The quavering voice on the telephone answering machine said, "We've had a little problem, and I'm at Willow Grove. I'm okay, I'll call you later."
Naval Air Station Willow Grove? In a Cessna 152?
But the story starts months earlier. After working together for almost a year, Kate pranced into my office, settled pertly in a chair by my desk and announced with a coy smile that it was a great day to go flying. A recent convert to aviation, thanks to a ride in my open cockpit biplane, I thought she was asking to go again. But she knew as well as I did--no, better than I did--that there was work to be done.
So when I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes in question, she said,
"What I'm trying to tell you is I'm just back from my fourth flight lesson, and it's a beautiful day for flying."
As an after-work flight instructor I was eager to hear about her flying experiences. Meanwhile, I pondered what stroke of fate had brought me together with this gorgeous woman who was smarted than I was, had better business instincts than I did, and liked to fly.
But that was days ago, and the phone message I'd just listened to had me perplexed and worried.
The 'we' suggested that an instructor had gone with her for some dual, instead of the scheduled solo session. That was easy to deduce because the spring weather was bizarre--snow so hard you couldn't see across the street with thunder followed by crackling clear blue sky and calm air followed by thunderstorm wind gusts followed by white-out snow, rinse and repeat. No competent instructor would send a student out alone in such conditions.
The 'problem' part, though, was hard to judge. "I'm okay" suggested she might not have been, and that was worrisome. And the fact that she was calling from a Naval Air Station suggested whatever the problem had been was significant enough that they'd had to land at an otherwise not open to the public facility. Strange.
Weather had to be the problem, I decided; and waited for the call that never came.
Instead, late in the day, she walked into my office, gingerly closed the door, and sat down as if something might break if she moved quickly. She blinked back tears, her lips quivered.
"Well, I've had an interesting afternoon," she said.
As the story unfolded I understood--although I'm not sure she did--that she'd very nearly died.
When she'd arrived at the rural Pennsylvania airport she was told her instructor wasn't there. The idea, far from a plan, had been a few minutes of dual--as is customary with a low time student--followed by solo practice takeoff and landings. Instead, the guy behind the desk threw her the keys to an aircraft and said,
"Why don't you go buzz your boyfriends house. The tanks are about half full, but that should be enough."
No discussion about weather, no admonition about low flying (quite the contrary), no words about doing a careful preflight, no reminder of the old adage that sky above you, runway behind you, and fuel in the gas truck are all worthless.
During the year we'd worked together we'd had occasion to travel on business in a lovely old G35 Beechcraft Bonanza. She showed an interest that went beyond simple pleasure in a sky-high perspective, so enroute I explained the instruments and controls to her and shared some of the things I'd learned in 25 years of flying up to that time. Fortunately, she remember a lot of what we'd talked about.
She prudently filled the Cessna with gas and took off, ready to enjoy a few minutes of freedom in three-dimensions over rolling Pennsylvania Dutch country before returning to practice some landings. At least that was her plan. With no training or advice, she had no reason to fear the deteriorating weather.
"About thirty to forty minutes into my flight," she wrote later to the FAA,"I began to encounter some clouds and snow at 3500 feet. I immediately headed back to Limerick. As the snow got worse I dropped down to 2500 feet to try to get below the snow. It was clear for a while, but the snow got worse again as I approached the airport. I was able to see the runway, though, so I entered the pattern on crosswind and announced my landing. About three quarters of the way down the downwind leg the snow got so bad that I was not able to see the runway. I immediately turned toward the runway hoping to see it, but I couldn't. I aborted the approach and attempted to get back in the pattern. I announced my intentions again on crosswind as visibility was a little better and I was able to see the runway. This time I was in and out of heavy snow on downwind. I was having trouble seeing the ground when I was to turn to base. At a momentary clearing I saw that I had drifted off course so I immediately turned to final at which time I completely lost all visibility."
This is the point where such stories often end.
But Kate, above all else, is a woman of determination. Well aware that the 500 foot high cooling towers at the Limerick nuclear power plant nearby, and remembering my admonition that the higher you are the safer you are, she decided to climb.
"It felt like the plane was neither climbing or moving," she wrote, "and I feared that the wind was holding me back. On later reflection I suspect that it was the lack of visual cues that caused the disorientation. I looked at my instruments and realized that I was, in fact, climbing so I tried to regain my composure. I announced to Limerick that I had aborted the landing and I did not know where I was."
