today I was scheduled to tow at our glider club with the beloved Pawnee. I started the one hour drive to our field at 11:00 to reach on time for operations to start by noon. When I pulled up to the Pawnee, I saw three members already gathered around the plane. Apparently the battery was run down and needed a charge. In the back of my head a red light went off and I was wondering if the bad battery was really the culprit or just a symptom of a more profound problem with the plane. I started to pre-flight the Pawnee so it would be ready once the battery was charged. But it didn’t take me very long until all hopes of flying this bird today were shattered. When I checked the alternator belt I found it loose. When I looked for the reason I found three of the seven bolts that hold the alternator and its brackets in place loose or missing. Worse, none of them had been safety wired as I believe they should have been.

The good news was that the alert from the “dead battery” in the back of my head lead to a more severe discovery for the tow plane’s airworthiness. So I felt quite good about having located the culprit of the discharged battery. (Loose belt causing slipping and therefore alternator not to turn, because tension was lost from loose/lost bolts holding the alternator and its brackets in place). It wouldn’t have taken much more engine vibration to loose more bolts and possiblly the whole alternator would have fallen out of the cowling – plop!

Unfortunately this discovery lead to cancelling all towing operations for this perfect fall day. But instead it gave me an opportunity to fly my ASW-24E and self-launch and give my power-plant a half hour work-out. Thanks to the club members (you know who you are!) for helping me assemble, pre-flight, launch and disassemble my sailplane. You didn’t miss much in the air, but flying definitely beats staying on the ground any time ….

Learning of the day: preflights count – after 14 years of powered flying this is the biggest discrepancy a pre-flight check has turned up for me so far.

P.S.: three weeks ago I had a post flight discovery on the club’s C-172: a stuck right brake after landing, having just turned off the active runway 18L with a Southwest 737 on short final I called Austin Ground:  “Cessna 3ES clear of runway 18L at Kilo for parking Atlantic, I believe I have  a brake problem.”

Ground: <pause> Cessna 3ES, do you need a tow to the ramp?

Cessna 3ES, stand-by, debugging….

<after some revving up the engine while working the brakes left, right, left, right, left, it finally released>

Austin Ground, Cessna 3ES, ready to taxi to “Atlantic” FBO

Cessna 3ES, taxi via Kilo to Atlantic.

It turned out the C172 had a completely worn brake pad on the right, causing a metal to metal situation. It was replaced by the shop the same day and put back into service the next day…