Lately, I'm flying a 77 year old J3-90. So I'm practicing dead stick landings, from various places in the pattern and from various altitudes, trying not to end up in the corn or the trees on approach. Old Cub engines are notorious for stopping at very inopportune times, so you practice.
The scenario:
The airport has a 1 runway, no taxi way, a grass strip parallel and 20 yards away from the runway and grass\gravel right next to the paved runway.
I prefer the grass, but it is always being used by people to back-taxi to the end of the runway, so if I can't get on the grass, I land on the grass\gravel. It's a local option.
The Cub likes it, it saves wear and tear on the tires, and since original equipment Cub brakes rarely last more than 1 taxi\takeoff\landing combination, I just let it run out on it's own, the gravel\grass slows the plane down, and I back taxi on the grass. It's all good.
For this particular landing I'm high and fast when I turn final. There is a Archer on the runway and a Cherokee is back taxiing on the grass, and when he gets to the end of the grass He forgets I'm coming and pulls across the gravel and stops.
No problem. I'm slipping really hard, with the nose up to keep the speed down. I lower the nose, pick up a few MPH. I then pop up over him, three point it and roll out. No sweat. Eat your heart out, Harrison Ford. I get out, pull the prop and taxi back for another trip around the patch.
Except the student in Cherokee screams on the Unicom that I'm going to hit him and we are all going to die in a blazing fireball.
Everyone has a good laugh.
Unfortunately, the guy with a handheld in the house, 3/4s of a mile away, who hates airplanes, hears it and calls the police and reports a collision.
The local Barney arrives, lights flashing, and won't believe anyone that the Cub currently buzzing about the airport is not actually being flown by a charred corpse. The Archer is on his way back to Montauk, The student who cracked the joke is miles away, and not inclined to come back, maybe EVER, and so they ask me to come down so the officer could "see me about the alleged incident." The exact words.
So I made a high speed pass (OK. It's a J3 Cub. I'm using some poetic license here) less than a foot off the deck and waved at them when I went past. "I see you!".
SHE was worth looking at.
The officer is visibly upset, the line monkeys are actually rolling on the ground, and the lady in the FBO is asking me pretty please will I land and talk to the officer?
Being the responsible adult that I am (and my time being up, they need the plane for a student) I landed and explained that no aircraft or pilots were incinerated in the the performance of the minor jest of 20 minutes past.
I then suggested she talk to the aviation hater who filed a false report. Oh, and I offered to take the police officerette up in the Cub.
Nothing works like a bribe.
She was actually quite fetching, and a pretty blond, in uniform, carrying a gun, is pretty darned sexy. Even to us old geezers. She came back on her lunch break and I took her up for 1/2 an hour.
She thinks it's so cute that I'm an old pastor and can fly an airplane.