While private pilots are given a modest amount of training on how to fly using only instruments, that's part of later stages of the curriculum. What she knew, she confided, was entirely what she'd learned in our few flights together. Her instructor had, so far, only taught her how to drive an airplane, not how to fly one. Worse, she hadn't been given even rudimentary training on the few instruments the aircraft had, or even how to change radio frequencies.
By happy chance, on one of those recent flights together, I'd explained how an artificial horizon and turn coordinator worked. Essentially I told her, 'Keep that little thing that looks like an airplane level and in the middle and the airplane will fly straight'. I don't remember exactly what I said about the turn coordinator, but it didn't matter. The one in her aircraft, required equipment, didn't work.
Vertigo, you probably have heard, is what gets you. Staying balanced is accomplished with help from your inner ear, your eyes, and how you body feels. The problem is, when you can't see, your inner ear lies to you and your body gets confused--vertigo takes over.
In everyday life, gravity pulls toward your feet, it pushes your butt into the seat if you're sitting down. But in an airplane you can create your own G(ravity) forces, and they ain't always down. In a loop, for example, it's perfectly easy to have your butt pushed into the seat just as hard when you're upside down as it is when you flying right-side up. So if you take away visual references you don't know which way's up—literally.
To complicate matters, there are other G-forces in an aircraft you don't experience in everyday, ground-bound life; and they can really confuse you. Well known to Navy flyers, for example, a catapult shot off a carrier at night can really confuse your senses. Transverse Gs, the forces you feel during horizontal acceleration, perversely, make you feel like you're climbing. So, surrounded by black ocean, it's easy to develop an uncomfortable sensation that you're climbing too steeply. But if you push a little on the stick when you're flying at 100 feet and accelerating through 200 knots, it only takes a split second before you hit the water.
By the same process, when Kate started to climb the aircraft decelerated, and she felt like she must be descending, so she tried to make the aircraft climb...and it only decelerated more. And this is where the unsuspecting, untrained, pilot often loses control.
The airplane slows to the point where the airflow over the wing is no longer able to generate enough lift. It stalls (aerodynamic stall--nothing to do with the engine, which is working fine and pulling as hard is it can). The aircraft noses over, usually falling off to one side a bit, and the pilot pulls harder sensing the sudden descent. Noting an increase in airspeed, because of the sound of the engine speeding and wind rushing, the ill-fated pilot pulls harder yet, tightening the turn and increasing the rate of descent.
Observers on the ground, under such circumstances, report seeing the aircraft come out of the clouds at a steep angle. They say they heard the engine was screaming (overspeed) or making "weird popping sounds," which is exactly the sound an aircraft engine makes when suddenly pulled to idle--a last dash effort when the pilot realizes, too late, what is happening.
So how do you avoid all this? You get proper training on how to fly using instruments, and how to resist the temptation to believe your lyin' eyes ears. Kate had been taught neither, but those few words about "keep the little airplane centered," and her determination to solve the problem, saved her.
Eventually she flew out of the snow squall. With the airport nowhere in sight, she knew she was lost. Then Murphy stepped in. If things weren't already bad enough, while Kate was trying without success to communicate her plight to the flight school, the push-to-talk button on the microphone broke off and flew across the cockpit.
Meanwhile, another aircraft, hearing her terse calls saying she was lost, came on the frequency and suggested she contact Philadelphia approach for radar vectors, direction to another airport. By using a fingernail, she was able to make the microphone work, and told the helpful pilot that sounded like a great idea, but no one had taught her how to tune the radio. He patiently explained which knobs to use, and what numbers to put in the radio, and mirabile dictu, she was able to switch frequencies, and hear aircraft talking to Philly Approach.
Announcing that she was a lost student pilot with less than two hours of solo experience, the approach controller calmly and reassuringly gave her directions to another airport to the east, Wings Field. That sounded like a good plan; her early flights had been at Wings Field before the school's recent move to Pottstown-Limerick Airport. But as she approached the area she could see snow squalls similar to the ones that she had just narrowly escaped.
She said, no, that didn't look like a good direction to fly and explained why. The controller, realizing that the weather was continuing to get worse, and that the pilot he was talking to was flying an aircraft with less and less fuel, redirected her to Willow Grove Naval Air Station, just a few miles away.
Approaching at right angles to the runway, at first she had problem seeing it in the distance. Then, almost overhead, she had trouble recognizing it as an airport because, as she said, "It had a really big-ass runway."
Directed by Approach to switch to Willow Grove tower, she was cleared to land but, "Watch out for the wires at 500 feet," the controller cautioned.
