High Wind

There are times when an agricultural pilot must make instant decisions. Sometimes he makes the right decision and sometimes it is definitely the wrong decision. These quick wrong choices can result in bad stuff happening. Here is an example of a quick wrong decision.

I was working for an ag-operator in the state of Washington. The owner, whom I will call Watkins, was a pilot himself. He would take a hired hand with him in his Cub-type aircraft and fly out to a field that was to be fertilized. He would land in the field if it was not muddy and they would then walk to each end and commence to flag for the planes that were sprinkling the dry fertilizer pellets on the field.

The terrain was not at all level but more like rolling hills and swales. Watkins had parked his plane on top of one of these smooth rolling hills. He walked about 150 yards to his end of the field and began waving his flag. While this operation was going on as planned, suddenly a weather frontal boundary struck. The wind switched to the north and began to blow with increasing velocity. 

Watkins could see his Cub on the next small hill as the wind rocked it, making it bounce rather more than was safe. Watkins dropped his flag and began making tracks to his plane. He was a short man, maybe five foot five or six and a little on the beefy side in weight. As he was running and puffing toward the plane, the wind was rapidly increasing. When he finally reached it, the ship was actually leaving the ground with each big puff. He had set the parking brake before he left so he quickly set the throttle and went to the front of the plane to swing the propeller to start the engine.

The engine started on the first swing and he ran around to the right side of the Cub to climb in. Just as he was climbing in, the wind made a mighty blast and the little plane left the ground. He was half in and half out when he made the quick decision to grab the throttle and open it, hoping it would help stabilize the airborne machine. 

The reverse happened. With the high wind and the thrust of the engine the plane rose straight up vertically and then suddenly fell over on it’s back - kerblam! 

Watkins was thrown out on the wing which was now lying upside down on the ground. Somehow he landed on his feet. Both feet burst through the fabric covering.

When the other pilots doing the fertilizer flew over and saw he wasn’t injured, they burst out in gales of wild laughter. Watkins stood there knee deep in his upside down airplane, shaking his fist at them. He couldn’t hear the laughter but he could see the grins on their faces.

Illegal Landing

Hopefully you've read my intro about Emergency Landing Prep. That will give you background on this first in my series on emergency landings.

In the early days of aviation, emergency landings were common, mostly because of the unreliableness (new word) of the engines. As time passed and engines improved, the unplanned landing became less common, though still a distinct possibility even to this day.

My first experience of this alarming event was shortly after I learned to fly. I was flying a Piper Cub on my way from Ft.Worth, Texas, to Lewiston, Idaho. I was about halfway between Colorado Springs and Denver, Colorado, when my engine begins making funny sounds and losing a bit of power. I immediately went through the check list and found when I switched from both magnetos to the left magneto, the engine nearly quit altogether. I quickly switched back to both and kept my eyes peeled for a likely landing place.

I had been flying about a thousand feet above the ground and now little by little I was losing altitude. Fortunately, the engine kept producing some power until I made it to Stapleton Airport at Denver. Denver is something over 5,000 feet above sea level and when I arrived, I could just barely maintain 5,400 feet, which was well below pattern elevation for Stapleton. Not only that, the engine was beginning to misfire.

In those pre-radio days, controlled airports - that is, airports that had a control tower - used a system of light guns. A tower person would aim his light gun at the airplane and by the use of different colored lights he could signal instructions to the pilot. The receiving pilot would waggle his wings in acknowledgement. I knew how to read the light signals, but I was so busy trying to keep my little ole plane in the air until I reached the runway that I just ignored the steady red light aimed at me - a signal that I was not to land at this airport.

I only had one thing in mind and that was to get this cotton-pickin’ aeroplane on the ground at the nearest runway. What I didn’t know was that it was prohibited to land at Stapleton unless you first had radio contact.

I had no radio.

I also didn’t know that they had two parallel east-west runways. One was for departing airplanes and one was for landing aircraft. I was a very young feller, a rather new pilot still wet behind the ears, had an ailing engine on my hands, and I didn’t stop to check what was legal and what was prohibited.

I plunked my little Cub down on the wrong runway where some airline-type airplanes were waiting to take off. I figured I would be bending the rules a bit, but I didn’t care. I was just glad to be safely on the ground.

That evil person in the tower followed me with that blasted light gun, giving all kind of signals that I didn’t understand. I still had enough engine power to taxi up to one of the large hangers where I could see some tie-down ropes located. I shut down the nearly dead engine, opened my door, and slipped out on the pavement. My knees were a bit wobbly, but at least I was safely on the ground and glad to be there.

As I was walking toward the office of one of the fixed-base operators there, a fellow came to meet me and said, “You are wanted on the telephone.”

How strange. I didn’t know anyone here. How could they be wanting me on the phone?

I said, “O.K.” and began telling him I had a sick plane and would he have a mechanic look at it. He sort of grinned and said, “Yeah, we can handle that, but I think you had better answer that phone. It’s one of the tower operators and he sounded a bit hot.”

