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Have you ever caught a problem during preflight?

Have you ever caught a problem during pre-flight?

  • Nope, never found any issues.

    Votes: 20 6.2%
  • Yes, only minor issues

    Votes: 134 41.6%
  • Yes, and once was an issue that could have cause major problems.

    Votes: 89 27.6%
  • Yes, and more than once I have caught major issues.

    Votes: 79 24.5%

  • Total voters
    322
Wing tape saves the day!

I preflighted a Pik-20D glider and found that the mainpin was only inserted about half way. Wouldn't go any further into its bushing. The mainpin is supposed to go all the way through the spar extensions of both wings to prevent them from coming apart, but because it'd only engaged with one wing the result was functionally equivalent to having no mainpin at all.

I disassembled the glider and found that a 1 inch long piece of garden hose used to protect the brass bushing in the starboard wing from scoring from steel pins in the trailer hadn't been removed last time it was rigged.

On the previous day the aircraft had flown a 200km cross country. When I revealed my discovery to the previous pilot he went white as a sheet, considering the implications of the fact that nothing was preventing the wings from coming off. To this day I have no idea why it didn't kill him in a launch accident. I can only guess that flight loads caused the wings to bind up on their mountings on the fuselage. Might have been amusing if they'd fallen off as soon as he stopped rolling after landing :D

- mark

Well, fortunately, the wing tape makes it a tiny bit harder for the wings to fall out if the pin is not in :D Anyone who tries to pull the wings off with the tape still on knows this. But you are right, once there is flight load, the spars are going to be very difficult to separate. It could happen though.

For those that don't know, the PIK20, like the Libelle, uses a spar engagement design where each spar stub has a pin in the end that plugs into a socket in the opposing wing root rib. Those connections carry all the wing bending moment. Then there is a single removable wing pin that just keeps the wings from separating. There are two additional pins in each root rib that plug into the fuselage to hold the fuselage onto the wings.

Other gliders have different arrangements, some with two removable wing pins, where the pins themselves carry the actual bending moment.
 
I was asked to ferry an ultra light from one airfield here in South Africa to another maybe 20 odd miles away as the a/c had been re assembled after it was transported by road from Cape Town(holiday capital) to Gauteng(money hub)
As I got to the elevators and connecting rods(push & pull) I found that the safety pin had not been put in at all. Had I taken off and not seen it believe me I would not be here to type these notes.
Needless to say my pre flight was started again and took almost an hour and just for the record the flight was not pleasant, even although I rechecked every bolt and nut and safety pin and it's secure lock.
That same a/c was sold and a father and sun doing low level steep turns and other wrong stuff was killed in it, not that had anything to do with my flight just ironical.
Now I do not allow people to even talk to me while busy with a pre flight, if interupted I start over.
 
Major pre-flight discoveries

On a Schweizer 1-36 glider that had been in service for about 3 weeks, I thought the aileron control felt kind of sloppy, so I looked at the connections behind the seat. I found a castle nut sitting on the floor, a washer dangleing on the last thread of the bolt holding the aileron actuating rod to the bellcrank.

Interesting thing was, after fixing it, the control was still sloppy -- thats just the way it was. Had I had some familiarity with the glider, I would have dismissed the slop without checking. It was only my lack of familiarity with the airplane in this case that saved me.

On my Citabria, I noticed a new drip of oil at the cowl cooling exhaust, so looking inside, I found the brass fitting that provides the oil pressure gage connection to the engine block cracked. I grabbed it and it broke right off, flush with the block. The tiny orifice that is supposed to slow the loss of oil was in the part that came off.

In this case, had this been a rental airplane that I was unfamiliar with, I would not have recognized the oil stain as unusual, and I would have dismissed it without checking further. It was only my intimate familiarity with the airplane in this case that saved me.

So, ultimately, it pays to be curious, whether you are familiar with the airplane or not.
 
