Wed Jan 05, 2011 1:59 pm
#925909
A time for tears
Nick Lambert tells the tale of Pilot X who was looking forward as much as his young son to their first flight together in Dad’s new aircraft...
Pilot X couldn’t believe his luck. He’d found a retractable Cessna – a Cardinal – based at a grass strip less than ten minutes drive from his home. And now he’d bought a share in the aircraft.
He’d miss the camaraderie of the flying club, but he’d soon get to know the owners of the dozen or so locally-based aircraft – at an airfield with over 600m of manicured grass, orientated east-west, with clear approaches. If Carlsberg made airfields…
The first person he’d met was Peter, the treasurer of the Cessna group, who’d talked him through the offering. Before long, the demonstration flight morphed into a checkout. After a couple of circuits and a tour of the area, Peter declared Pilot X ‘good to go’, just as soon as the cheque for the neecessary amount had cleared.
Being so close to the aircraft soon paid dividends. If Pilot X left work promptly, he was often able to get an hour’s flying in before dusk. He would have liked to spend an evening studying the Pilot’s Operating Handbook, but it was a group rule that it stayed in the aircraft. If he was being honest, he’d initially found the Cardinal a bit of a handful. He’d been scared stiff of forgetting to lower the gear – and its sparkling performance meant the aircraft often arrived somewhere before his brain caught up. There was one embarrassing incident, visiting his old flying club, when he was unable to transmit. He never identified the problem but switched to the second box for the twenty-minute flight back. Mostly, he practised his landings. There were very few houses nearby, so he was able to bash the circuit relentlessly. Soon enough he was operating the aircraft slickly and felt on top of his game. Now the forecast for the weekend looked good and the time had come to take his young son flying...
It was difficult to know who was more excited as they drove the short distance to the farm. His son was armed with a camera and mum had instructions to come out into the garden when she heard them overhead. Pilot X calmly talked his son through everything as he meticulously checked the aircraft. Judging by his son’s numerous questions, he certainly had his attention. The boy followed him through on the controls as they took off. Pilot X levelled out at 1,500ft and he was pleased to notice an enormous grin was spreading across his passenger’s face. The boy was hooked – mission accomplished. He set course for his house and the photographic rendezvous…
Military option
Then, out of the blue, there was a loud bang and the aircraft pitched forward. Pilot X’s first thought was a bird strike. He looked around expecting to see blood and feathers and found none. His son, whose smile had vanished, glanced at his father and stammered, “I didn’t touch anything!”
Pilot X calmed down when he realised they weren’t going to fall out of the sky and turned back towards the strip. He found he needed quite a bit of back pressure to maintain altitude and the airspeed indicator was only showing 100kt. Could it be an engine problem?
He carefully looked around the cockpit and discovered that the gear-up light was no longer illuminated. This was the last thing he needed. He tried to cycle the gear but to no avail. He tried pulling some g, without briefing his passenger, who was now truly terrified. Nothing worked, and to make matters worse he realised he was now panicking. He took some deep breaths, got a grip of himself and explained to the boy that they would have to make a wheels-up landing. The boy said nothing but there were now tears running down his cheeks.
He keyed the mic and made a Pan call but no reply. He switched boxes, with the same result. What was going on? He could hear fine, just not transmit. Surely there was no way both radios would pack up simultaneously? After a few minutes fiddling, he accepted he was on his own. They were now passing over the strip but he had no idea whether grass or a hard runway was a better option. Grass seemed more forgiving, but something might dig in and flip them over. A hard runway would allow for slower deceleration but would increase the fire risk with all the sparks. One thing was for sure, a deserted farm strip, was not the place to find out.
Eventually, he concluded, a hard runway with a fire crew would be the best bet. But how would he get them safely into the circuit, of a ‘proper’ airport, with no radio? He was confident of getting into his former airfield but that had grass runways. Then he remembered his transponder; somewhere on his kneeboard there was a communications failure code. He selected 7600 and set course for a nearby military field. These guys were professionals and would know what to do.
He could neither hear nor see any traffic as they approached the ATZ. So far, so good. He did a low pass to alert the authorities to his predicament and set up for a long final. He checked his son’s harness and had him slide the seat all the way back. He didn’t care about saving the engine, but decided it would be safer not to have 200 horses thrashing about in front of them. As they crossed the threshold he slowly pulled the mixture and prop levers back. During the flare there was absolute silence. They touched down almost imperceptibly, save for the grating noise, that grew steadily in intensity.
Judging by their nose-high attitude, the nose gear was the only one down. They were at jogging pace before the aircraft tipped over to the port side. Father and son looked at each other and burst into hysterical laughter. Pilot X soon regained himself, opened the door, and they both scrambled out. The place was deserted…
1 Did both radios really fail simultaneously?
2 Could Pilot X have tried anything else to get the landing-gear down?
3 In the end a good result, but could our hero have handled the situation better?
Nick Lambert tells the tale of Pilot X who was looking forward as much as his young son to their first flight together in Dad’s new aircraft...