Oh gees, I'm at 600 feet, she thought. "What wires at 500 feet, I don't see any wires," she asked, leveling out.
"Land long, land long," another voice said.
With 8,000 feet of runway ahead of her--the longest and widest she'd ever seen--that would not be a problem, even with a little whoopdeedo in the middle of her approach. As she flared, the 2 inch steel emergency arresting gear cable flashed beneath her wheels. Held 10 inches off the runway by steel springs to ensure arresting hook engagement, it was just the right height to rip the landing gear off a little Cessna. But she missed the cable, made a "pretty good landing, under the circumstance," and taxied to the ramp.
Parked between huge Navy P-3 'Orion' sub-hunters, she was intimidated enough. When a Jeep screeched to halt, and Marines with rifles jumped out she almost lost it. When she heard a voice on a walki-talki ask if they needed help bringing her in, she cracked up.
"Do I really look like a security risk to you?"
Even the Marine couldn't stifle a grin, and she started to relax a little.
Walking to the Operations building nursing an overdose of adrenalin and blasted by the cold blustery wind, she started to shiver.
"Can we run?" she asked.
"No m'am, if you run I'll have to shoot you." Another grin.
They walked the rest of the way across the windy ramp. Quickly.
Inside the Operations building everyone came out to see who the lost lady was...and gave her a round of applause.
"You sounded very professional on the radio," the controller said.
"How did you know what to say when I told you I couldn't see the wires at 500 feet?" Kate asked.
"They blindfold us and put us behind the wheel of a Jeep out on the ramp. You learn very quickly how important clear, calm directions are.
"We were worried about you, though, 'cause the weather really sucks." the Navy Chief on duty said. "Oh sorry, m'am, that's Navy talk. But it is pretty shitty."
After writing a short, surprisingly coherent, statement on Navy stationary for the Ops Officer, and certifying in writing that she would hold the U.S. Government, The Department of the Navy, and Willow Grove Air Station "harmless from any damages sustained by me or the aircraft as a result of having landed," she called back to the flight school. After explaining what happened to an apparently unconcerned voice she was told just to fly on home, dear.
She explained that given her recent ordeal and poor weather she didn't really want to do that. She was told it was probably a good idea to get back on your horsie, honey. Besides, the weather had cleared up some.
As she protested, the Operations Officer took charge of the situation, asked for the phone and told whoever he was talking to that the aircraft was not leaving the ground unless it was flown by a licensed pilot. "Navy Regulations say so, and I say so. Any questions?"
Hugely inconvenienced by the whole thing, two instructors drove the hour on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Willow Grove and Kate flew back with one of them.
"Good thing, too" she said. "It was very bumpy, and even the instructor had trouble landing in the crosswind when we got back. He had to use full control deflection."
Is there a moral to this story? Well, a couple.
The first is if you're a pilot, especially a flight instructor, act on your instincts. If I had, Kate would never have been in such jeopardy. She told me once, for example, that she'd asked her instructor why they were doing a certain maneuver and his response was, "Because I told you so." I laughed that off as one of those you-had-to-be-there jokes. But when she later told me that they never used a check list, and he made her feel kinda foolish if she had to resort to one, I should have acted. Later, I found out they never used the shoulder harness (required), they never did a post flight debrief (required), they hadn't signed her off for solo before she went (required), etc. What other shortcuts did they take, say with required maintenance?
The second moral to this story is if you're a student pilot you unfortunately don't know what you don't know. So don't buy flight training because it's cheap or just because it's conveniently nearby, as Kate did with no other criteria to judge by. Make sure your instructor gives you a thorough preflight and postflight debrief, on the ground not in the airplane. Sure you'll pay for the time, but ground instruction (should be) cheaper than flight instruction. If you don't like your instructor, ask to fly with someone else. A good pilot isn't necessarily a good instructor (but never vice versa). In the military you have to 'hack it' regardless of who's in the cockpit with you. Not so when you're paying good money for training that your and other's lives will depend on.
I will always be grateful to whatever fate brought me together with this wonderful woman--indeed my days with her have defined my life. I'm even more grateful that she had the determination and luck to find a solution when she 'had a little problem'.
• "We've had a little problem..."
• Life as a Pilot
22 years old: Graduated from college. Go to military flight school. Become hot shot fighter pilot. Get married.
25 years old: Have 1st kid. Now hotshot fighter jock getting shot at in war. Just want to get back to USA in one piece. Get back to USA as primary flight instructor pilot. Get bored. Volunteer f or war again.