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Broke my own pre-flight rule

One of my pre-flight rules is that if I am the PIC I pre-flight the whole aircraft even if I am flying with another pilot who offers to assist. I never broke the rule until one day I was scheduled to take some recurrency training with a factory pilot from the number one commercial helicopter manufacturer in the world. We walked out to the a/c and the factory pilot said I'll pre-flight my side (co-pilot's side) and you pre-flight your side. (It will be faster). That was against my rule but because he was "the FACTORY pilot and much more experienced than me" how could I say NO. We each pre-flighted one side of the helicopter and departed for a two hour flight including many non-standard maneuvers, emergency procedures, touchdown autorotations, run-on landings, etc. Checkride went fine so we flew to a nearby airport restaurant for lunch. After lunch I pre-flighted the aircraft again before the next flight session. I lifted up the transmission cowling on the side the factory pilot checked and there was a can opener sitting on the deck! Holy ____! What is this doing here? The control rods to the swash plate go up through holes in the transmission deck. The hole has just enough room for a can opener to fall through or slide into the hole. That could be very bad leading to jamming the control rod which could cause a loss of control. Luckily it did not make it into the hole. The mechanic had added a quart of oil and left his can opener on the deck with his name on it as required. Well the mechanic got an ear full from the maintenance chief for not accounting for his "tool." I gave myself a chewing out for breaking my own rule because I was flying with a factory pilot who "must be prefect and obviously could do a thorough pre-flight."

Learned a lesson: when you are the PIC don't defer your responsibility to somebody else no matter how great they are, how experienced they are, how much higher ranking they are. I have never made that mistake again.
 
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Great stories

Really great advice and great stories here. I play a mental game with myself during each preflight - I pretend that I *know* something serious is wrong, and I have to find it. It helps to keep me on my toes and not just going through the motions.
 
Preflights

>Once found 3 out of 4 elevator bolts missing on a T craft that had just landed
>Found an OV-10 prop blade cut supposedly by a rocket fin from the previous mission
>Dirt daubers blocked a pitot line
>Vented Fuel caps on backwards after refueling by lineboy
>Belly skin eaten thru by battery overflow
>Brakes dripping fluid
>Cut tires
>Dead batteries
>Relief tube too short
 
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Spanner RV4

A friend brought an RV4 and was gracious enough to let me fly it. It had completed an annual just before he brought it. On the first annual in my friends ownership I found a spanner in the tunnel aft of the rear control stick. The only thing that saved our bacon was it was well and truly stuck in oil that had migrated into the fuse during aero's, mostly performed by the previous owner, and it was obvious it had been there for some time.

I always look at other tandem RV's at shows and it makes me shudder when I see so many without any rear stick gaitor.

Rob
 
Do you walk around prior to pre-flighting?

Walking from the hangar to the FBO to refill my water jug the other week, I came across this:

bee_preflight.jpg


Sorry for the fuzzy picture; if you can't tell, it's a swarm of bees.

Needless to say, I gave them the right-of-way by a large margin. I'd feel sorry for the poor soul who walked up to their plane from behind and then proceeded to open/close the door(s), lower flaps, etc only to be greeted an angry swarm of bees. :eek:

In talking to one of the hangar guys, this isn't the first time this has happened at this field (T74).
 
Actually...I do.

....not meaning to hijack the thread, just asking a question;

if your aircraft has been sitting out in the open at the airfield for a couple months, do you do the same preflight as you would if you flew it yesterday, and it's been in your locked heated hangar, and you have the only key.
Of course not.
but ....why not?

I absolutely do perform the same preflight...unless you perform a VERY thorough post-flight. Read every post regarding "...and who knows how long its been that way..." that is how you catch it early. Takes me longer to get ready, but I am the one who gets to say "I found a flashlight in the engine bay" to the guy the day before who flew it and noticed a thumping sound!
 
Found a half a pint of water in one tank before. I figure it must have been the gas truck that filled it up the night before.
 
A few that could have been trouble

C150 Elevator Hinge worn almost through
Piper Warrior - Birds nest in stab control cone
Piper Warrior - Birds nest top center of engine
Taylor Craft - sloshing compound in gascolator. This was the worst. In doing the pre-flight I noticed some small black flecks in the fuel after draining the gascolator. Tried again with same result. Dropped the metal bowl and it was full of a black slimy substance. Rubbed with fingers and couldn't get it off my fingers! :eek: Looked in fuel tank and saw sloshing compound had been removed because last auto fuel had ethanol in it. Had to remove the tank, clean, re-slosh. Sure glad it didn't work its way into the carb but it was only a matter of time!
Paul
 
water in gas

Was not in an RV but C172 rental in Los Angeles. Went thru preflight and took full sample of fuel from wing tank and it looked ok. Discarded it on ground and noticed it beaded up. The entire sample was water. Drained a couple of samples from each tank. It had rained the day before and they obviously had bad caps.
 
