S
Soybean killer
Guest
I previously posted about this event. This is a more detailed account so others can learn from my lessons.
I was enroute to Oshkosh in my Decathlon with my son. We hit ugly weather the prior day, got separated from the other airplane in our flight, and spent the night at Rough River, KY. We were attempting to rendezvous in northern Illinois to fly the Airventure VFR arrival. We had a LOT of get-there-itis because we really wanted to make the Weds PM window.
I landed at a rural airfield in central IL. The fuel was full serve, so the line guy topped my tanks. I checked the caps afterward. I had 4 hours of fuel, and my next leg was a bit over 2 hours. Flying north, I hit frontal activity about 90 minutes into my flight. I diverted about 10 minutes east to a large surburban airport south of Chicago. About 15 minutes after we landed, a thunderstorm hit.
After the front passed over, I was eager to the next stop so we could stage the arrival flight. The airfield we were at had only full service fuel, but the line guy had left the FBO. The lady at the desk said she could call someone, but it might take a while. AVGAS was insanely expensive there, over 7 bucks a gallon, and my fuel monitor said I had 2+ hours of fuel remaining to fly a 45 minute leg. I departed without topping off.
I did not stick tanks during preflight. Accessing my tanks requires a ladder or stool. There was no ladder or stool visible on the ramp. I carry a milk crate for that purpose. BUT that milk crate was buried under a pile of camping equipment that would have to be unloaded.
I took off. Conditions were still a bit sketchy with lingering scattered/broken layer, which spooked me a bit since my son was onboard. I tried to climb over the clouds, but they were still rising at 5K, so I went through a hole and got under. Ceiling was about 3K MSL, which worked out to about 2200 AGL, so I was flying at about 1800 AGL over flat farmland.
About halfway into the leg, the engine stops. Then it restarts. Then it stops. Then it restarts. Again. Again.
As anyone who has been there understands, the first thing that does through your mind is denial. HFS. This. Is. Not. Happening. Especially with family on board.
The next is hope. Wishing it will magically fix itself. When the engine restarted and power surged, I thought "yay!!" ... followed by "aw." Then "yay". Then "aw".
My first thought was water from the thunderstorm. I guessed the surges might be the engine sucking up bits of water and burning it off. I checked controls, but TBH there isn't a lot to check or do in a Decathlon. Fuel on, mags not, mixture rich. Prop still spinning so nothing to restart.
This went on for maybe 15 seconds, before it was clear to me we were going down. With my son on board. F%@#.
I looked at my nav app. There was a private strip right off our nose. I looked down and identified a 2000' grass strip cut into a cornfield. I turned to align on downwind, made a quick attempt to deduce wind, then dropped that because math is hard when your brain is in fight or flee mode. My son asked what was happening. I said "I don't know", then "the engine is quitting, it's going to be fine, we are landing THERE" and pointed at the grass strip.
All this started at 1800' AGL. By the time I worked through denial and hope, I was probably around 1K AGL at midfield downwind. Except it was actually the upwind, which I didn't realize at the time.
At this point everything was happening fast. Very fast. I was abeam the touchdown point at 700-800 AGL and descending quickly. I did a tight 180 onto final, overshot the centerline, then brought it back to high short final.
I don't have flaps. At this point I tried to slip, which I do all the time. For some reason my hands and feet got all crossed up and I just said F It and pointed down the runway. I tried a wheel landing (which I suck at), bounced, then switched to 3 point attitude. It floated and floated and would not set down. In addition to carrying too much speed, I had a 5 knot tailwind and the airstrip was downhill in that direction.
Finally I realize I am going to run off the end of the runway into a low field covered with knee high plants. I yell to my son "brace yourself, we're going into the field". We float about 20 yards into the soybeans, touch down and ... poof. The softest, smoothest landing ever. Roll a few hundred yards to a stop, get out and check the plane. No damage, just green stains on the belly and a ton of plants on the wheel fairings and gear legs.
The farmer who owns the property showed up with a truck a few minutes later. We tied my tailwheel leaf spring to the hitch and walked the aircraft back to the grass airstrip. Then I start checking the plane. First I sump the fuel system. I am SHOCKED to find no water. Then I stick the tanks. Dink dink dink. Bone dry! The right wing has a wide blue stain in a fan pattern from the filler neck to the trailing edge. Pretty obvious what happened. The filler cap was not correctly sealed, which allowed roughly 15 gallons of fuel to be siphoned off during 2 hours of flight. I am going to withhold technical details on why that happened.
I text my IA buddy who is 30 minutes behind us. He lands at Dekalb, gets the crew car, buys gas cans at Walmart, fills with 100LL, and drives 10 minutes to where I am at. He checks the aircraft for damage and agrees with my assessment of cause. We gas it up and put my son and baggage in the crew car. Then I take off, circle to climb, and proceed 8 miles to Dekalb. The next morning we fly the approach uneventfully. I was AOG for maybe 2 hours.