29 years old: Get back from war all tuckered out. Wants out of military.
30 years old: Join airline. World is your oyster.
31 years old: Buy flashy car, house and lots of toys. Get over the military poverty feeling.
32 years old: Divorce boring 1st wife. Pay child support and maintenance. Drink lots of booze and screw around while looking for 2nd wife.
33 years old: Furloughed. Join military reserve unit and fly for fun. Repeat above for a few more years.
35 years old: Airline recall. More screwing around but looking forward to a good marriage and settling down.
36 years old: Marry young spunky 25 year old flight attendant.
37 years old: Buy another house. Gave first one to first wife.
38 years old: Give in to second wife to have more kids. Father again. Wife concerned about "risky" military Reserve flying so you resign commission.
39 years old: Now a captain. Hooray! Upgrade house, buy boat, small single engine airplane and even flashier cars.
42 years old: 2nd wife runs off with wealthy investment banker but still wants to share house (100%).
43 years old: Settle with wife # 2 and resolve to stay away from women forever. Seek a position as a check Captain for 10% pay override to pay mounting bills. Move into 1 bedroom apartment with window air conditioners.
44 years old: Company resizes and you're returned to copilot status. 25% pay cut. Become simulator instructor for 10 % override pay.
49 years old: Captain again. Move into 2-bedroom luxury apartment with central air conditioning.
50 years old: Meet sexy Danish model on International trip. She loves You and says you are very "beeeeg!"
51 years old: Marry sexy Danish model for wife #3. Buy big house, boat, twin engine airplane and upgrade cars.
52 years old: Sexy model wants kids (not again). Resolve to get vasectomy.
54 years old: Try to talk wife out of kids, but presto, she's pregnant. She says she got sick after taking the pill. Accident, sorry, won't happen again.
55 years old: Father of triplets.
56 years old: Wife #3 wants very big house, bigger boat and very flashy cars, "worried" about your private flying and wants you to sell twin engine airplane. You give in. You buy a motorcycle and join motorcycle club.
57 years old: Make rash investments to try and have enough money for retirement.
59 years old: Lose money on rash investment a nd get audited by the IRS. You have to fly 100% International night trips just to keep up with child support and alimony to wife #1 and #2.
60 years old: Wife #3 (sexy model) says you're too damned old and no fun. She leaves. She takes most of your assets. You're forced to retire due to Age 60 rule. No money left.
61 years old: Now Captain on a non-schedule South American 727 freight outfit and living in a non-air conditioned studio apartment directly underneath the final appro ach to runway 9 at Miami Int'l. You have "interesting" Hispanic neighbors who ask you if you've ever flown DC-3's.
65 years old: Lose FAA medical and get job as sim instructor. Don't look forward to years of getting up at 2 AM for 3 AM sim in every god-forsaken town you train in due to the fact your carrier can find cheap, off-hours sim time at various Brand X Airlines.
70 years old: Hotel alarm clock set by previous FedEx crewmember goes Off at 1:00 AM. Have heart attack and die with smile on face. Happy at last!
• Don't Knock the Knocker
The Aeronca Champion is often refered to as The Champ, the Air Knocker or simply, the Knocker. The company name usually is pronounced "Er-on'-ica" with emphasis on the i, probably for the same reason that shimmy dampers are called 'dampners' with emphasis on the n.
I've never been quite sure why in either case. But this story from Flying magazine, way back in 1974, suggests the answer for the Knocker.
I sip my coffee and wave off the autograph-seekers. Through the restaurant window I keep an eye on my plane and the curious masses that swarm around it. It always attracts the masses, this great beast from out of the past.
The throbbing of the idling engine, burping little wisps of iridescent blue smoke, travels through the ground up to the lunch counter and leaves little rings in my coffee. I always leave the engine idling when I'm having my morning coffee. It pleases the masses so.
The morning sun glints on the golden wings the same way it did so many years ago when we screamed out of the sky with guns blazing, ending the career of the infamous Baron von Doppeldecker (450 kills confirmed)...
"More coffee, Ace?"
The Golden Moment is shattered by an uncaring waitress with her pot of battery drainings. The throb of the engine fades and, through the window, I watch a shimmering wave transform my snarling beast into a squat, dumpy, and bug-bedecked caricature of an airplane. It leans ungraciously to the left and leaves its calling card on the asphalt in a random pattern of oil drips. Sounds a little like an Air Knocker, you say? You know, you could be right.
