A thing that happened (And why I owe TecProtb a lifetime supply of free beer)

SixPapaCharlie

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It was 20G30 and crappy out but I had to go see a guy about a plane.
Weather was marginal but I made the 9 mile flight from KDTO to 52F.
How did I pass the time? Books on tape? Crossword Puzzles?

It wasn't that bad actually. At 165kts the trip goes by quicker than you'd think.
I only filled the Gatorade bottle once. Alright you get it, it was a very short flight.

I haven't been flying much lately because of because.
I think 1/3 the gust factor so add some speed and let's do half flaps.
Somehow I cross the numbers at like a hundred knots. Lets just call it "bad piloting"

bounce bounce bounce and use all of the runway because people worked hard to make the whole thing. Don't make their work in vane (or is it vein?)


Taxi the plane onto the grass patch for transient and hop into my friend plane to go learn all about the make and model (which is not important right now)

Oh by the way if I forgot to mention it, this story is going to be lengthy.

We fly and stall and land and takeoff and just put this plane through its paces.

We wrap up and I hop into the Cirrus.

Starts right up and I give it throttle and nothing...
More power and now it is doing a doughnut and right about the 180 degree mark, the plane stops doughnuting and will not budge.

Stay with me.


Now I am sitting there full throttle and rocking my body (not like smantha fox) to try and shake it forward. As if adding another 190lbs is going to be the little bit it was missing.

Nothing.

shut down, and get the tow bar. Certainly I am stronger than a 310 HP motor.
The free castering nosewheel is completely cocked (not a penis reference MC) to the left.

I try to straighten it out but the pressure is too much and I bend the tow bar instead. It was at this point, I knew this was going to be one of those stories.

I call text Tim (@tecprotb) hoping he is at his hangar. Tim has everything in the most amazing man cave anyone could imagine.

He says no, he is resting at home having the best most restful pleasant Sunday a man could have. Just the greatest uninterrupted Sunday ever.

I say "I'm stuck in the grass at 52F"
Tim who is now my Super hero says "I'll be there in 20 minutes and we will see what we can come up with"

In the meantime, a couple guys in a truck come by and try to tie my now bent tow bar to their trailer hitch and pull but I am not liking the way it looks so I say "Let's not do this"

Tim arrives.

We go to his A&P hangar and read the manual on how to jack up a Cirrus.
We take out the tie down rings insert the jack points.

We go to Tim's hangar and get pieces of ply wood and tools and a big Jack.

We jack up the plane and slide wood under each wheel.

Tim watches from a safe distance as I start the aircraft.

I gun it and the plane moves maybe half a foot and will move no more.

Tim is yelling something at me.

I shut down and open my door and he says "You are just dragging the wood"
Then he asks a game the changing question, "Is your parking brake on man?"

Yes.

Yes it was.

I released the parking brake and like a Christmas miracle, the plane effortlessly rolled along like a dear in the meadow at the dawn of a new spring, chasing butterflies.

I flew home looking down at all the cars below me and thinking "There... Down there is where I belong. Not here in a complicated flying machine." I should be allowed to travel in things like slow cars or maybe even just shoes. This plane stuff is more geared toward brilliant minds that can do complex things like reading and knowing what levers do.

Oh well..

If I recall at Osh Tim was quite fond of the leinenkugel, summer shandy.
I will see to it that a case of this ends up in Tim's man cave in the very near future.

Thank you Tim!
 
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Amazing story Bryan. Been there done that, except it was the chocks, or the tail tie down one time. Felt terrible about that one, and the bossman wasn't too impressed either but he let me hang around anyway. Amazing what a C310 can pull loose though. Well it really didn't pull loose, well yeah it did though I guess. I'm talkin' about the tail tie down, cleaned off the bird. :D
 
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We were wondering about what happened to you. Or were we wandering about with our ewe. Glad Techprob was able hop, skip and jump over there to get you toad.
 
Those kinds of days suck. Happens to us all. I sometimes feel the same way... Maybe I should just be walking...
 
They were planning your funeral here just this morning, btw.

Funeral? All I heard was taking Bryan out on the boat into the Gulf, and 'drop' him off there. Got the group discount.

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Been there, done that, been laughed at by the guys in the control tower....:oops:
 
I'm in shock.

Cirrus puts parachutes and PARKING BRAKES in every plane?

Any other worthless equipment in those suckers? Maybe ADF and LORAN.

No wonder they need expensive additional training.
 
Damn that sucks.

