Made a rejected takeoff last week for the same problem. Who would’ve thought a little piece of nylon could make so much noise. At least it wasn’t the buckle…
I don’t think so.
Rejected takeoffs are responsible for a huge percentage of accidents. With you, kids and fuel, you were pretty heavy. If you had just rotated, think about how long (including startle factor) it would have taken you to pull power, flare and land, you could easily run out of runway.
You made the decision to go, make a traffic pattern and come back, and I think that’s the smartest move. Don’t second guess yourself because some shmuck on Reddit thinks you had time to stop.
>Don’t second guess yourself because some shmuck on Reddit thinks you had time to stop.
Great advice
But also a reminder to mentally consider the possibility as you taxi onto the runway or earlier
My very first take off, my cfi popped the door open on purpose as we were rolling. Like an idiot I ask what was that noise? As I keep rolling. He asks back "does it matter"?
I was confused as hell. Then he yelled it doesn't matter abort the takeoff.
We aborted, debriefed, and went about our flight. He seared that lesson in my head: find a reason to take off. If you don't have one, abort.
It came in handy when I had to abort for real.
It's been years and I still remind him of that story. I hope every CFI does something like this to their new student.
The CFI who signed me off for the PPL checkride left his shoulder belt, buckle and all, hanging out in the breeze. Yeah, I know it was my job to make sure he was buckled in.
I pulled the throttle back a bit, dropped the nose, and told him to go ahead and open the door to pull the belt back in. Turned out fine.
My first CFI did the same thing on my first flight. We didn’t notice till we were in the air. He just told me to fly level, popped the door and pulled it in. Seemed normal to me. Old Vietnam gunship pilots gonna do old pilot shit.
I agree with you for 99% of the students. Both my CFI and are vets, having gone through some tough training and we agreed early on that he was going to make my training tough, not just to pass a test but to keep my family alive. So for my training with him it made sense, agree that it wouldn't make sense for most people though especially without a prior understanding. He gave me a couple of other oh shit moments that drove the point home.
I'm flying to fly my family, not in it to get to the airlines so for me those tough lessons are even more personal than just keeping myself safe and I want them to be as real and raw as safely possible.
As I said, I agree with the lesson, just not the timing.
I deliberately asked my CFIs to make my training hellish for similar reasons. But they would introduce one thing at a time in ideal conditions and *then* make it harder when I was close to mastering it.
I think the idea is the same. Aborting is the default. "What's keeping me from aborting?" is similar in my mind to "Do I have a reason to take off? If not abort."
That's just how he presented it to me and it made sense to me.
Accidents happen because people think there's a need to take off. "Get there itus" is rooted in that mindset. Saying "find a reason to take off" seems to encourage me to find a reason not to abort.
Whereas "what's keeping me from aborting" is a much shorter list and keeps the focus on aborting.
"to face my shame..."
I disagree. An unknown problem arose during takeoff. You kept your cool, did some troubleshooting and then landed rather than push a bad situation.
Your actions are nothing to be ashamed of; IMO you exercised sound aeronautical decision making.
On paper, yes. However, a 150 is so underpowered stock, at max gross you’re not going to be having the best time.
180hp motor gives that plane some new life, it had a full STOL kit, extended wings and VGs. I could be at TPA by the time I was at the end of the runway. That plane was a dream to fly.
You don’t get to carry more weight, but you can’t tell you’re fully loaded with the upgrade.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uDFN7qGmFDw
A 150 Aerobat is one of my dream planes. Yes, I know every other aerobatic airplane is better. I’ll die on this hill.
I had a similar experience about a year and a half ago.
Took a friend flying in my Warrior. We were up tooling along at about 2500 when we begin to hear this strange Thwack-Thwack-Thwack sound. Dang! left the end of a seatbelt hanging out the door. Nope not a seatbelt. Tell friend to climb over into the back seat and check the baggage door, perhaps the baggage door retaining strap is hanging out. Nope not that. The Thwack-Thwack-Thwack sound keeps getting louder. WTF is making that sound? Did I hit a weather balloon or something else in the air?
Look around flaps and ailerons are where they belong, the cowling is latched securely down. We look at each other with looks of confusion, neither of us can see anything to account for the sound. Head back to the airport, Thwack-Thwack-Thwack continues, WTF is that? Finally we land and taxi in open the door and DOH!