At some obscure moment in the annals of aviation, a group of frustrated designers decided it was high time to come up with the perfect lightplane, one that would be in every hangar throughout the land, being flown by every type of aviator. In order to compete forcefully in the mish-mosh that was the present competition, this Dream Plane would have to be powered by an efficient, albeit modest, engine that promised more speed than horsepower; carry a great payload faster and farther than the competitors; climb higher faster, land slower and be more patronizing to the ham-fisted student; have unexcelled crosswind capabilities; ad infinitum. All of these requirements were compiled, annotated, reworked, and then thrown out. And what did they come up with? Aeronca Champion is what it was.
An Aeronca is a lovable parody on flight—an animated cartoon that can become airborne. Its shape would give the Wright Brothers second thoughts about their bicycle business. There are bends and lumps where there shouldn't be and there are straight, architectural lines where there should be bends and lumps. Put any more hardware into the slipstream and it would fly faster sideways. Come to think of it, it will fly sideways.
What the Kon-Tiki was to yachting, the Aeronca is to powered flight. But miracle of miracles, the people came and, for some warped reason, embraced this flying chamber pot. They accepted the "Knocker" just like it was a real flying machine. From everywhere they came to learn to fly this critter and, shortly, more fledglings were given wings (one way or another) in the Aeronca than were in the famed Piper Cub, even.
Why, you ask? Hell, I don't know, I answer. Maybe what it took was a flight in the thing to open your eyes. All I know is that's what did it for me. One turn around the pattern and I was hooked.
For those uninitiated few of you (the rest can ride along and no smart comments, please), let's check you out in this son-of-a- wrinkled blueprint. Hop in front, or in back if you wish. Both seats go the same places. Hopefully.
First note how sensibly appointed the roomy cabin is. Instruments (both of them) right up front where you can see them. Fuel indicator, that piece of bent wire bobbing up and down on the nose. Keep an eye on the wire—when it goes down, so do you. Switch? Merely twist your left arm into its most uncomfortable position and grope around near your hip for a loose handle; we'll assume you're sitting front seat. You won't be able to read the markings, but take my word that all the way forward is BOTH. The little knob next to it is the carb heat, and to use this it would be best to climb into the back seat and use both hands to pull it out. Not too hard, or you'll really pull it out. Not to worry—dead-stick landings are good practice.
Out front, some patient soul will have to twist the prop for you while you are untwisting yourself in the cabin. After the tenth flip of the prop, you will notice the quizzical look on his sweat-beaded face. He is likely pondering the Continental nameplate staring at him with its motto: "As Dependable As the Nation."
In the interest of time, we shall assume that the engine is churning and that all systems are "go."
Someone once commented that an airplane is the most awkward and stupid means of surface transportation ever devised by man, being paralleled only by a sack race. He must have at the time been watching an Aeronca taxi. The most time-consuming and laborious chore you will ever log is getting from tie-down to take-off. To begin with, it will take full power to get the Knocker to consider moving. This theory is carried on into flight. Any of you who have ever tried to taxi over your chocks know the feeling.
Once rolling, the plane will generally head into the wind. Any wind. Even in dead-calm air, it will find some passing zephyr to favor, and no amount of rudder-and-brake combination will do anything but aggravate the situation. Its course is predestined and all you can do is hope there is a taxiway somewhere along that route. It will wallow and creak along prehistorically, responding only to generous amounts of throttle and coarse language.
For the take-off, push throttle full forward and it will begin rolling down the runway at a speed somewhere between a fast taxi and a trundle, exhibiting all the style and grace of a Dixie cup in a windstorm. However, an Aeronca Champ will actually become airborne faster than a Cub, pound for pound. Usually, because it instinctively favors the grassy areas alongside the runway, before flying there is a 50-50 chance you'll end up heading for the fence or those hangars on your left. This is known as the "cross-runway" take-off technique. Once mastered, it can be stimulating and quite showy, and everyone will notice your take-offs, including the FAA examiners. Tower personnel are legion who have hit the deck upon seeing a grinning Aeronca face heading straight (or, roughly straight) for their office.
Once aloft, you establish an "Aeronca Pattern," which is best described as something between an ellipse and a rhomboid octagon. No traffic problem here. Most of the other aircraft will follow you—if only out of fascination or curiosity.
Control surfaces are overabundant, so be tender with the rudder pedals or you are likely to find out what racing drivers refer to as "swapping ends." Other than that, the Aeronca is quite forgiving in its flight characteristics. There is ample time to consider all of your actions because you are not moving at exactly breakneck speed. This you will assume by the blowing bits of paper and leaves that pass you up, later by the bug splat on the trailing edge of the wings.
