where do they find these precious little flowers?? and the moronic reporters??

[anonymous]

A mother was stunned to find flimsy pieces of sticky tape being used to hold together the plane's engine panel located on the wing of the aircraft she was flying on.

"Sticky" Tape

Jessica

Jessica Baker already has a fear of flying and her nightmare came true while flying on Air New Zealand from Nelson to Christchurch with her 11-month-old son.

Jessica Baker was flying from Nelson to Christchurch with her son and claims she already has a fear of flying. 

The shocked woman took photographs of her find and posted it to Facebook on Sunday along with the caption "Kiwi ingenuity at its finest.....Good job Air NZ", and tagging the aircraft company.

Ms Baker told stuff.co.nz that a fellow passenger first pointed out the flimsy cover up claiming it worried her so much she kept her eyes on it during the whole flight.

"I’m not a good flyer so it made me incredibly nervous seeing that," Ms Barker said adding she thought it was regular Duct Tape.

Jessica Baker said she was so scared she couldn't take her eyes off the fixage during the entire flight. 

An Air NZ spokeswoman said that it wasn't regular Duct Tape, but instead a special aviation speed tape used on aircrafts and racing cars. 

Air New Zealand spokeswoman Emma Field told the website that it was in fact special aviation speed tape which is not like ordinary Duct Tape.

Ms Field claims this tape is used by airlines around the world and is an approved product by both aircraft manufacturers and the Civil Aviation Authority and Federal Aviation Administration.

It is made of aluminium and is used fix minor repairs on aircrafts and cars and is used as a temporary coverage and stays stuck even while travelling at a high speed.

[Kip Powick]

I really don't see a problem with the article other than the last sentence where the author uses the "word "aircrafts" for the plural of aircraft 

Obviously the lady who viewed the speed tape was not aware of how hardy the tape is and that it is used on aircraft for a temporary fix and perhaps many readers now have this piece of trivia filed away and will not be concerned should they see any "speed tape" on the aircraft they are flying on.

 

As an aside there are many many pilots who do not believe that many fighters use a piece of string "nailed" on the nose just ahead of the windscreen to indicate to the pilot that he is in a coordinated turn. When doing air-to-air combat or fixating on a ground target  it is important that the aircraft is in a non-yawing moment, (not so important with missiles), when the trigger is pulled. The string indicates the yawing moment and it saves the pilot from "head-down" looking at flight instruments. During air-to-air training many an instructor can be heard yelling "The string, the f *#+ing  string !! "

 

The photo below shows "the string" on one fighter..

[Moon The Loon]

My Dad had the same piece of string on the bubble of his Bell 47-G in 1957.

[mo32a]

^I'm pretty sure it was a "similar" piece, string doesn't last that long.

[Miles]

Sorry to put the topic back on topic, but when I read this article this morning I felt much the same as Anonymous. Mostly that this piece of stupidity actually made the news is truly what's mind boggling here. We are expected to believe that the engine was held together by a piece of speed tape covering a small access panel on the engine cowl. I don't blame the selfie-obsessed bimbo, I blame the reporter.

[Seeker]

It's important to remember that although we shouldn't try to hold our passengers to any standard of intelligence or technical knowhow their concerns should not be discounted.  I once had to deal, as a commuter, with a passenger that was in a state of panic because they believed there was a crack in the side of the aircraft - what had actually happened was one piece of the plastic sidewall had shifted slightly from it's neighbour.  Virtually everyone would recognize that the plastic trim inside the airplane has nothing to do with the integrity of the airplane structure but there have been cases of passengers spotting some valid issue before the pilots so they need to be heard and reassured, if it's minor or insignificant and thanked if it's really something. The problem is not that the woman (in the story above) was worried about what she saw out the window it's that she sat in terror for the whole flight and then voiced her concerns to someone who couldn't do anything about it, other than writing a news story. 

[anonymous]

Quote

Ms Field claims this tape is used by airlines around the world and is an approved product by both aircraft manufacturers and the Civil Aviation Authority and Federal Aviation Administration.

This was the most offensive line in the article, IMO. If the reporter had done 5 minutes worth of research, they would have found out the truth..and then they wouldn't have used the word "claim" in the sentence. The way it's written it makes it sound like the airline spokesperson was lying.

I have absolute sympathy for the passenger, up to the point where she starts posting her ignorant and uniformed comments on Facebook. If she had spoken to a crew member before/during/after the flight it should have been sorted out. Maybe someone did talk to her about it, and she didn't like the answer or thought they were covering something up. Who knows....but this generation's propensity to post every facet of their lives on social media allows the world to see how dumb some people are.