Next post: lessons learned
I was enroute to Oshkosh in my Decathlon with my son. We hit ugly weather the prior day, got separated from the other airplane in our flight, and spent the night at Rough River, KY. We were attempting to rendezvous in northern Illinois to fly the Airventure VFR arrival. We had a LOT of get-there-itis because we really wanted to make the Weds PM window.
I landed at a rural airfield in central IL. The fuel was full serve, so the line guy topped my tanks. I checked the caps afterward. I had 4 hours of fuel, and my next leg was a bit over 2 hours. Flying north, I hit frontal activity about 90 minutes into my flight. I diverted about 10 minutes east to a large surburban airport south of Chicago. About 15 minutes after we landed, a thunderstorm hit.
After the front passed over, I was eager to the next stop so we could stage the arrival flight. The airfield we were at had only full service fuel, but the line guy had left the FBO. The lady at the desk said she could call someone, but it might take a while. AVGAS was insanely expensive there, over 7 bucks a gallon, and my fuel monitor said I had 2+ hours of fuel remaining to fly a 45 minute leg. I departed without topping off.
I did not stick tanks during preflight. Accessing my tanks requires a ladder or stool. There was no ladder or stool visible on the ramp. I carry a milk crate for that purpose. BUT that milk crate was buried under a pile of camping equipment that would have to be unloaded.
I took off. Conditions were still a bit sketchy with lingering scattered/broken layer, which spooked me a bit since my son was onboard. I tried to climb over the clouds, but they were still rising at 5K, so I went through a hole and got under. Ceiling was about 3K MSL, which worked out to about 2200 AGL, so I was flying at about 1800 AGL over flat farmland.
About halfway into the leg, the engine stops. Then it restarts. Then it stops. Then it restarts. Again. Again.
As anyone who has been there understands, the first thing that does through your mind is denial. HFS. This. Is. Not. Happening. Especially with family on board.
The next is hope. Wishing it will magically fix itself. When the engine restarted and power surged, I thought "yay!!" ... followed by "aw." Then "yay". Then "aw".
My first thought was water from the thunderstorm. I guessed the surges might be the engine sucking up bits of water and burning it off. I checked controls, but TBH there isn't a lot to check or do in a Decathlon. Fuel on, mags not, mixture rich. Prop still spinning so nothing to restart.
This went on for maybe 15 seconds, before it was clear to me we were going down. With my son on board. F%@#.
I looked at my nav app. There was a private strip right off our nose. I looked down and identified a 2000' grass strip cut into a cornfield. I turned to align on downwind, made a quick attempt to deduce wind, then dropped that because math is hard when your brain is in fight or flee mode. My son asked what was happening. I said "I don't know", then "the engine is quitting, it's going to be fine, we are landing THERE" and pointed at the grass strip.
All this started at 1800' AGL. By the time I worked through denial and hope, I was probably around 1K AGL at midfield downwind. Except it was actually the upwind, which I didn't realize at the time.
At this point everything was happening fast. Very fast. I was abeam the touchdown point at 700-800 AGL and descending quickly. I did a tight 180 onto final, overshot the centerline, then brought it back to high short final.
I don't have flaps. At this point I tried to slip, which I do all the time. For some reason my hands and feet got all crossed up and I just said F It and pointed down the runway. I tried a wheel landing (which I suck at), bounced, then switched to 3 point attitude. It floated and floated and would not set down. In addition to carrying too much speed, I had a 5 knot tailwind and the airstrip was downhill in that direction.
Finally I realize I am going to run off the end of the runway into a low field covered with knee high plants. I yell to my son "brace yourself, we're going into the field". We float about 20 yards into the soybeans, touch down and ... poof. The softest, smoothest landing ever. Roll a few hundred yards to a stop, get out and check the plane. No damage, just green stains on the belly and a ton of plants on the wheel fairings and gear legs.
The farmer who owns the property showed up with a truck a few minutes later. We tied my tailwheel leaf spring to the hitch and walked the aircraft back to the grass airstrip. Then I start checking the plane. First I sump the fuel system. I am SHOCKED to find no water. Then I stick the tanks. Dink dink dink. Bone dry! The right wing has a wide blue stain in a fan pattern from the filler neck to the trailing edge. Pretty obvious what happened. The filler cap was not correctly sealed, which allowed roughly 15 gallons of fuel to be siphoned off during 2 hours of flight. I am going to withhold technical details on why that happened.
I text my IA buddy who is 30 minutes behind us. He lands at Dekalb, gets the crew car, buys gas cans at Walmart, fills with 100LL, and drives 10 minutes to where I am at. He checks the aircraft for damage and agrees with my assessment of cause. We gas it up and put my son and baggage in the crew car. Then I take off, circle to climb, and proceed 8 miles to Dekalb. The next morning we fly the approach uneventfully. I was AOG for maybe 2 hours.
Next post: lessons learned