But the view is unparalleled! More-or-less clear plastic windows abound, and you will become increasingly aware of this facet as the day heats up.
Now for the landing—and here comes the part with the meat on it. Get a good line-up with the white runway stripe and mentally mark an "X" where you wish to touch down. Then forget it. Chances are good the only white line you will see after touchdown will have a sign: AUTO PARKING ONLY. Cut the throttle and notice how immediately nothing happens. No sweat. The Knocker has merely decided it doesn't want to land. This "Schweizer Effect" can be overcome by generous bursts of more coarse language and by energetically bouncing on the seat to shake it loose from the sky.
The landing itself is a thing to behold. From the ground, at least. They come from miles around to watch an Aeronca land. The last Super Bowl lost money because the word got out that there would be a Knocker landing.
Next we come to the "No-Bounce" gear. Aeronautical Corporation of America commissioned someone to come up with a snappy name for its new patented landing gear. I think it was Woody Allen who suggested the phrase, "No-Bounce." Some 15 feet up you can feel the tires groping for the runway—like sticking a toe in a hot bathtub. At five feet the Knocker will act as if it's trying to find a lost contact lens. Then touchdown comes. This normally will register between 2.6 and 4.5 on the Richter Scale. No matter where you think the ground is, it isn't. There's always about three feet left when you run out of fly. "No-Bounce" means that the wheels never leave the ground after first contact. The fact that the rest of the plane is performing a crude Lomcevak is beside the point. The wheels stay glued, even when you go careening off into the grassy area. I know some pilots who think it's salty to taxi around with their earphones around their neck. In a Knocker, that's where they end up after touchdown.
So much for the basic Aeronca familiarization. Perchance you find the tenor of this article deprecatory? Knock the Knocker? Me? Never!
I speak of this thing called Aeronca as a husband would speak of the wife who occasionally burns the toast and comes down to breakfast in hair curlers, or sometimes forgets where she parked the car. Little things that will either endear her to you or drive you to early basketweaving therapy. It is a conditioned love affair. You become conditioned. I'm fresh out of Aeroncas at this writing, but you can catch me doing my biweekly Trade-a-Planing with red pencil busy circling and deleting in the "Aeronca" column. I was spoiled many, many years ago by a squat and dumpy barge with a huge shamrock on its nose, and I am conditioned. I like earphones warming my neck.
Aeronca? If you have no particular place to go and don't have to be there at any particular time, fly it—you'll like it.
• I'd do it again
To dance with the clouds which follow a storm;
To roll and glide, to wheel and spin,
To feel the joy that swells within;
To leave the earth with its troubles and fly,
And know the warmth of a clear spring sky;
Then back to earth at the end of a day,
Released from the tensions which melted away.
Should my end come while I am in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkest night;
Spare me your pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the knowledge that I'd do it again;
For each of us is created to die,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly.
— Gary Claud Stok
• Experience is proportional to mistakes
Slipping down final in the biplane, eyeballing the tall grass wafting in the breeze on the runway ahead, I asked myself why there were brown places in the middle of the landing area. Worn spots in the farmer's seldom-used runway seemed unlikely. An area of hard pan where grass wouldn't grow seemed a possible answer, but....
Mentally committed to landing, I didn't go around and use the opportunity for a thrilling low-pass and a more important look-see at what was really on the runway.
Feathers and guts exploded from beneath the nose just as I touched down proving that airplanes and wild turkeys are not birds of a feather, they should not flock together.
The FAA inspector in the brilliant green Fleet that landed behind me thought the whole brown explosion was hilarious. The turkeys, I'm sure, did not. The friendly Fed pointed out, still chuckling, that the regs require a pilot to determine runway conditions before landing. Furthermore, he assured me, that is always a valid reason for a low pass at an uncontrolled runway, should an unfriendly inspector ever inquire.
If you're lucky, and you don't break anything or hurt anyone in the process, there are lessons to be learned from such experiences. Better yet, you can learn from the mistakes of others. And I have lots to share. I hope you'll come back, pass the URL of this blog on to others, and add a link to your site.
Disclaimer: even if you learn something from the mistakes and experiences you find here, you will make mistakes of your own. Mistakes are inevitable. How you handle mistakes is what's important. Flying (and life, for that matter) is all about what you do when thing aren't going according to plan.
Blue skies and tailwinds,
Tailspin
