Illustration by Alex Williamson
It was a beautiful spring day in central Iowa. Although there were a few scattered cumulus and some high thin clouds, with a slight chance of isolated thundershowers later in the day, my instructor and I agreed it would be a good day for my third solo cross-country. I had been planning this flight for a couple of weeks and was all set to go; I just needed to get the current winds from Cedar Rapids Flight Service and compute my groundspeed and wind correction angles. This accomplished and everything checked and double-checked, I filed a VFR flight plan, gave the red-and-white Cessna 152 a thorough preflight, and took off from the 2,600-foot grass strip near Waterloo.
Leaving the pattern, I picked up my heading to the first stop: Owatonna, Minnesota. This leg was fun and kept me busy eyeing some clouds to the west and using a combination of navigation techniques. My plan was to fly outbound from the Waterloo VOR, pick up the Austin VOR, and then use pilotage to Owatonna. The wind was pretty much as forecast, and everything went more or less according to plan. All my checkpoints showed up just about on the nose at the right time, and my landing was pretty good.
I double-checked my flight plan for the next leg to Spencer, Iowa, and called flight service to close the plan on the first leg and file the second. I did a quick walkaround, giving the fuel tanks the eyeball, and I checked the oil. The takeoff went fine and I picked up the new heading, climbing to 3,000 feet msl. I was just starting to relax and enjoy the view when the engine started making a heck of a racket.
In my 35 or so hours I had never heard anything like it. It sounded like a rapid-fire machine gun. My adrenaline and blood pressure must have jumped a few points. I pushed the mixture to full rich; a quick check of the tachometer and oil gauges showed everything normal. I grabbed my sectional and saw I was about 20 miles from Fairmont, Minnesota, which had a nice airport and was right on my route anyway. About the time I decided to land at Fairmont, the noise quit. A thousand thoughts ran through my head, but all the gauges were normal, so I decided that if everything was still normal when I was over Fairmont I would continue. I left the red knob all the way in.
As soon as I passed the halfway point between Fairmont and Spencer, the machine gun was back with me. All the gauges were still normal, so I listened more closely. While I checked the sectional again, I strained my ears to figure out just what it was I was hearing.
There were several airports close by, but none any better than my destination, so I stayed on course. I kept listening. Really, it didn’t sound like it was coming from the engine. A loose control surface, maybe, fluttering in the breeze? Or a loose cowling banging against something? I looked everywhere I could, but nothing looked loose. Maybe it was something underneath the fuselage. About that time the noise quit again. I continued to Spencer and landed without further incident.
Once on the ground, I was determined to stay there until I had cleared up the cause of the noise. I had visions of calling my instructor and spending some time in Spencer. By now I was more curious than anything. I taxied to the gas pumps and shut down. I was going to get to the bottom of this at last. I hoped there was a mechanic around to fix whatever it was.
I opened my door and solved the problem immediately. There, hanging out the bottom of my door, was about four inches of seat belt. It still had a crease in it from the pressure of the door and frame. It had been caught in the slipstream and had rapidly oscillated against the cabin. I was a little dumbfounded that it could have made such a racket. I vaguely remembered reading somewhere a long time ago about something like this happening to somebody else. I felt a little foolish.
Tanks topped and a preflight accomplished, I set out for home without any further “engine trouble.”
On arriving at my home base, the examiner who was later to sign off my checkride told me of a similar thing that had happened to him once in a Cardinal RG. I made a mental note to add to my personal checklist, Seat belts: not hanging out door.