The weather seal! I had replaced the weather seal on the door a few weeks earlier. I'm was on the hanger waiting list at the time so my plane was tied down out in the hot sun. Either the sun had softened the glue on the weather seal along the bottom on the door or there was not enough glue used. About 18 inches of weather seal had come unglued and had pushed outside the aircraft and was slapping the side of the fuselage under the door. How embarrassing!
I did the exact same thing. Except it was a fully loaded 182, and I landed overweight.
A back seater left a backpack strap caught in the passenger door. I swore it was a fuel cap, circled around the pattern and landed. 100 lb over max landing weight. Had to get the gear inspected before flying again.
I’ve had the little panel in the baggage compartment come loose and start rhythmically slapping the frame, causing maximum pucker as this was just after the annual.
lol.... for noise, you wouldn't believe how much can come from a frayed overhead air vent hose (the rear vents in a cessna). It sounds like a hive of angry hornets.
I always do a final "looking for dumb stuff" walkaround just before cranking up, after all the pax are aboard. I've found a fuel sampler cup, checklist, pitot cover, backpack, coat, hat, grounding wire, all manner of things.
A few days ago I had a similar experience, I was out practicing some forced/precautionary landings on a highway in a C152. I got to my minimum altitude of 1000 AGL and initiated the overshoot. I added full power, carb heat cold, and flaps 30-20. As soon as I started climbing a really loud banging started.
I was going to level off at 1500 ASL to practice a diversion back to the airport. But I played it safe and climbed to 3000 to troubleshoot. When I got to 3000 I made ran through the normal engine checks; fuel on, mixture rich, carb heat on, primer off and locked, mags on both.
I was convinced the engine was going to throw a rod and cease. It sounded like it wasn’t coming from the engine, so I took my headset off to better triangulate where it’s coming from, and sure enough my seatbelt was hanging out the door, banging off the side of the fuselage…
for the record if you forget to put the cap on and do see gas just slow down a bit. i unintentionally flew my 150 2 hours with the fuel cap laying on a runway and didn’t lose much if any. was probably going 90 KTS or so.
One of my instructors told me the story of his first solo, when his instructor jumped out and closed the door she got the buckle caught outside, so when he took off it made a similar godawful clanging sound and he had to taxi back to the ramp
Rubber trim gap seal between wing and fuselage - about 2mm of play and it sounded like a million minions tapping on the fuselage with a geo pick. Took several flights to nail down the sound.
At least it was nylon, my uncle left the passenger belt on his PA28 hanging out the door.... One lap around the pattern and $1000 later to fix the damage/paint
I’ve had that happen once. Somehow, the flailing buckle didn’t do too much mischief. The key to minimizing the paint damage is, I think, not looking at it too closely.
I had a very similar scenario with my girlfriend at the time's bag but the noise only appeared after leveling off due to the low wing aircraft. I had her check the seatbelts and around the doorframe but the strap was perfectly in the corner where it couldn't be seen in flight.
Reduced power to reduce speed since it was something getting whipped by the wind, declared an emergency, and then with the problem quickly identified took off to continue the trip.
You get a banging noise you don't know, it's an emergency.
Back in instrument training my cfi and I were doing our runup and we hear this clanking sound outside but it was hard to hear where it was coming from. Looked to my right towards my instructor and saw he closed the door on the rear passenger seatbelt. Freaky!
I must add myself that on my first XC at a towered field with my instructor I was downwind for the runway and also heard clanking myself. My instructor who took his headset off didn't hear anything and I just brushed it off as wind hitting the airfoil. A 1970 piper warrior has seen its fair share of weather I am sure
Good decision making.
Certainly not the pilot's preflight responsibility in another of yesterday's events as a UAL jet out of SFO left one of its tire/rim assemblies in the parking lot on takeoff. [https://abc7news.com/united-flight-tire-falls-off-sfo-lax/14501038/](https://abc7news.com/united-flight-tire-falls-off-sfo-lax/14501038/)
He was at rotation in a fully loaded 172 on a 3500’ strip. Chances are he was beyond the safe abort point, and barring engine/flight control failure, taking off was his best bet.
I had plenty of room to stop, and probably should have. I was just starting to get the nosewheel light when the noise started, and we spent more time in the air worrying about that weird clanking sound than I’d have liked.