I picked up the phone and the voice on the other end nearly blew me away! He gave me a dressing down that I remember to this day some 62 years later. He blistered my ears like a Marine D.I. He was talking loud and fast and using words that I had never heard. He kept repeating something about writing me up and that he was going to have my license not only revoked, but burned!

Finally he stopped yelling and ranting long enough for me to tell him, in a quivering voice, that my engine was sick and was just barely keeping me in the air and I didn’t have time to make proper arrangements for a legal landing. He seemed to calm down a bit and asked how old I was. I gave him my age. He said, “I want to talk to that mechanic that’s with you.”

The mechanic had opened up the cowling on my plane and was peering inside and shaking his head. I told him the Tower Man wanted to speak to him. He took the phone and I could hear the conversation.  The Tower Man asked him if there was something wrong with my engine. The mechanic answered, “Yeah, I’ll say there is!” He chuckled and added, “I don’t know how he got here. One of the magnetos has come completely off the engine and is lying in the bottom of the cowling. The other one is loose and would have soon fallen off too.”

The tower man asked to speak to me again and this time he was more professional sounding and said, “O.K. kid, I am not going to press charges on you because it sounds like you had an emergency situation. But when you get ready to leave this airfield, be d--- sure to call me on the phone so I can direct you safely out of here. And by the way, don’t come back here unless you have a radio in the plane!”

I answered “Yes Sir! You can depend on it.” I felt like I had been talking to God. He put such a fear of Tower Types in me that I avoided airports with a tower for years afterwards.

I have had many, many emergency landings since that long ago day, but few have stuck in my mind as firmly.

Happy landing!

And as we used to say, may your takeoffs and landings be of equal number!

Pants and a Piper Cub

Farming vs Flying

My first interest in aviation was at the early age of eight or nine-years-old. World War II had plunged the United States into the great conflict by an aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, and the war eventually filled the skies of Texas with military training aircraft.

The most prominent types were the BT 13 Vultees, PT 19 Fairchilds, and PT 17 Boeing Stearman - tail-draggers all. A few other lesser know types appeared from time to time. As I was hoeing weeds out of our cornfield on hot summer days, much to my parent’s displeasure, I spent a good bit of time staring up at the sky watching these planes and envying the young men who were preparing to become part of the world’s greatest air force. I made a promise to myself that one day I would be a pilot and, above all, I would have nothing to do with farming.

The war ended. We won. My desire to fly diminished, but never quite left me.

Crops and Cropdusting
Some ten years later I happened to meet a man who was a professional “cropduster” pilot. I was dating his daughter. I observed him plying his trade and the more I watched the more I became fascinated with this type of flying. He encouraged me to begin learning to fly and promised me that if I got a commercial license, he would put me to work. I enrolled in a flying school and soon had my private license. Some three months later he was killed in a cropdusting accident. That slowed me down and dampened my enthusiasm for the low and slow flying. Even so, I found I enjoyed flying so much that I spent every dime of my hard-earned money on airplane rentals.

With Friends Like This...
I had a friend who was also interested in learning to fly. He suggested that we pool our money and buy a small plane. We did. It was a two-place, sixty-five horsepower, Piper Cub, PA 15 Vagabond. A fun little tail-dragger plane. We hangered the plane at the old TCU airport just south of Fort Worth. This little country airport had one turf type runway of about fifteen hundred feet in length. There was a couple of small hangers and other out buildings. Altogether a very primitive, seldom used little airport, and a good place for a new pilot to practice and play.

One afternoon we drove out to the airport and I took my friend up, and we shot a couple of touch and go landings. After the third landing, I felt the urgent call of mother-nature. I left my friend seated in the plane with the engine running and repaired to the old-fashioned outhouse. While seated in the one-holer, I hear the engine RPM began to increase. The outhouse, being old and weathered, had cracks between the planks that I could see through. Suddenly I realized my non-flying buddy had decided to taxi out onto the airstrip!

He taxied to the far end of the strip, turned around and started back. Obviously he had convinced himself that he could handle the little ship and I could hear the RPM increase more and so did his taxi speed. Meantime, the thought jumped into my mind that my half of that airplane was firmly attached to his half! I speedily arose from the throne and stumbled from the outhouse with my pants at half-mast, intent on flagging him down. At about that same moment, the tail wheel left the ground. He careened sharply  to the right and made a wheel squealing ground-loop. Fortunately, he had enough presence of mind to chop the throttle and roll to a stop.

I was still standing outside the so-called country restroom with my pants just up to my knees when I suddenly realized that a car had pulled up in front of the hangers about thirty feet directly in front of me with a young man and three young ladies on board. They seemed to be fixated on the arrangement of my clothing as well as the strange behavior of the Vagabond cub. I quickly tugged at my pants as I trotted down to the cub and blasted my friend for endangering my half of the plane.

 He apologized and then said, “Did you see that car leave in a cloud of dust? I guess I must have scared them or something.”