I was going to take Victor as passenger today in 56NE for a flight to view the local area and we met up at the airfield while I was removing the aircraft’s covers before doing a re-flight inspection. Next thing he drew my attention to something he’d found while I was just folding the last wing cover. I was stunned to see that since I’d parked the aircraft on Sunday, someone had come along with a knife and severed all of the four wires connected to the voltage regulator/rectifier.
We didn’t go flying, of course, but I was stunned that someone could have done something like this, and to an aircraft of all things. Cutting the wires in this way would not have prevented the engine from starting but would have stopped it from charging the battery and would almost certainly have caused an engine failure during flight if we had not noticed and just taken off. On the way home, I dropped in to show Christian, the airfield’s owner, and he said that to his knowledge it was the first time anything like this had happened at the airfield. He also said that as it was so serious, I should inform the local police tomorrow, as today was a holiday here in France.
I don’t know whether this was just a random act or was directed at me personally but I’ve just phoned Regis to warn him to check his aircraft carefully before he next flies it, just in case. I’m still absolutely gob-smacked while I type this 😐
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No other damage found so far, Russ, but I haven’t flown since or had a chance to do a proper full inspection. But I don’t think anything else was touched. No, the engine cover was on but the cut wires were the only ones that were easily accessible. I suspect that whoever did it if eg they were thinking it was like a motorbike engine, probably thought that it would prevent the engine from being started. It wouldn’t have (I don’t think) but it would have prevented the battery from being charged. Although I said in the post that it would cause an engine failure, I doubt that it would have because the ignition runs direct from the generator. Even so, they most likely were not to know that. So far at the time of writing, there have been no further problems but if anything else happens in the future, I’ll have no option but to move the aircraft elsewhere, which I think would be very sad.
that’s not cricket!
was there any other damage?
was there anything more obvious to cut? (i.e. did the perpetrator know what they were doing or was it a random wire cut?)
did the engine cover have to be removed to cut the wires?
sorry to hear this Roger, seems a very low thing to do.