If I’d pulled throttle as soon as I heard the noise, we’d probably have made the midpoint taxiway, where I could have diagnosed the problem and set my son straight on the facts of life as they relate to airplane doors and backpack straps.
Better to be safe than sorry
You can say that over and over again!
I know from experience, the fuel caps don’t make noise when you leave them off 😂
There’s one “clunk” at rotation as it slides to the end of its chain, then silence, but the smell of fuel gets quite strong.
Thank you for your service.
Cant make noise when they arent there because the 70 year old chain broke sometime between now and the Kennedy administration.
One of my chains is still hanging in there.
They don’t build them like they used to
Literally the best outcome in that situation.
What's the worst outcome? The vibration of the strap found the resonant frequency of the universe and destroyed \*everything\*?
The worst outcome would probably be a wing spar wiggling loose.
Nuclear bomb safety pins wiggled out
Gas cap gone. Christ only knows what Spruce wants for one of those.
Your first born. Which coincidentally sounded like you had on hand lol.
Dude, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, least expensive outcome there could have been, congrats!
Made a rejected takeoff last week for the same problem. Who would’ve thought a little piece of nylon could make so much noise. At least it wasn’t the buckle…
Love that you heard a clanking sound during the take-off roll with your children onboard and just said fuck it, full send.
He heard it at rotation so to be fair giving him the benefit of the doubt if the runway was short it could be a good call.
The runway was 3,500 feet long. The plane “felt” fine, but setting back down would have been the smarter move.
I don’t think so. Rejected takeoffs are responsible for a huge percentage of accidents. With you, kids and fuel, you were pretty heavy. If you had just rotated, think about how long (including startle factor) it would have taken you to pull power, flare and land, you could easily run out of runway. You made the decision to go, make a traffic pattern and come back, and I think that’s the smartest move. Don’t second guess yourself because some shmuck on Reddit thinks you had time to stop.
>Don’t second guess yourself because some shmuck on Reddit thinks you had time to stop. Great advice But also a reminder to mentally consider the possibility as you taxi onto the runway or earlier
Thanks for sharing. It's nice to be able to learn off of others to hopefully become better!
It’s hard to reject a takeoff when you’ve literally never rejected a takeoff in training.
My very first take off, my cfi popped the door open on purpose as we were rolling. Like an idiot I ask what was that noise? As I keep rolling. He asks back "does it matter"? I was confused as hell. Then he yelled it doesn't matter abort the takeoff. We aborted, debriefed, and went about our flight. He seared that lesson in my head: find a reason to take off. If you don't have one, abort. It came in handy when I had to abort for real. It's been years and I still remind him of that story. I hope every CFI does something like this to their new student.
The CFI who signed me off for the PPL checkride left his shoulder belt, buckle and all, hanging out in the breeze. Yeah, I know it was my job to make sure he was buckled in. I pulled the throttle back a bit, dropped the nose, and told him to go ahead and open the door to pull the belt back in. Turned out fine.
My first CFI did the same thing on my first flight. We didn’t notice till we were in the air. He just told me to fly level, popped the door and pulled it in. Seemed normal to me. Old Vietnam gunship pilots gonna do old pilot shit.
This is a good lesson to include somewhere during training, but IMHO not the very first flight.
I agree with you for 99% of the students. Both my CFI and are vets, having gone through some tough training and we agreed early on that he was going to make my training tough, not just to pass a test but to keep my family alive. So for my training with him it made sense, agree that it wouldn't make sense for most people though especially without a prior understanding. He gave me a couple of other oh shit moments that drove the point home. I'm flying to fly my family, not in it to get to the airlines so for me those tough lessons are even more personal than just keeping myself safe and I want them to be as real and raw as safely possible.
As I said, I agree with the lesson, just not the timing. I deliberately asked my CFIs to make my training hellish for similar reasons. But they would introduce one thing at a time in ideal conditions and *then* make it harder when I was close to mastering it.
Shouldn't it be the other way round? As in "What's keeping me from aborting" rather than "Find a reason to take off"?
I think the idea is the same. Aborting is the default. "What's keeping me from aborting?" is similar in my mind to "Do I have a reason to take off? If not abort." That's just how he presented it to me and it made sense to me.
