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possums(at)bellsouth.net
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 Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 10:31 pm Post subject: Off field landings - Do not archive. |
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Just to fill in the empty space.
The Unplanned Landing
By Ben Methvin...not me! Not Kolb related : -DELETE
but we all have our own learning experiences.
BTW ..Ben was one of my best students/instructors ...HaHa
right John H ??
I've got better UPL'S - but due to limited space- why don't you
guys post some yours? JUST FOR FUN.
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By Ben Methvin:
I have lots of glorious hours in Ultralights
behind the Rotax family of engines. I have lots
of unplanned landings over the last ten years. I
have been very lucky. After my most recent
landing in a sod field I am compelled to pass on
some observations. Hanging upside down in an
ultralight in a sod field focus the mind
somewhat. My observations and some details of the causes follow:
A Sod Field – Mini Max 103 – Engine Seizure
While climbing out from an “E” airport, the
single cylinder 277 Rotax engine abruptly
stopped. I had pulled the throttle back after
reaching the first climb segment. Luck was with
me and below was a beautiful sod field in a
circular style due to the round-track sprinkler
system. An easy dead-stick (I hate that
expression) landing in one of the curved segments
followed. The manager of the sod farm was most
pleasant and said that I had not damaged his crop
and offered any help to get me on my way. I
turned the prop, heard a sharp metallic clink and
found it turned easily with the reassuring feel
of compression. I pulled on the prop and it
started with a healthy sound. Thanking the nice
man I took off and spiraled to an altitude
sufficient to reach my home airport less than two
miles away - if the engine again stopped. Landing
at my home airport was uneventful.
Observation: I was lucky twice. Once when I found
the great field below me and the second when I
broke one of my later rules of never taking off after an unexplained failure.
Cause: Although the engine was running fine I
checked the cylinder and piston and found a
melted scar of aluminum on the wall of the
piston. The engine has seized when I suddenly
retarded the throttle. I later learned that this
was not unusual and from then on retarded the
throttle slowly whenever possible after a climb.
A Cow Field – Mini Max 103 – Engine seizure
Flying low levels in unoccupied fields is always
fun but the low level severely limits the pilot’s
options should the engine quit. It quit at 50
feet AGL landing was immediate and fortunately
into a pasture without much hoof damage. There
was just enough residual energy to clear a fence
before the flare. Landing was uneventful and the
low time pilot (me) elected to start the engine and take off for the
four-mile return to the airport. This was before
cell phones. Luck again and the landing at the airport was uneventful.
Observation: Again twice lucky. With only 50 feet
of altitude there are almost no options except to
“Fly the Airplane” and to land straight ahead.
The fence could easily have stopped this
narrative. By flying the airplane and maintaining
the airspeed I had just enough energy to Plop over the fence.
Cause: Engine seizure (I have no idea why Rotax
quit making the 277 but this might have had
something to do with it.) Again a new piston and honed cylinder
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biglar
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
Posts: 457
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| Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 4:20 am Post subject: Off field landings - Do not archive. |
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Good stuff and interesting reading, Possum. Send some more. Do not Archive.
Larry Bourne
Santa Fe, NM
www.gogittum.com
[quote] ---
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_________________
Larry Bourne
Palm Springs, CA
Building Kolb Mk IIIC
"Vamoose" |
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d-m-hague(at)comcast.net
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| Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 11:14 am Post subject: Off field landings - Do not archive. |
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At 01:29 AM 1/1/2007, possums wrote:
| Quote: | ...why don't you
guys post some yours? JUST FOR FUN. |
Hoo boy! I assume we'll not count all the PPG forced landings (two redrive shaft failures resulting in the prop falling off, a presumed ignition failure which put me in the ocean (recovered everything and had it flying two days later), one fuel starvation situation where an out of balance prop caused foaming of a nearly empty tank, and several exhaust system failures where I shut it down to save the propeller), but there were a few in my old Taylorcraft (yes, not even a Rotax but a certified Continental A-65...)
Engine failure on takeoff- I had flown to another airport about 50 miles from my home field in NJ to pick up a co-worker (we were heading to Pax River on business). He got in, I took off, and about 100' in the air the engine started making horrible noises and I lost almost all power. I pushed the nose down, made a VERY fast wheel landing on what was left of the runway, stood on the brakes as hard as I dared, and stopped in the weeds at the end of the runway about 6" from a ditch. Turned out the hardened intake valve seat had popped out of where it's pressed into the cylinder head. Drove back to my home field and rented a Cessna 172 for the trip.
