Scary experience!!

[Henning]

I've been scared in airplanes lots of times. Sometimes for good reason; sometimes not.

Thank God, for none of the reasons posted here.

I have some questions:

Bruce: I know the way you maintain your airplanes...how did that happen despite your very-high-maintenance standards?

OOO OOOoo!!! I can answer that, and I'm not even a doctor, although I play one on the Breast Exam Bus. The reason was........it's an airplane.

Seriously, I've never seen a high performance aircraft that never had a problem regardless of how stringent the maintenace scheme. The shop I worked at at LGB, we had a very well off lawyer who was a really nice guy kept his plane there and had us doing the maint. He had offices in Long Beach and Vegas and commuted in his Turbo Centurion. Every time he came in, a couple times a week, he just parked it in front of the hanger said hi , gave us a squawk sheet and jumped in his car. We'd go over his plane fix the squawks, do a general inspection and what ever we found, "Just fix it and give me a bill" which he paid promptly on departure. He also departed with a new paint scheme on his prop, but that's a different story. Anyway, even with that level of expensive maint, he'd still blow something every now and again.

 

[Henning]

https://www.sunjournal.com/search/story.php?ID=48949

However, there are writer-misinterpretations of terminology and fact in the above. Of course, that never happens when non-aviator writers report on aviation mishaps.

EDIT: The above may not load(?????). Below is one from a different paper whose writer had a better slant on the story. Both, front page headlines but the latter spent more time talking to me and clarifying terminologies.

http://www.timesrecord.com/website/archives.nsf/56606056e44e37508525696f00737257/8525696e00630dfe05256e580057f45e?OpenDocument

HR

A perrennial favorite of mine; "Attempted Landing". Dang, sure looks landed to me....:cheerio:

 

[Big Bird]

1. Engine failure at 900 AGL during an IMC departure. Impulse coupler failed, a $13 part. Got back down with no problem and was airborne again in an hour.

2. My first instrument lesson was in actual. When time to return to the airport my instructor said to turn right. That would take me into the nearby foothills. I argued against a right turn, asked the controller "which way is the airport" and it was to the left. An unsettling moment and my last lesson with that fellow.

3. Got caught in wake turbulence on an approach. Darn nrear turned the plane upside down. As it was, I was headed downhill so firewalled and aborted the approach. I thought I was several minutes behind the jet tha landed but I was wrong.

4. Flew too close to virga once. 12000 feet at cruise, got flipped nearly upside down. Landed at the nearest airport to check my shorts for tobacco stains.
BB

 

[Lawreston]

I've been scared in airplanes lots of times. Sometimes for good reason; sometimes not.

Thank God, for none of the reasons posted here.

I have some questions:

HR: Why are there different names between the Harley who posts here and the name of the pilot in the newspaper article? (Jerry Crute?)

You're not the first to contemplate my name(s). I've used numerous in and out of the entertainment field. I worked in radio broadcasting as Jerry Leyman. My coverage was such that very few(other than family, friends, etc.) knew my legal first name. It became funny when my first bride to-be and I went to my hometown to get a marriage license, and I signed same with my legal, birth name; to which she exclaimed, Who's that? The town clerk who had known my family for decades thought it was a hoot. The "Jerry" moniker stuck when I was no longer working in broadcasting.

In business for myself for 27 years, about the only people who knew my legal first name were bankers and/or other contractual factions which required fixation of a legal signature. To all others, "Jerry" was pretty widely-known(oh, Crute is the family surname).

Having started riding Harley Davidson(s) with my father when I was less than two years old, some of the locals anointed me with the nickname, "Harley." When I joined AOPA I was involved in a long-running medical malpractice, wrongful death, action. When questions were asked I chose not to let fester any doctors/lawyers bashing potential thread, and disappeared for a couple months, returning considerably later as Harley Reich(borrowing the Reich(pronounced "Ryshe") from my uncle, Leonard Reich.

Then, there's Lawreston(my legal first name). As a part-time, multi-experienced actor/singer and/or photographer, many of my photographs were featured at my camera store. Many clients, some even long-time, wondered who was the photographer, Lawreston. "Oh, just an independent photographer whose work I find interesting." Using the one name allowed me to have a separation between "Jerry", the retailer, and "Lawreston", the practitioner of certain artistic endeavors). Some knew the secret; but many did not.

If you were to do a People Search on your computer, looking at (phone number edited OUT by HR)(reverse number search), in Maine, you'd come up with Jerry Leyman. It's been like that for decades: perfect way of having a (nearly) unpublished telephone number without paying extra for same. And only those few who know "the secret" can find my home telephone #.

Comprenez?

HR

Below you'll find me(on the right) counseling my "son", Will Rogers, in a production of The Will Rogers Follies. The B & W shot was a publicity shot for the production, and shows "Clement V. Rogers" with his daughters; or as Will Rogers would have said, "This here's muh Pa with muh six single sisters."

 

[EdFred]

Please don't take offense at this, but since you don't mention it, I am inclined to ask, Did anyone tell you that that was a mistake? If a gusting wind from behind is lifting your tail you go full forward on the controls. There's an old taildragger taxi mantra that crosses to nose draggers as well, "Climb into the wind, dive away from the wind". If you look at your tailplane from the rear, it becomes clear, that input actions have reversed reactions when the wind comes from behind.

No offense taken and I'm fully aware of the opposite control inputs when the wind is from the rear. In retrospect I still think I had more air moving front to back than I did back to front with my ground speed still up over 50 kts and would take the same actions again that I did then. As soon as I pulled back the rear end came down. There seemed to be enough front to back airflow to keep "normal" elevator effectiveness. Next time it could be the wrong decision, but I think that as long as more air is moving front to back, I'm better off using "normal" inputs. But that's just me.

 

[gismo]

Lance: How did you lose an engine? The fact you were able to restart points to fuel, spark, or air (did you run a tank dry by accident?) Did your air intakes freeze over and you had to go to alternate? Did you just 'bump' the key off or accidentally chop the mixture? How did you get it restarted?

This flight (one of my first real IMC x/c's) had me in trace-light icing for quite a while before breaking out over the Macinac Bridge and apparently the ice plugged the "ice free vent" on the left main tank. While outbound to the PT I switched to the "fullest" tank, that left main as indicated on the fuel gauge. With the vent plugged the bottom of the bladder had gotten sucked up and that caused the fuel level to read about 3/4 tank. Had I been paying closer attention to my fuel management I should have noticed that this was higher than expected, but this was before I learned to log my fuel usage on a per tank basis. Despite the 3/4 full on the gauge there was very little useable fuel in the tank and it ran out as soon as I pitched down coming out of the PT. After at least 5 seconds of a "this can't be happening" freezup on my part terminated by a pre stall buffet (this was all inside a snow producing cloud), the "When an engine quits switch fuel tanks and then try to figure it out" mantra (that had been pounded into my head at the BPPP training I'd taken when I bought the plane) kicked in. I switched to the right main (this plane had 5 tanks) pushed the nose down and the mixture in, and within seconds the engine was running again. None the less, it was one of the longest 10-15 seconds of my life. I can still remember wondering whether I would break out of the clouds/snow in time to see where we would crash and how the NTSB report was going to read after I "landed" in the woods short of the runway.