circuit with towbar

Just to be clear said:
Nope never have found anything on my -4 but an neighbor RV-6A driver (name withheld) did a circuit with the towbar still on.....Tower says "looks like something is hanging from your plane"......hehehe....all turned out well, no damage even ??......'but, what's that smell' !!
a good walk around after the plane is outside of the hangar would have caught that one
 
RV 8 & 737 preflights

Mechanic found screw on the horn of my rudder of my RV 8 that was slowly unscrewing itself. Would have eventually blocked the movement of my rudder.:eek: This item is now a regular on all my pre flights. Was preflighting a 737 one day. Suddenly got burning eyes and knew immediately it was atomized hydraulic fluid leaking "somewhere". Had to be the flight controls, flaps or brakes. Finally found it. It was a hairline crack in the left main gear brake housing. Not only a possible loss of all System A Hyd. fluid, but brake assembly could have disintegrated on takeoff or landing roll.:eek:

Also had bent fan blades on another 737 years earlier:eek:

Had "one" spoiler on top of the wing of an A 300 that had failed to retrack after last crew landed. Would have been an interesting roll effect on the next takeoff:eek:

That's 34 years of pre flighting--a real pain--but every now and then, it really pays off.
 
just piling on here

...and notice how many of the incidents mentioned were the first flight after a mechanic had done work on the plane...:rolleyes:


Yup, that seems common. Here's a sampling of some I can recall:

-way too much water in the fuel
-stuck starter C172
-loose tail wires on a cub (nuts not tightened after maint.)
-leaking fuel
-leaking oil
-bad mag (weak spark)
-busted p-lead
-failed idle check
-busted carb heat
-broken trim cable Citabria (more serious than it may sound)

Newbies might assume from this list the author is a grizzled ATP with 10k plus hours; nope, almost exclusively recreational flying in spam cans and cubs with less than 700 hours total.

So check everything, twice the stuff that can kill you.
 
...and notice how many of the incidents mentioned were the first flight after a mechanic had done work on the plane...:rolleyes:

Or even the dumb@$$ who built it.

I was at SERFI on Saturday. Another builder walks up and says 'Hey, you know you're missing a few screws from your cowl?"

Sure enough, about 5 of them. I'd had the cowl off a few days before. Re-inserted all the screws, spinning in each a bit by hand with a screwdriver to assure clean threading, but not tightening until they are all in place. For some reason I obviously never went back to tighten them all.

I suppose the preflight lesson is "Don't overlook the obvious". Those screws are really easy to see.
 
Opened the hangar to preflight my 172 about 6 months back, scared a sparrow out of the cooling air inlets. Pulled the cowl for a very careful cleaning of the birds nest that I was sure was in there - only found a couple twigs, guess I got lucky and caught him early. Bought a set of cowl plugs the next day and use them every post-flight.
 
Checklist, checklist, checklist!

I thought I was religious about preflight until one day I offered to give a policeman friend a quick ride before putting the plane away... We jsut jumped in and I was more concerned about getting him set up with a head-set and seat etc. that I forgot to do even a walk arround.
When I fired up a friend came running over waving his arms, signaling to me to shut down.... I had left the tow bar on the nose-wheel!
You got to value friends like that!
Now even if I have just made a fuel stop I still do a quick walk around before getting in. And I always, always, always do a thorough pre-flight!
 
Problems...

Sort of off the subject, but I ran an aircraft battle damage repair team for the Air Force a thousand years ago (or so). When we weren't fixing battle damage we were working on F-4s and later, F-16s. On more than one occasion we'd do a toolbox inventory and discover a screwdriver or a wrench missing. Sure enough, we'd find it inside an access panel or, even more dramatically, once about three feet inside the left intake of an F-4. A FOD'ed out engine just waiting to happen. With RVer's doing the work on our own aircraft, just something to think about. In practice, we'd shadow the toolboxes so a visual inspection was really pretty straightforward.
 
