It's a sad day

timwinters

timwinters

Ejection Handle Pulled
Joined
Feb 23, 2008
Messages
13,732
Location
Conway, MO
Display Name
LTD
Home Airfield
KLBO---Lebanon, MO
I just received an e-mail from the guy who bought my first love.

She's totaled.

I don't have any details yet as to how and why but...

33B will fly no more.

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Here she is proudly sitting at the Ste. Genevieve, MO international airport (6MO2, grass, 1600x90 when the local farmers don't plow up the south 200' or so)

10770-33bingrass-cropped.jpg


by the way...just so you don't think I'm totally crass...the pilot is fine.
 
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Man. I would feel bad if something happened to my buddy.
 
That sucks, Tim.

While my "first love," N3421E, the plane I soloed and got my private in, is still going strong (and putting well over 1,000 hours a year on with more students soloing and getting their tickets too :) ), there's three in my logbook that are no more:

N105FS, AKA "what do you mean a 172 isn't FIKI?" Luckily, everyone walked away, kind of a miracle when you see that the hot engine fell right near the root of the broken-open wet wing:
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N5360F, AKA "What do you mean I can't fly 455nm in an Archer with a 30-knot headwind without refueling?" Unfortunately, this one had the opposite ending: They pulled the plane up off the bottom of Lake Michigan, but the pilot tried to swim for it and his body was never found. Discussed in a very early PoA thread, here.

Found this too:
http://www.boatnerd.com/news/archive/5-05.htm said:
A private dive company operator said on Friday that he located a single-engine plane that crashed in Lake Michigan on Monday night. He did not find pilot Jonathan Leber's body, he said, but did see the cell phone on which he made his final call for help.

Jerry Guyer, owner of Pirate's Cove dive company, said he used coordinates of where Leber's plane went off the radar - eight miles straight out from the center of the Hoan Bridge - and searched using advanced sonar equipment on his boat Thursday. At noon, the sonar revealed what appeared to be the plane, and he marked the spot, planning to return Friday to search.

On Friday, Guyer said, he dived alone into the 41-degree water and could see the plane beginning at 80 feet below the surface. Guyer said he dived to the bottom - about 160 feet - to find the plane nose-down on the lakebed. The plane's door was open and a cell phone was next to the plane in the sand, Guyer said.

Leber's rented single-engine Piper Archer went into Lake Michigan about 11:40 p.m. Monday after he ran out of fuel on his way back from visiting a friend in Hamilton, N.Y. He sat on top of the plane while making a 911 call for help as the aircraft sank into the water. U.S. Coast Guard officials searched immediately for Leber after receiving a call from Mitchell International Airport, which had tracked his aircraft on radar. A 15-hour rescue effort found no sign of Leber or the plane.

Guyer, who often looks for wreckage and assisted authorities last year when two girls drowned in the Milwaukee River, said there was no way Leber could have swum to shore, given the water's temperature. "After 17 minutes in the water with the best wetsuit and underwear money can buy, I was already shivering cold myself," he said.

Altogether Guyer said he was in the water for 30 minutes. He brought a video camera but said he didn't have time to use it because he spent time searching for Leber's body because he wanted to give the family closure.
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That one was an eye-opener for me, and caused me to do a lot of reflection before flying across the lake myself.

Finally, N6454J, AKA "What do you mean 'flight controls free and correct?'" Tried to take off with the control lock installed. Lifted off, porpoised, lifted off again, and then mushed its nose into the runway, really screwing up the front end, but everyone walked away from this one too. Thought I had a picture of it, but I guess not.
 

