rottydaddy
En-Route
Almost famous...
Seems my "interesting" C-140 checkout from about a year ago got written up in March 2009's Flying magazine's "I Learned About Flying From That" section. Bob did a great job on the write-up, but I will say I wasn't as scared as he makes it sound, LOL.
When it happened, we were both stunned a bit, but managed to stay cool. The closer we got to the runway, the better I felt. I knew that even if we ran out of rudder over the runway, our chances of walking away were excellent. I was a lot more scared afterwards!!
Not the section of Flying I'd most like to be mentioned in, but at least it's not in "Aftermath".
Looking back again on it, I realize that we never even thought to look up at the wings (would've seen the telltale scraps of tape trailing behind the left wing) because we got focused on the first theory (bird strike to the tail).
Not that it would have mattered much- in fact, it might have rattled us a bit more ("is more going to come off?") had we known exactly what was wrong.
There is a lesson to be learned from that, however: in some other situation, where some sort of troubleshooting is possible, being able to go through every possibilty could make all the difference. Mustn't get too focused on any one thing when you have a "situation". That's killed a lot of people, even seasoned pros.
But in this case, it was just a matter of continuing to fly with the plane as is, which Bob did in his usual disciplined way.
Being a good teacher, he's also a good learner... I'm not surprised to read that he regrets not calling an emergency, or at least a "Pan Pan". It worked out OK as it was, but if it hadn't, we might not have gotten help soon enough, with nobody aware of our problem. I'm also sure that like me, he's adding a little extra care to his preflight inspections... I'd missed the minor flaw in the covering due to lack of experience with fabric wings, and he'd dismissed it as a known defect that was "no worse than the last several times I'd flown the airplane".
We both were given a lesson in why that attitude doesn't cut it. Whether you don't know a plane well or know it too well, take nothing for granted during that preflight!
Seems my "interesting" C-140 checkout from about a year ago got written up in March 2009's Flying magazine's "I Learned About Flying From That" section. Bob did a great job on the write-up, but I will say I wasn't as scared as he makes it sound, LOL.
When it happened, we were both stunned a bit, but managed to stay cool. The closer we got to the runway, the better I felt. I knew that even if we ran out of rudder over the runway, our chances of walking away were excellent. I was a lot more scared afterwards!!
Not the section of Flying I'd most like to be mentioned in, but at least it's not in "Aftermath".
Looking back again on it, I realize that we never even thought to look up at the wings (would've seen the telltale scraps of tape trailing behind the left wing) because we got focused on the first theory (bird strike to the tail).
Not that it would have mattered much- in fact, it might have rattled us a bit more ("is more going to come off?") had we known exactly what was wrong.
There is a lesson to be learned from that, however: in some other situation, where some sort of troubleshooting is possible, being able to go through every possibilty could make all the difference. Mustn't get too focused on any one thing when you have a "situation". That's killed a lot of people, even seasoned pros.
But in this case, it was just a matter of continuing to fly with the plane as is, which Bob did in his usual disciplined way.
Being a good teacher, he's also a good learner... I'm not surprised to read that he regrets not calling an emergency, or at least a "Pan Pan". It worked out OK as it was, but if it hadn't, we might not have gotten help soon enough, with nobody aware of our problem. I'm also sure that like me, he's adding a little extra care to his preflight inspections... I'd missed the minor flaw in the covering due to lack of experience with fabric wings, and he'd dismissed it as a known defect that was "no worse than the last several times I'd flown the airplane".
We both were given a lesson in why that attitude doesn't cut it. Whether you don't know a plane well or know it too well, take nothing for granted during that preflight!
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I'm not a fabric expert (yet), but I'm a veteran "test flight crewmember". 