Sod field out in the sticks- Just flying around NJ, I saw a nice looking farm field amidst the cranberry bogs so I flew down low to check it out on a low approach. When I added power to climb back out again, the engine started running real rough, barely enough power to maintain altitude. I circled around at low altitude and landed on the field. When I got out of the plane I saw the rusted frame of a wind sock laying in the grass (I later learned it was a field that crop dusters used to use years ago). Opened the cowling and saw a whole bunch of water and crud in my gascolator... I had just filled up from the airport's brand new fuel truck, and I guess it hadn't had time to settle out by the time I preflighted. Once I drained it out I had no trouble restarting and flying back home, where I barely resisted the temptation to deck the FBO owner.
Morning Sickness- This one isn't really a forced landing in the usual sense. I had been married about a year, and my wife and I decided to fly to Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome for the show. About halfway there, she started feeling sick, though she normally didn't get airsick... we didn't know then that she was pregnant. Nothing to barf into, so I landed in the first available farm field (not quite fast enough). We cleaned her (and the plane) up with bunches of grass, and continued to Rhinebeck.
Precautionary landing on a pier- We were returning home to NJ from my parent's house in upstate NY on Easter Sunday evening, flying through the NYC TCA "slot" (VFR corridor) over the Hudson River. The T-Craft has a 12 gallon fuselage tank and a 6 gallon wing tank. When it works, the wing tank is supposed to refill the main tank when the main tank is half empty, but sometimes an air bubble or something prevents it from flowing (it's just gravity flow). This time I waited too long to open the valve so the main tank was almost empty... and it wouldn't drain. I wasn't sure I had fuel to make it across New York Bay, and the only nearby airport was Teterboro, with lots of traffic (and I had no radio), and I wasn't exactly sure where it was anyway (no chart, I knew the route by heart but I'd never been to Teterboro), I elected to land on a long (900') concrete pier in Weehawken on the NJ side, adjacent to a heliport, directly across the river from the Empire State Building (I have a great newspaper article of my plane on the pier with the ES building in the background). Of course, as luck would have it, the motion of landing cleared the blockage and I now had 6 more gallons of usable fuel, but by then the police, and fire department, and ambulances had arrived, and the cops wouldn't let me leave... most of the next day was devoted to trying to get permission to fly the plane out, to no avail... we finally snuck down there and flew out anyway, and for the next several months I had to deal with the authorities (in the end everybody decided I hadn't done anything wrong, and in fact did all the right things). That pier is now covered with condominiums.
Throttle linkage failure- The engine started losing power but continued to run smoothly, with not quite enough power to maintain level flight. Moving the throttle had no effect. I headed for the nearest airport as I was high enough to reach it in a long shallow descent, then set up for landing, blipping the ignition on and off like a WWI rotary engine. Pushed the plane off the runway and found a cotter pin had fallen out, allowing a clevis pin in the linkage to drop out. Fortunately the clevis pin landed in the cowling, and I found a scrap of safety wire on the ground to hold it in place to get me home.
-Dana
--
--
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. - Thomas Jefferson [quote][b]
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biglar
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
Posts: 457
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| Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject: Off field landings - Do not archive. |
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Good stories, Dana. I especially enjoyed the pier episode, and glad to hear you got away with it.
It reminds me of an adventure I had as a brand new Private Pilot in '95, when my girlfriend and I flew a rented 172 from Port Angeles, WA, to a tiny private dirt strip in the mountains near Weippe, ID....something around 400 miles, as I recall. My friend who owned the strip agreed to my visit, then neglected to tell me he'd sold the property. When I landed - the strip was a short, downhill, one way strip at 3000' msl with tall timber down the sides and at the lower end - I'd touched down, rolled about 100' and there was a huge "bang" and jolt at the left wheel. Coming to a stop, I immediately checked out the wheel and strut and found no apparent damage. After parking the plane, I walked back and found rows of "perk" holes down both sides, and hidden in the grass. They were all set to start building there. I s'pect the wheel just clipped the edge of 1 of those holes. They were big and deep enuf to have torn the wheel right off the plane if I'd hit one square. There was another adventure that same weekend at that little strip where I almost wrecked the plane and would possibly (probably) have killed 3 of us, but that'll hafta wait for another time. Lar. Do not Archive.
Larry Bourne
Santa Fe, NM
www.gogittum.com
[quote] ---
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_________________
Larry Bourne
Palm Springs, CA
Building Kolb Mk IIIC
"Vamoose" |
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