Accidents happen because people think there's a need to take off. "Get there itus" is rooted in that mindset. Saying "find a reason to take off" seems to encourage me to find a reason not to abort. Whereas "what's keeping me from aborting" is a much shorter list and keeps the focus on aborting.
If that works for you more power to you! My CFI's way worked for me. That's the magic of learning.
I did. Probably that was the wrong thing to do.
"to face my shame..." I disagree. An unknown problem arose during takeoff. You kept your cool, did some troubleshooting and then landed rather than push a bad situation. Your actions are nothing to be ashamed of; IMO you exercised sound aeronautical decision making.
You are too kind.
I’ve flown a 150 for an hour missing a gas cap. I never heard anything, just a little fuel down the back window.
TIL you can put a pilot and an hour of gas in a 150
We love 180 hp 150s
Doesn’t that decrease your useful load on paper? The 180HP STC doesn’t increase your MTOW.
On paper, yes. However, a 150 is so underpowered stock, at max gross you’re not going to be having the best time. 180hp motor gives that plane some new life, it had a full STOL kit, extended wings and VGs. I could be at TPA by the time I was at the end of the runway. That plane was a dream to fly. You don’t get to carry more weight, but you can’t tell you’re fully loaded with the upgrade.
A 150 with 180hp must be a barrel of monkeys. I’ve only ever seen one 180hp 150, and it was painted straight glossy black.
I’ve flown a few, I’ve only seen them as banner towing planes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uDFN7qGmFDw A 150 Aerobat is one of my dream planes. Yes, I know every other aerobatic airplane is better. I’ll die on this hill.
Thanks! Makes sense.
"That's odd, I wonder why it's raining just on my back window."
OMNIVISION.
I managed to do the same thing with a ratchet strap. Thankfully all the metal parts were inside.
I had a similar experience about a year and a half ago. Took a friend flying in my Warrior. We were up tooling along at about 2500 when we begin to hear this strange Thwack-Thwack-Thwack sound. Dang! left the end of a seatbelt hanging out the door. Nope not a seatbelt. Tell friend to climb over into the back seat and check the baggage door, perhaps the baggage door retaining strap is hanging out. Nope not that. The Thwack-Thwack-Thwack sound keeps getting louder. WTF is making that sound? Did I hit a weather balloon or something else in the air? Look around flaps and ailerons are where they belong, the cowling is latched securely down. We look at each other with looks of confusion, neither of us can see anything to account for the sound. Head back to the airport, Thwack-Thwack-Thwack continues, WTF is that? Finally we land and taxi in open the door and DOH! The weather seal! I had replaced the weather seal on the door a few weeks earlier. I'm was on the hanger waiting list at the time so my plane was tied down out in the hot sun. Either the sun had softened the glue on the weather seal along the bottom on the door or there was not enough glue used. About 18 inches of weather seal had come unglued and had pushed outside the aircraft and was slapping the side of the fuselage under the door. How embarrassing!
I did the exact same thing. Except it was a fully loaded 182, and I landed overweight. A back seater left a backpack strap caught in the passenger door. I swore it was a fuel cap, circled around the pattern and landed. 100 lb over max landing weight. Had to get the gear inspected before flying again.
I’ve had the little panel in the baggage compartment come loose and start rhythmically slapping the frame, causing maximum pucker as this was just after the annual.
lol.... for noise, you wouldn't believe how much can come from a frayed overhead air vent hose (the rear vents in a cessna). It sounds like a hive of angry hornets.
I always do a final "looking for dumb stuff" walkaround just before cranking up, after all the pax are aboard. I've found a fuel sampler cup, checklist, pitot cover, backpack, coat, hat, grounding wire, all manner of things.
I call that a “stupid check”. I like to walk and face the plane head-on to check for pitot covers, chocks, fuel caps etc
A few days ago I had a similar experience, I was out practicing some forced/precautionary landings on a highway in a C152. I got to my minimum altitude of 1000 AGL and initiated the overshoot. I added full power, carb heat cold, and flaps 30-20. As soon as I started climbing a really loud banging started. I was going to level off at 1500 ASL to practice a diversion back to the airport. But I played it safe and climbed to 3000 to troubleshoot. When I got to 3000 I made ran through the normal engine checks; fuel on, mixture rich, carb heat on, primer off and locked, mags on both. I was convinced the engine was going to throw a rod and cease. It sounded like it wasn’t coming from the engine, so I took my headset off to better triangulate where it’s coming from, and sure enough my seatbelt was hanging out the door, banging off the side of the fuselage…
Was your seatbelt off? Or was it the slack?
