Pretty sure this is a bit out of the ordinary, and maybe a post maintenance slip up, causing an unfortunate accident, but no sweat to take a bit more notice on these during pre-flights.
Magni down on 20/02/09 in Australia:
Hello All, We are at the point of publishing an Airworthiness Directive in Australia for Magni gyro's. Thank you for all being patient but as you would expect we had to be sure of our facts.
The Magni is unique in a few area's of construction,one being the use of right AND left hand thread rod ends used in the control system vertical control rods.
This system is also used in some brands of helicopters.
The main reason for this design I believe is ease of adjustment.
On the recent accident gyro it was found that one of the control rods was completely dislodged from the upper and lower rod end. No evidence of damage to the threads on either the rod end or the insert was found.The control rod was found loose at the impact site.
It was obvious to the investigators that the rod had unscrewed in flight rendering the gyro uncontrollable.
Obviously once the rod ends/lock nuts were loose and with the apparent lack of any locking type compound on the threads there was nothing to stop the control rod from completely unscrewing.
This is of course different when two right hand threads are used where if the control rod does become loose it will never detach if at least half the thread of each rod end is screwed into the control rod insert.
All Magni gyro's in Australia are now grounded pending the owner fitting a positive locking device on the control rods/rod ends.
We fully appreciate the excellent safety record of this brand of gyro and admit there are extenuating circumstances with the rod ends on the aircraft that crashed.
I will publish the AD on a separate thread and we will advise the Magni factory of our findings.
In the meantime I would appreciate if anyone you know that may not read this to be informed and make the inspection of this area of their gyro a priority at preflight.