Not half as bad as the guy who landed at San Carlos with the parking brake on. The photo of the flat tire with an enormous hole in the tread was priceless, in the "holy **** I'm glad that's not me" sense. I've seen a lot of flat spots, but that's by far the worst. I don't know how he stayed on the runway.

At least you didn't try to tow the airport.
 
Oops. But I won't throw stones as I've forgotten to turn on the "charging" half of the main breaker before. And flipped and flipped the gear up switch on climb-out without verifying that the emergency gear drop valve was normal (nor checking the gear lights until nearly top of climb).

$&it happens.
 
Damn that sucks.

Not half as bad as the guy who landed at San Carlos with the parking brake on. The photo of the flat tire with an enormous hole in the tread was priceless, in the "holy **** I'm glad that's not me" sense. I've seen a lot of flat spots, but that's by far the worst. I don't know how he stayed on the runway.

At least you didn't try to tow the airport.

I have a habit of overinflating my tires. Like my car tires and my motorcycle tires which love it. The plane not so much. If I overinflate my plane's tires I'm losing traction and burning rubber on landing.
 
I blaming your CFI, when you were transition training I remember you getting pounded about never being on grass. Fast forward to today when parking at 52F all the tie downs are over the grass, so off on the grass you go. When you fire up and have a little resistance you immediately think your stuck instead of a normal cockpit check. I bet if you were on pavement you would have handled it differently.
 
I thought he wore fuzzy red socks...

To match the Red handle?

is
 
Now for a "brakes on" warning LED on the panel. I have one for each gull-wing door.
 
I blaming your CFI, when you were transition training I remember you getting pounded about never being on grass. Fast forward to today when parking at 52F all the tie downs are over the grass, so off on the grass you go. When you fire up and have a little resistance you immediately think your stuck instead of a normal cockpit check. I bet if you were on pavement you would have handled it differently.

Outstanding point. On pavement, the first thing I would think I'd parking brake then tie down or chock.
 
Even my old Tampico had a brake light.... you'd think the braintrust who gave us the Big Red Handle could come up with a little red light.


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You crossed the numbers at 100 knots? Damn, that is sloppy piloting. I can't fly that slow.
 
Cessna made planes with parking brakes that never work. Problem solved.
Ohh they work! I've set one during preflight before and when it was time push it back, I grab the tow bar and push as hard as I can wondering why I can't get the airplane to move and suddenly...:idea:I realized I set the parking brake beforehand.
 
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"I rent a lot of cars, but I don't always know everything about them. So a lot of times, I drive for like ten miles with the emergency brake on. That doesn't say a lot for me, but it really doesn't say a lot for the emergency brake. It's really not an emergency brake, it's an emergency "make the car smell funny" lever."

-Mitch Hedberg
 
Cessna made planes with parking brakes that never work. Problem solved.

I figured to opt out on the parking brake during the build. So no worries about ever not releasing it.
Just chock the wheels if you're ever dealing with a slope when parking (I think I've used them once in 100 hours), and stand on the brakes when doing the run-up. I remember setting the brake on a Cherokee I trained in for run-up, but it really seemed like an unnecessary step.

A really firm stomp on the brakes is a good pre-flight check too!
 
You crossed the numbers at 100 knots? Damn, that is sloppy piloting. I can't fly that slow.

If I crossed the numbers at 100 knots, I'd float across the county line! Lessee, at 100' of extra float per knot, stall speed is ~63 mph = 54 knots, that's 46 knots too fast, so I'd float 4600' before touching down. No, I would float an extra 4600 feet before touching down! Of course, yesterday I made a fuel stop at a 5000' long runway and coasted the last several hundred feet to the midfield turnoff, never did use the brakes . . .

My plane has something labeled "Parking Brake," but I've never used it. I carry travel chocks in the back of the plane, and most ramps are level enough that from a standstill, she won't roll much at all before I can get around the wing, sit down and press lightly on the toe brakes.
 
This was the first time I ever used the parking brake.
And the last.
 
This was the first time I ever used the parking brake.
And the last.

What made you use it? Parking on grass, change of routine, figured it was a "good idea" sort of thing?

Every Piper I've ever owned had one of those useless park brakes and the only times ever engaged was the pre-buy and annuals. I never used the damn things because I never trusted them to hold when they needed to, or release when they were expected to.
 
Even my old Tampico had a brake light.... you'd think the braintrust who gave us the Big Red Handle could come up with a little red light.


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Perspective (G1000) avionics cirrus models have a CAS warning when the parking brake is on. Stares you right in the face, hard to miss.
 
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