Working as a licensed Engineer on the SAAB 2000 Airliner, common things during walk around: Missing static dischargers, flat spots on wheels, leaking oleos, dents from bird strikes, fuel leaks from bad seals in drain ports, etc, most of them not serious enough to by itself cause a crash, but they might contribute to one of the holes in the Swiss cheese they always are talking about on human factor courses :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model


/Dennis
 
On two separate occasions:

1. I found a metal strap had come loose in the engine compartment of the rental Cherokee I was about to take up. No big deal. I showed it to the mechanic and he took care of it.

2. Mag check was showing a larger drop in RPMs than I expected at run-up so I taxiied back and shut down. The school's owner came out to check it out. It was fine. I felt a little silly but I'm still glad I came back to be sure.

On a different occasion, it was more a preflight of my own person at my PPL flight test. I had just sat down and buckled in and the examiner got in and buckled in and then I realized that in my nervousness, I left my sunglasses on the counter in the flight school. This was a Cherokee so you know that I'd have to make him get out but it was also late afternoon/early evening and the sun was getting lower and making a landing or finding key points on the horizon with the sun in your face is a pain. I thought for a moment - do I risk pissing off the examiner or do what I can to have the best flight possible? I apologized and asked him if I could run in and get my sunglasses. .... I got my sunglasses and aced my flight test. :D

Cheers,
 
I thought for a moment - do I risk pissing off the examiner or do what I can to have the best flight possible? I apologized and asked him if I could run in and get my sunglasses. .... I got my sunglasses and aced my flight test.

Thats ok. On my private pilot exam, during the pre-flight, the audio from the DPE's headset was low. We could have managed to get through the exam, but I decided I didn't want the extra stress on top of the usual private pilot exam.. I decided to shut down and get a different C150. The FBO happily charged me the 0.1 hours of rental time .. but it meant less chance of needing another $300 exam with the DPE.

I found a leaking wing tank in my old RV-6A.. very slow leak, but enough to cause blue streaks. It was just the inspection panel's cork gasket..
 
Once I was visiting friends, a flying couple, and the guy followed me around while I was preflighting for our departure, talking. Annoying but I didn't say anything. Then after I'd closed a large cowl access door, he opened it to talk about something.

I lit into him about opening panels after I've closed them on preflight. The amazing thing was he was an instructor pilot at a major airline.

Dave
 
New Plane Stored Outside

In the 90's I got a lead on a Cessna Hawk XP II up in Michigan that was for sale; low hours and in great condition. It would be my first airplane purchase so I was pretty excited. I coordinated with a reputable on-field A&P shop to do a pre-purchase which went fine; several squawks were noted and fixed. I received a report that the airplane flew very well! I flew up commercially, hot check in hand. The airplane had been stored outside during the Michigan winter but was now inside a nice warm executive hangar for my inspection. Prior to moving it outside for my inaugural flight I did my newly-minted-pilot walk-around with Cessna checklist in hand. Eventually I sumped the tanks but the liquid was clear and did not smell much like fuel. That's strange I thought. The mechanic had a look and we both agreed, that is strange. Sumped again, and again, and again, and again. Nothing but clear water. The quick drains were removed and over a gallon of water was removed from each tank. That's what we caught in the bucket, the rest on the floor. The wing tank bladders were both replaced at some cost to the owner and I purchased it and flew it home. During the VFR flight home the AI and VSI went TU.

1st note to self: Remember, ice has a hard time getting through a quick drain.
2nd note to self: Reputable A&P shops are not always.
 
pre flight

Pre-Flight is not merely an exercise. In the past I have found:

Baby birds chirping on top of the oil cooler.

Brake fluid leak on the floor.

Fuel leak on floor from wing port.

Unlatched cowl fastener.
 
Tie downs and wasps

I told a pax to wait in the FBO once so I could preflight without distractions. Left the wing tiedowns connected while I went to fetch my friend because a jet was warming up in front of me. I looked pretty silly when the slack in those chains ran out and we came to a sudden stop. Flailing linemen were coming at me from several directions, but I noticed too late.

Recently completed the annual on my 6a and found a pretty good sized wasp nest under the stabilizer/fuse fairing. Told a ramp mate about it and he said he had recently found one in the air vent inlet of his 152. Don't think my wasps would have gotten into the cabin, but he might have had a real problem on takeoff had he not discovered the nest. So, I've started checking the cabin air vents on preflight during those hot spring and summer months. John
 
Oh Yeah

1. Leaking fuel tank, 172
2. Cracked Spinner, 172
3. Rental Plane following inspection, half of the cowling fasteners not installed.
4. Trailing edge of left wing bent upwards 5 inches, aileron bent following Moose rubbing velvet off antlers (my plane, $14,000 to fix)
5. Fuel dripping from engine, bowl loose on carb, failure to install correct washer following maintenance
6. Hole in float

List goes on and on...
 
