Looking Back

Every day I find myself looking back at things that I enjoyed some time ago because at my time in life the past is a lot bigger than what I have left ahead. I can recall my final landing during my ride for my PPL when I must have ben caught in a micro burst and encountered a 180 deg. wind shift and had to walk the airplane down with rudder. I must have mentioned this before so if I have, please excuse me. The landing was more like (and sounded like) a garbage can falling off the truck and what amazed me was the examiner sitting there with his arms folded and not saying a word through the whole thing. He then chastised me for not staying on the runway and I thought that I did enough just to get us down in one piece. One other vivid memory is allowing myself to pass through the washing machine turbulence of a B-29 on final to MacDill Field and getting kicked into a spin over Tampa Bay. There are many other incidents that stick in my mind but the most vivid was the successful landing at Redding/Enterprise in 1970 when my wife and I were returning from the Merced Antique Fly In in the L-3. Flying through the mountains on the way down and back had plenty of challenges that got squeaky a couple of times but the worst was Redding, Ca. Our arrival matched that of a nasty cold front with high winds, black sky, and rain drops the size of big grapes. I had to stay over I-5 at low altitude just to see where we were. I knew that there were two tall radio towers on either side so I followed the traffic. I turned at the intersection of the road that led to Enterprise strip and went over the north/ south strip at I estimated at 225 deg. and well over 100 MPH. I added a bit of power and made an early sweeping turn to the left and swung wide to the west of the strip. Right wing low and some right rudder on final and the arrival was a loud bang when the right landing gear oleo bottomed out. My wife let out a yell, the only one ever when flying with us. Forward stick and almost cruise power to keep it on the ground and even then it was trying to fly. Five guys came running out of the office and grabbed the airplane with one guy draped over the tail section and the others hanging on to the struts . I have no idea what I would have done without their help. Not heavy horsepower stuff but that is all we could manage. Seven kids and a brand new big house had an affect on the bank account. That was the last flight in the L-3 because it was destroyed in a mid-air a week later Oh! I wasn't flying it at that time. I'm getting accused of telling stories more than once so if this is a repeat chalk it up to strong long term memory and short term lapses.

 

Thanks, nothing I have ever done comes close to what many of you have experienced. I enjoy rewinding some things and I do wonder why I was able to escape from some of them. The closest I came to my end happened not in the air but on the ground when I was hand-propping a Stearman . It was equipped with a booster mag that the pilot could energize by working a handle back and forth. After getting the lyc. primed and a blade on compression , I yelled contact and leaned in to get my hands on the blade of the McCauley prop. to check that the brakes were on, " Hot n' Stop" was the call, the instructor in the cockpit started energizing the booster and the engine started . I don't know how I missed the blades of the steel prop when I was so off balance but my contortions must have been timely. I did feel the wind on my pant leg as a blade went by. I ended up on the ground and before I could get up to chew on the instructor a little, the airport manager came roaring out and lit into the guy like a bulldog.

 

I can't remember if I related the time that a Bonanza fired off all three airways flares into the hangar and we had three thermite fires going near a DC-3 and two Lockheed Lodestars plus a bunch of fabric covered airplanes. We were ordered to run the fire engine inside and spray the airplanes down while some other guys poured sand on the flares. Scariest thing ever!

 

Thank you! I was waiting for someone to ask about that. The Bonanza was a new 1947 if I remember. At that time they were still equipping some airplanes with three flares that could be deployed to light what was under you at night. Before the war there were many older airplanes that had them and i suppose that some thought that they were still needed. The flares were thermite (like incendiary bombs) and produced an extreme light as they floated down on their little parachute. This airplane was sitting broadside to the open big wooden hangar with its starboard side facing the interior. The flares were in the fuselage on the starboard side aft of the wing trailing edge. An electrician was installing one of the first Omni's and had to drill some small holes for switches and fasteners. When he was finished he turned on the master switch and unbeknownst to him, a lot of drill shavings had fallen on contact points that fired all the flares. There was always an open center aisle in the hangar to move the airplanes in and out and that was where we drove the fire engine in to spray the fabric covered airplanes. The hangar was the typical military rounded roof structure built of wood and jammed with airplanes. We all knew that you never sprayed water on thermite and that is where the buckets of sand came in. The hangar floor had three holes burned in it with globs of glass in them. We all kept our eyes on an escape route in case one of the larger airplanes lit off. An exciting day.

 

I have been trying to find visual evidence of those flares on the '47 Bonanza but no luck yet. I can still picture the three discs over the ports just aft of the wing. Maybe Beech has some record.

 

Yes, that is what I was referring to. If one examines photos and drawings from the late 20's and early 30's they would se the flare location under the fuselage aft of the cockpit, Boeing Model 40 is a good example. Thank you for finding evidence of what I was talking about.