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flyingcheesehead said:
Finally, N6454J, AKA "What do you mean 'flight controls free and correct?'" Tried to take off with the control lock installed. Lifted off, porpoised, lifted off again, and then mushed its nose into the runway, really screwing up the front end, but everyone walked away from this one too. Thought I had a picture of it, but I guess not.
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I'm pretty hard core on a proper check of flight controls; a complete and fluid check. None of this twisting, turning and yanking back and forth with barely a look out any window. Verify they are free without restraint and with full motion. And, the yoke and rudders move the appropriate flight control the direction intended; hence they are correct. The entire check should be done with four simple motions while looking directly at each flight control.

I make it clear that people have died because such a check was not done properly or possibly not done at all. Such a proper check may very well save your life. Too many times, it's cast aside.
 
KennyFlys said:
I'm pretty hard core on a proper check of flight controls; a complete and fluid check. None of this twisting, turning and yanking back and forth with barely a look out any window. Verify they are free without restraint and with full motion. And, the yoke and rudders move the appropriate flight control the direction intended; hence they are correct. The entire check should be done with four simple motions while looking directly at each flight control.

I make it clear that people have died because such a check was not done properly or possibly not done at all. Such a proper check may very well save your life. Too many times, it's cast aside.
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Yup. Yoke goes left, head goes right to check the aileron, then I look out the back window, pull all the way aft, rudder full deflection both ways, turn yoke right, look out the left window, let the yoke gently back to full forward (where it sits on the 182, 'til ya add power).

A good rule for the "and correct" part that someone here told me: Whichever way the horns on the yokes, or your thumbs, are pointing is the aileron that should go up. "Thumbs Up."
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Yup. Yoke goes left, head goes right to check the aileron, then I look out the back window, pull all the way aft, rudder full deflection both ways, turn yoke right, look out the left window, let the yoke gently back to full forward (where it sits on the 182, 'til ya add power).

A good rule for the "and correct" part that someone here told me: Whichever way the horns on the yokes, or your thumbs, are pointing is the aileron that should go up. "Thumbs Up."
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Actually, I prefer more fluid than that...

Roll yoke left, Look left, Confirm left aileron up.

Leave yoke left, Look right, Confirm right aileron down.

Continue looking right, Roll yoke right, Confirm right aileron up.

Look left, Confirm left aileron down, Bring yoke neutral and full forward.

Look over your shoulder at the elevator, confirm elevator down.

Pull yoke full back, Confirm elevator full up.

Push yoke full forward, Confirm elevator full down again.

Push full left pedal, Confirm rudder is full left.

Push full right pedal, Confirm rudder is full right.

ONLY after such a check are flight controls verified to be "Free and Correct."

Does it seem a lot I described? Perhaps, but it's not. The whole idea is to make simple, fluid movements and look for where the controls should be with each full input of the yoke and pedals.

I've watched pilots climb in and twist and turn, yank and jam on the yoke without a clue what is happening outside the cabin. Likewise with sticks... sure, the stick moves free but what about those surfaces it's supposed to control? I guess it looks cool just to grab the stick and pretend you're stirring the gravy.
 
KennyFlys said:
Actually, I prefer more fluid than that...
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I do it a lot more fluidly than I describe it. ;) And I actually do start out looking left and end looking right to verify the "up" ailerons too. So the head/eyes make about a 540-degree turn to the right starting at 270.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
That sucks, Tim.

While my "first love," N3421E, the plane I soloed and got my private in, is still going strong (and putting well over 1,000 hours a year on with more students soloing and getting their tickets too :) ), there's three in my logbook that are no more:

N105FS, AKA "what do you mean a 172 isn't FIKI?" Luckily, everyone walked away, kind of a miracle when you see that the hot engine fell right near the root of the broken-open wet wing:
attachment.php

.
Click to expand...

That was lucky - after the ice caused the engine to stall resulting in the airplane plunging 200 feet to the ground :nonod:

Lets see, N76848 was somewhere down south last time I checked.

On the other hand, N1976W was totaled when the engine quit on climbout and the pilot put it on the rail road tracks near VLL. And one of my dad's Navion's (don't remember the number) ended up splashing down just off a Florida beach.
 
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