This thread revival is great timing for Oshkosh. I have a buddy who discovered a bucket load of water in the tail of his RV-6A before departing OSH several years ago. It would have been a CG disaster if he hadn't found it. Of course, there is always rain, and usually a thunderstorm sometime during the show. And lots of curious, airplane-ignorant people around who might stick trash in inlets or inadvertently damage something. Lots of pilots are too eager to light the fires and beat the rush/storm/airshow out of there at a time when their preflight needs to be extra-thorough.
 
Once I discovered a capacitor or something in the lower cowling of a rental C-172. That was the same FBO where I discovered a bird's nest between cylinders 2 and 4. Stuff like that is why I chose to build my own plane. Also, up in Alaska, I was pre-flighting a Piper Pacer on skis, and found a nut missing on the flap actuator arm. That could have been serious.
 
Bent Spar

Some years back was working as a mechanic for a flying service. Being low man on the pole had to check and preflight rental AC each morning. We had an all Cessna fleet of 150 and 172s. One thing I always was told to check from the rear, look at the front spar area about half way in from there to the fuse. Sure enough there was some small ripples in the skin about two feet out from the root. Upon checking found the spar bent and a little almost unseen damage to the tip. Had run into a post while taxing the day before.
Was not the first or last spar repair we did either in two years I worked there. Boyd in Chiloquin OR
 
Many. A several bird nests at FCI in the spring. Every spring it seemed birds would visit transient airplanes. Maybe one bird nest at home base. Several tools after mechanical work (Bonanza). A couple leaking fuel bladder (Bonanza). An intake clamp fallen off (Bonanza). Two flat struts (Bonanza). A couple alternators failed to produce on startup. One caused by the same mechanic that left tools. A couple vacuum pumps failed to suck worse on startup. An attitude indicator that failed on startup. That may sound like a lot but covers 40 years and 6000+ hours.
 
I was the second flight of the day in a schweizer 233, a strut braced high wing glider, and as the instructor was talking with the first ride, I preflighted and found that the nut holding the outboard strut bolt was gone, and the bolt could be rotated by hand. After smirking over to the instructor to show him I'd found his "test" item, he went to double check that I was not lying. No one had noticed and the airplane was airborn for an hour or more.

KB

I'm pretty sure a 2-33 can fly without one of the wings. ;)
 
!. a hole in the rudder from the windstorm the night before.
2. A preflight after a fuel stop on the way back to Illinois from Florida revealed too much oil on the rudder. The nut had come loose on the oil pressure line coming from the engine to the sender. In 2.5 hrs I had lost 2 quarts of oil.
 
So I recently purchased a cherokee 180 until I can get a RV flying. Plane was out of town, so hired a local A&P/IA to do the prebuy and renew the annual inspection since it was about 6 months out anyways. He says all the right things over the phone, seems very knowledgeable and thorough. Seems like a good guy for the job. He has the plane for a week or two before finishing up a couple of items he said needed to be addressed. Says plane is in excellent condition and signs everything off. Great.

Fly up commercially a couple of days later to pick up plane. Get to the plane. Notice immediately that one strut is a little low and main tires are a little low. Ok, It's in the desert. Might have been good during heat of day and lowered the pressure in the cooler morning. I'll give benefit of the doubt. Touch up tires. Pay him for his 'work' and he scatters toot sweet. Okey dokey, must have something important to get to.

Do a good preflight and nothing else seems too out of whack. Get in and find primer is non-functional. Okay, this is now irritating. Starts without primer, so decide to proceed to runup. Runup is good, do a little prolonged run up since I will be departing a suboptimal direction in a new airplane and everything stays in the green. Takeoff is uphill and pointed at a mountain so I'm watching every engine gauge like a hawk for first few seconds so I can abandon take off if things don't look right. Just note airspeed is alive during first few seconds. By the time I get back to airspeed, plane is happily climbing. Airspeed seems a little low, but not way out of tune.