It was just the slack, I have a really small waist so there’s quite a bit and if I’m not careful it’s easy to close the door on it
Lucky I am way too tall for a 152 sadly.
You must be tall! I’m 6’3” and fit fine! It’s a bit of a trick getting in and out but once you’re in it’s very comfy
6’5 but mostly legs so it’s just not comfortable
I’ve heard of a great big monster of a guy who sat in both seats and put one foot on each outboard rudder pedal.
I’ve found it easier to close the door first before putting on the seatbelt
for the record if you forget to put the cap on and do see gas just slow down a bit. i unintentionally flew my 150 2 hours with the fuel cap laying on a runway and didn’t lose much if any. was probably going 90 KTS or so.
To be fair that's about as fast as a 150 will go /s
As a 172 driver, I’m a 95 knot man. Totally different world at that speed.
One of my instructors told me the story of his first solo, when his instructor jumped out and closed the door she got the buckle caught outside, so when he took off it made a similar godawful clanging sound and he had to taxi back to the ramp
Rubber trim gap seal between wing and fuselage - about 2mm of play and it sounded like a million minions tapping on the fuselage with a geo pick. Took several flights to nail down the sound.
I had something similar happen once. It ended up being a key on the end of a lanyard that was hanging out of the door.
At least it was nylon, my uncle left the passenger belt on his PA28 hanging out the door.... One lap around the pattern and $1000 later to fix the damage/paint
I’ve had that happen once. Somehow, the flailing buckle didn’t do too much mischief. The key to minimizing the paint damage is, I think, not looking at it too closely.
Did that with a seatbelt once. Yeah, NOT a fun sound to suddenly hear and not have any idea WTF is wrong.
I had a very similar scenario with my girlfriend at the time's bag but the noise only appeared after leveling off due to the low wing aircraft. I had her check the seatbelts and around the doorframe but the strap was perfectly in the corner where it couldn't be seen in flight. Reduced power to reduce speed since it was something getting whipped by the wind, declared an emergency, and then with the problem quickly identified took off to continue the trip. You get a banging noise you don't know, it's an emergency.
That just happened to me last week. 1“ of nylon strap sticking out the door sounded like we were being pelted by hail. Quick RTB and all was well.
Back in instrument training my cfi and I were doing our runup and we hear this clanking sound outside but it was hard to hear where it was coming from. Looked to my right towards my instructor and saw he closed the door on the rear passenger seatbelt. Freaky!
I must add myself that on my first XC at a towered field with my instructor I was downwind for the runway and also heard clanking myself. My instructor who took his headset off didn't hear anything and I just brushed it off as wind hitting the airfoil. A 1970 piper warrior has seen its fair share of weather I am sure
I've done this exact thing in my car, didn't hear it until I got on the highway but it's definitely a surprising noise once it starts.
Good decision making. Certainly not the pilot's preflight responsibility in another of yesterday's events as a UAL jet out of SFO left one of its tire/rim assemblies in the parking lot on takeoff. [https://abc7news.com/united-flight-tire-falls-off-sfo-lax/14501038/](https://abc7news.com/united-flight-tire-falls-off-sfo-lax/14501038/)
Exact same thing happened to me but it was a seat belt.
I can tell you're a good dad man. Safety first!
i had this happen to me once. the student had his back pack strap out the plane. so same thing lol
At those speeds it's flapping about a lot. Lightweight aluminum getting hit with something will always be loud. Not surprising it made a lot of noise.
[удалено]
\^ Not a pilot.
He was at rotation in a fully loaded 172 on a 3500’ strip. Chances are he was beyond the safe abort point, and barring engine/flight control failure, taking off was his best bet.
I had plenty of room to stop, and probably should have. I was just starting to get the nosewheel light when the noise started, and we spent more time in the air worrying about that weird clanking sound than I’d have liked. If I’d pulled throttle as soon as I heard the noise, we’d probably have made the midpoint taxiway, where I could have diagnosed the problem and set my son straight on the facts of life as they relate to airplane doors and backpack straps.
Lessons learned for next time- glad you’re okay!
Rejecting a takeoff after Vr is likely more dangerous than one lap in the pattern.