Pilot X couldn’t believe his luck. He’d found a retractable Cessna – a Cardinal – based at a grass strip less than ten minutes drive from his home. And now he’d bought a share in the aircraft.
He’d miss the camaraderie of the flying club, but he’d soon get to know the owners of the dozen or so locally-based aircraft – at an airfield with over 600m of manicured grass, orientated east-west, with clear approaches. If Carlsberg made airfields…
The first person he’d met was Peter, the treasurer of the Cessna group, who’d talked him through the offering. Before long, the demonstration flight morphed into a checkout. After a couple of circuits and a tour of the area, Peter declared Pilot X ‘good to go’, just as soon as the cheque for the neecessary amount had cleared.
Being so close to the aircraft soon paid dividends. If Pilot X left work promptly, he was often able to get an hour’s flying in before dusk. He would have liked to spend an evening studying the Pilot’s Operating Handbook, but it was a group rule that it stayed in the aircraft. If he was being honest, he’d initially found the Cardinal a bit of a handful. He’d been scared stiff of forgetting to lower the gear – and its sparkling performance meant the aircraft often arrived somewhere before his brain caught up. There was one embarrassing incident, visiting his old flying club, when he was unable to transmit. He never identified the problem but switched to the second box for the twenty-minute flight back. Mostly, he practised his landings. There were very few houses nearby, so he was able to bash the circuit relentlessly. Soon enough he was operating the aircraft slickly and felt on top of his game. Now the forecast for the weekend looked good and the time had come to take his young son flying...
It was difficult to know who was more excited as they drove the short distance to the farm. His son was armed with a camera and mum had instructions to come out into the garden when she heard them overhead. Pilot X calmly talked his son through everything as he meticulously checked the aircraft. Judging by his son’s numerous questions, he certainly had his attention. The boy followed him through on the controls as they took off. Pilot X levelled out at 1,500ft and he was pleased to notice an enormous grin was spreading across his passenger’s face. The boy was hooked – mission accomplished. He set course for his house and the photographic rendezvous…
Military option
Then, out of the blue, there was a loud bang and the aircraft pitched forward. Pilot X’s first thought was a bird strike. He looked around expecting to see blood and feathers and found none. His son, whose smile had vanished, glanced at his father and stammered, “I didn’t touch anything!”
Pilot X calmed down when he realised they weren’t going to fall out of the sky and turned back towards the strip. He found he needed quite a bit of back pressure to maintain altitude and the airspeed indicator was only showing 100kt. Could it be an engine problem?
He carefully looked around the cockpit and discovered that the gear-up light was no longer illuminated. This was the last thing he needed. He tried to cycle the gear but to no avail. He tried pulling some g, without briefing his passenger, who was now truly terrified. Nothing worked, and to make matters worse he realised he was now panicking. He took some deep breaths, got a grip of himself and explained to the boy that they would have to make a wheels-up landing. The boy said nothing but there were now tears running down his cheeks.
He keyed the mic and made a Pan call but no reply. He switched boxes, with the same result. What was going on? He could hear fine, just not transmit. Surely there was no way both radios would pack up simultaneously? After a few minutes fiddling, he accepted he was on his own. They were now passing over the strip but he had no idea whether grass or a hard runway was a better option. Grass seemed more forgiving, but something might dig in and flip them over. A hard runway would allow for slower deceleration but would increase the fire risk with all the sparks. One thing was for sure, a deserted farm strip, was not the place to find out.
Eventually, he concluded, a hard runway with a fire crew would be the best bet. But how would he get them safely into the circuit, of a ‘proper’ airport, with no radio? He was confident of getting into his former airfield but that had grass runways. Then he remembered his transponder; somewhere on his kneeboard there was a communications failure code. He selected 7600 and set course for a nearby military field. These guys were professionals and would know what to do.
He could neither hear nor see any traffic as they approached the ATZ. So far, so good. He did a low pass to alert the authorities to his predicament and set up for a long final. He checked his son’s harness and had him slide the seat all the way back. He didn’t care about saving the engine, but decided it would be safer not to have 200 horses thrashing about in front of them. As they crossed the threshold he slowly pulled the mixture and prop levers back. During the flare there was absolute silence. They touched down almost imperceptibly, save for the grating noise, that grew steadily in intensity.
Judging by their nose-high attitude, the nose gear was the only one down. They were at jogging pace before the aircraft tipped over to the port side. Father and son looked at each other and burst into hysterical laughter. Pilot X soon regained himself, opened the door, and they both scrambled out. The place was deserted…
1 Did both radios really fail simultaneously?
2 Could Pilot X have tried anything else to get the landing-gear down?
3 In the end a good result, but could our hero have handled the situation better?
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