Fast forward 3 hours of happy flying back home. As I start setting up for landing, I notice airspeed isn't coming down as expected. Attitude indicator is also super slow to respond. ****, new airplane landing at a new airport and I don't have a reliable airspeed indicator. So I fly it to the runway just to make sure I'm not on the evening news.

Land and notice plane settles very nose high. Park and secure. L main strut is flat and R isn't much better. Now, I'm really unhappy. Few days later, find a hangar and start taking care of squawks. Jack up plane and find wheel bearings so loud that it sounds like a concrete mixer. Strut seals completely gone. Take off the cowl, find a piece of scat tubing just loose on top of cylinders (I didn't pull cowl on pre flight, lesson learned). He didn't even bother to squirt grease in the links during this 'fine tooth comb annual/prebuy.' Pull inspection panels to start chasing the airspeed problem, and find corrosion he failed to note. The only thing I can tell he actually did was change the oil and air filter. Moral of the story, just because someone has credentials and says an airplane is flight-worthy doesn't mean they actually know what they are doing/do what they say they did. Always make sure you verify with your own eyes that everything is ready to go. It's your rear sitting in the beer can a few thousand feet above the ground.

Sincerely,
Owner of a pencil-whipped annual/pre-buy
 
One for the helicopter guys that makes you pucker-broken pitch link bolt in main rotor of Bell 47.
 
Cracks in trim tab attach

Found this a few years ago in pre-flight. Cracks at several of the rivets. Ended up repairing it with a pretty ugly external doubler. See repair thread.

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Return to Service Tale of Woe

At a large, busy flight school just prior to my checkride, I had one chance to get familiar with a 172 recently added to the flightline replacing my favorite practice plane. Fuel was running out of the wing, down the fuselage and in a puddle on the ground. No go.

A day or two later, the examiner and I retrieved the same plane from the hangar as we were the first to return the plane to service. As I was reaching for the seat belt, a stray tail of safety wire gashed my palm inducing some decent bleeding. I hopped out and asked for their first aid kit. None. So the lead mechanic and I improvised something like a paper-towel and duct tape solution and off I went passing my checkride.
 
Found a loose nut on an elevator hinge rod end.

Found the rudder counterweight fasteners loose and hanging low enough to snag the vert. stab, partly locking the rudder.

Yesterday found a flap switch failed on the "UP" side. Flaps went down, no up.
 
Before flying my "new to me" RV-8 back to Colorado last October, I discovered both locknuts on the throttle control cable housing at the carburetor bracket completely backed off..I'd actually flown it like this. I also discovered fuel spraying onto the ground during priming from an improperly made up copper tube fitting. During preflight runup before my first solo in my RV-8, the engine backfired badly when on the left mag. A local A&P, without actually testing it himself, simply told me to go fly it, saying it was probably a fouled plug (he probably thought I was having a case of "pre-solo nerves"). The 2nd A&P on the field I took it to tested it and declared the plane non-airworthy until the left mag was replaced. The 2nd A&P was top notch.

Recently, after having some mods done on my RV-8 down in AZ, I found an abnormally high amount of friction when moving the ailerons during preflight. The aileron had been removed to perform an inspection and reassembled improperly. After takeoff I noticed a heaviness in the left wing that wasn't there before....later traced to the trailing edge of the right flap being about 0.1250"-0.1875" lower than the left flap when fully retracted. My transponder was also not working. Would be nice if the workshop performed their own preflight inspection before I got there.

There's nothing like having work done by paid professionals only to have it come back with squawks that were not broken before, costing extra money to fix. I'm learning that part of the ownership learning curve is finding a reliable shop/A&P to work on the plane. I've been throwing money at it for the past several months and believe the "deferred maintenance items" have now been addressed.

As a result of the above...and spending a lot of time scouring VAF, I now take more care than ever during my preflight inspections and now have a better idea what to look for.
 
Pre flight

After finding the primer problem along with the throttle would not have flown it anywhere and then even thinking about a backfire and flying is wrong. Was an A&P years back and had started an RV3 way back before many on here were around.
The flight control issue should have been addressed before it was flown again no matter why you needed to fly. And another item, I would have had someone who knew RVs go over the entire aircraft every nut and bolt.
Just an fyi what you cannot see can ruin your life.
 
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