok so if you go to one of these out of the way islands with no other service than a Handler collecting fees and you cant auger your anchor into rock, if the plane should be damaged by wind, then you are not liable. Is that correct?
The only place in the US that I ever saw chains for tie downs was past the Mississippi. But we all know thats wild territory out there.
‘Past’ for sake of the uninitiated with US lingo means ‘west of’ in the context of expressions from geographically limited easteners ;-) (and he is correct – chains are more a western thing, and ropes pretty much disappear as you go west)
I’m a great distance east of the Mississippi as I write, solo en route and practicing my Italian which I find has degraded… What to do?… Lago di Varese, where I think they flew the 440 mph MC.72 on floats but today just a lot of sailplanes on Republic Day, and a Bird Dog tow plane flying close enough to entertain lakeshore strollers.
If my plane is damaged on the ground, and nobody hit it with a truck etc, it’s my fault.
Tie downs are pretty ubiquitous in the US and I’ve never heard of one getting sucked into a propeller. It would be fairly difficult to reach these parking spots at the First Flight Airport without taxying near loose ropes. However I’ve learned not to taxi right over them after a mysterious nose wheel puncture a few years back. The aversion to tie downs in UK is a mystery to me and tonight my Warrior is the only one in a line of similar aircraft to be tied down, despite gusts approaching 50 mph during the day and even the windsock carrying away while we were watching the anemometer in the control tower!
Maybe it’s a macho thing in UK? (Bet that’ll ruffle a few feathers!)
I don’t see many light aircraft not tied down in Scotland. A C172 was written-off at Inverness, flipped over as an engineer taxied it from the hangar. And an almost-new Reims C172, one of the last made there, pulled the rings out of the wing and flipped over at Aberdeen.
I don’t see many light aircraft not tied down in Scotland. A C172 was written-off at Inverness, flipped over as an engineer taxied it from the hangar. And an almost-new Reims C172, one of the last made there, pulled the rings out of the wing and flipped over at Aberdeen.
This makes it fairly obvious how much more vulnerable high wings are
Don’t know if this has been posted before:
Best is a steel cable close to the ground that’s held down by anchors every couple of meters, IMHO.
Has anybody ever tried to lift one if those tires filled with concrete? They’re much heavier than they look.
I also doubt that a normal soft rope would damage a prop, i think the prop would cut it – if it was ever sucked up, which i have not heard of.
Tie downs are pretty ubiquitous in the US and I’ve never heard of one getting sucked into a propeller. It would be fairly difficult to reach these parking spots at the First Flight Airport without taxying near loose ropes. However I’ve learned not to taxi right over them after a mysterious nose wheel puncture a few years back
There are a lot of reasons never to run your plane’s engine unless it is lined up with a taxi way, and to avoid pointing the tail of a running aircraft towards parked aircraft. One of those reasons is that the turning prop gets nowhere near tie down chains. Another is that you don’t blast other planes with stones. I always shut down lined up with the taxiway, then turn and push the plane into the spot manually. I never pull out of a parking position under power. The latter makes you look like a complete prat, trained in a 21st century flight school, which I think is another reason not to do it.
A friend of mine could manage differential wheel braking in such a way that he could shut down while still rolling on the taxiway and then back his (tail wheel PT22) plane into the spot with no power. It was something to see.
