Ahart Aviation Services - Serving the Livermore Valley
Text Box: and lost revenue. Ahart also paid for instructor and additional aircraft time to get the airplane to the repair shop The moral of the story? Airplanes are expensive tools which give us enjoyment and for some of us, a path to a new career. Let’s all make absolutely sure that the airplanes are available to everyone and that expenses are kept as low as possible so Ahart does not have to increase its rental rates to cover this kind of damage. Text Box: Walking among Ahart’s planes today, I noticed 3 of them with a very common problem—A sharp narrow dent in the outboard potion of their wings. All of these dents were on high-wing (Cessna) airplanes and all were closer to the wing-tip than to the fuselage of the aircraft.—A light bulb went off in my head. Recently, I had noticed a customer at Ahart ‘SPIN’ their Cessna 152, 180 degrees around as if they were readying to leave the parking area after having just arrived. I was along side another airplane and yelled ‘STOP’’ when I saw what was about to happen. I took the pilot over to the left wing of their aircraft and showed them that the wing was only 6 inches away from the propeller of another Cessna 152. They were shocked!. It was obvious to me what was happening. As many of us like to do, we are turning our airplanes to make it easier to push them back into their parking slots. I have Text Box: even seen some customers and flight instructors turning their airplane toward another to shorten the distance they have to push their plane back, getting very close to another airplane already parked. One of our airplanes (64204) just recently was another victim of this type of taxiing and parking. In September, it went through over $4,000 worth of repairs to have an entire section of its wing’s skin replaced as well as one of its ribs that supports the wing structure. The airplane was off-line for about 5 days totally over $6,000 in repairs Text Box: What are all of these Wing dents?

Ahart Aviation Services
Text Box: October 5th, 2008

By: Bill Komanetsky

No Spinning!

The Correct
Procedure

· Taxi into Ahart on the taxi way Yellow Line

· Stay centered on the yellow line

· Do not ‘spin’ the plane to the left or right into a parking position

· Use the Tow Bar and push the plane into its position after shut down

· Watch those wing tips!

 

Airplane Owners ad Pilot's Association

 FAA Flight Schools Diamond Aircraft Company FAA Safety Team

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