Aviation Knots

[theIronPaw]

Yup, knots of the tying kind

Wondering what wonderous knots people use when tying their aircraft down, and do you have a particular reason for using a particular knot?

What knots are best for load-bearing, ease of tying, ease of release after repetitive strain... that sort of thing??

[DeSarge]

A Round turn and 2 1/2 hitches (or variants of that) works pretty well. It's about the only one I do for aircraft. Easy to tie, (relatively) easy to undo, doesn't weaken the rope, etc.

Just did a 2 minute google search, and this website had a decent amount of info.

The Most Useful Rope Knots for the Average Person to Know

From what I've seen, most pilots can't tie knots, and just do "If you can't tie knots, tie lots"

[RakiuraSkies]

I always use a Bowline. will take all you can put on it and undo it without dramas. if you have a tail left on the rope when your finished, a couple of half hitches around the rope finishes it off nicely. Wont slip.Therefore it cannot come undone.

And clove hitches when you need to attach a rope to a wire rope along the ground

[TestPilot]

FWIW, we use inch thick rope that has slightly different characteristics than your average nylon rope. We tie an overhand bite (or an Alpine Butterfly) halfway up to the tiedown point. Then the free end goes through the tiedown, back through the bite, is tensioned and tied off at the bite with with three half hitches.

It regularly survives gusts up to 100kts and occasionally beyond.

[RadioSaigon]

We don't use many knots in the traditional manner. We normally splice loops into the end of our lines: The Eye Splice, as they are very strong and permanent.

All of our floats are fitted with cleats at both ends. We generally secure lines to the aircraft using a cleat hitch The Cleat Hitch.

We use an Alpine Butterfly on one of the fixed lines on our semi-sub to prevent the aircraft moving either forward or aft with a single rope whilst embarking and disembarking passengers.

If we are using someone elses mooring or picking up from a boat we will often tie a Figure Eight on a Bight so that we can hook the loop over the back half of the forward cleat. We can then let the aircraft float back prior to starting the engine. When we start moving forward the loop falls off the back of the cleat - being attached to another boat/mooring prevents us from drifting into something expensive if the engine doesn't start.

The other knot we use is a Bowline to secure the loose end of the anchor rode to the float locker to stop us from losing the anchor.

Rope selection and care is very important. Nylon is excellent as it is very strong and stretches under load. 12mm nylon has a breaking strain of 2940kg compared to only 1260kg for the same sized silver rope. Keep rope out of the sun, dry and away from chemicals to prevent deterioration.

A bare (web) footed pilot.