1SeventyZ Wrote:

Like I said, I have no idea who you are unless you post your N#, a photo of your N#, your real name and exact location, or some other uniquely identifying piece of data.

You and I are in agreement, aktahoe1 disclosed enough information for the FAA to find him. There is a lot of good information in the orignal post. Including how I look at my own decision making process.

I think I heard on a news show once that most criminals are caught because they seem to want to share or brag about what they did with others. Probably a need for validation that what they did was somehow OK, that they were really the victim.

If you are going to share stuff that you know is illegal, be very careful.

I could imagine a way to tell this story without aktahoe1 implicating himself.

But now we can add the issue of internet annonymity to the discussion. Something to be learned here and applicable everywhere.

So Bad Manners have sparked the predictable backlash of motherhood, apple pie and better mousetraps. If it makes you feel good, whatever, but none of it adds any value to the discussion.

Aktahoe1 admits he made mistakes, he feels awful about them and he’s chosen to post his experience here. So what should we make of this? Do we rush to his defense, reject his own conclusions and tell him hell no, you did the right thing, I’d do the same thing, good on-ya, let’s go do it all over again, never mind that we weren’t there either? Do we go the fatalist route—it happened to [famous aviator] so it’s just a matter of time before it happens to me? Do we try to learn from his experience, including politely questioning his conclusions and the reasoning he has generously provided for what he did? He says he wants us to learn, and he’s got a thick skin, so what’s wrong with asking a few questions?

Like, how much did saving money influence his choices? Why didn’t he take dual in the area before going to Big Creek? Why didn’t he take Ray Arnold’s advice, call the insurance company and let them truck it out of Big Creek? Why not leave the airplane in McCall or Cascade for repairs? Are there no good A&Ps there? Was there no insurance company to call?

I’ll admit that it’s hard for me to understand the choices he made based on his account. But I wasn’t there and I’m willing to listen and learn. I hope that doesn’t make me a “naysayer” or a “moron.”


CAVU

CAVU,

You're alright in my book. Pretty much sums it up.

Thanks, guys. I'm still working on this listening thing--not easy!

CAVU

Dude, you need to have JC get that thing in a hangar before the Reno Federalis start snooping around! Hey, you got the plane to where you needed it; no harm to you, dad, plane. Good job so far...

The desision was based on a number of factors...

Yes the $$ side of things was an issue, but only minor.... really the big hurdle was, is this really something we are really considering a danger to us or not? It was not....thats honest.

I never once felt as though I was in danger or putting anyone else in danger.

Didnt someone tear a wing off an airplane in a fly in not to long ago and end up flying it out? That would be a grounded aircraft in my book, but again, not being there to understand the actual problem myself, maybe I to would have flown it out. This was not the case in this incident. Not even close.....

Call the insurance guy? Maybe...but again feeling confindent with what we were doing and our fix.

Dual instruction in Idaho?....

Maybe this is my own ego talking here, but I have flown here in and around the Sierra's for close to 10 years. Density alltitude, mt flying, etc is something we do here on a daily basis. Living and flying around Alaska since virtually my inception to life has allowed me to witness my own silly accounts that others were involved in, etc.

So if you leave your home and fly into a new location are you really going to get dual everytime? I dont think so.....It was my fault for not getting enough local information, not to mention what the %$^# was I thinking flying into the mts at 230pm. Thats just confidence and getting complacent on my part.

I too have seen some things that I questioned however not being the actual person having to deal with it, it is purley a speculation on my part for me to point fingers and think that person is nuts.

Again, this sounds like it is much more of a big deal but it really was not.

I posted this for all to view and possibly not do what I did when we are ALL feeling confident in our own capabilities, just check yourself. It happens in a split second and you will end up giving a thousand reasons as to what you should have or could have done. Then you are left having to actually ponder on what you are going to do now....

Being practical and wise along with the sixth sense has kept me alive to this point and will usually win if you beleive in that sort of stuff. I dont take it lightly.

Mauleace....are you an ace? have you never ever dinged your plane? If not where are you flying? Its going to happen.

How are you going to deal with it? Are you going to put it here for those to see and comment? I wonder....

I would bet just about all that I own that in the event the situation was on you, most of you responding to this blog would have done the exact same as thing....

C'mon guy's back to reality. OK, so maybe there wasn't any real danger to life or limb, actually there well could have been, but I'll certainly take your word there wasn't, because I'll never be a good enough of a mechanic to diagnose anything from one picture on the internet.
Really, all you have to see is the FAA in action on something as wild and crazy as flying without a spinner or equally insane thing to know you are actually risking your license, and those of us that fly for a living our lively hood, to know how risky your actions were.
Thankfully I don't know what answering yes on the insurance form that asks if you have lost your license before actually does, or how employable it makes you as a professional pilot, but I can imagine.
I got my first ramp check today. He asked for my registration and airworthiness certificate. As I gave it to him, I explained I was late for a business meeting. That didn't please him, and he was looking real hard to find a visable reason to ground that 210 I promise you. These people are not the flying man's friend I assure you.
Unfortunately in the "civilized" part of the world, before you do anything, the most important consideration is not whether or not it can be done, but how well will it "play" when your fighting for your license.

Jr.CubBuilder wrote:I nominate Bonanza Man for BCAH

You wont see that happen in this lifetime

Bad call there jr. He will have to start his own group.

Akatahoe1 Wrote:

As far as putting dad in....that was his choice not mine.....

So who was the PIC? Seems that pressure from Dad influenced the decision. As I have read your posts again, it seems you had doubts about what you were doing. I have learned to listen to my gut. It is my connection with God.

When I was younger I can recall being pressured by get-home-itis for family, work or money. I am grateful that today I can sit on the ground for days.

I disagree with the analysis that the only risk was to you, your dad and the airplane. I was at 3U2 when the 182 made a hard landing, collapsed the nose gear and veered off into the trees on the west side of the runway. Had he veered to the east, he would have hit other planes and people. A day later there were many planes parked with people camping on both sides of the 182 still in the trees. There was the potential for your plane to go out of control.


PIC is an awesome responsibility.

Thanks, Aktahoe1. I appreciate your responding to the questions. I'm glad money wasn't the driving factor for you. I don't think I'd make the same decisions, and in fact have historically taken lots of dual and have been pretty conservative on the mechanical things. But my flying background is different (not better) than yours, so that's no surprise.

I hope all of this works out ok for you.

CAVU

Damn. I just go on a simple van camping trip and you guys get to page four on one post!

I'm sort of a McGiver mentality guy, and I can totally identify with the original poster. I also am a true believer in each person must take responsibility for his own actions. The OP and his dad sound to me like they were making their individual decisions from reasonably informed knowledge. These decisions are based on their own, personal risk acceptance levels. More power too them.

I've read posts where some pilots say they won't fly unless they are wearing Nomex underwear because of fire danger. Others have stated they won't go to any new airstrip without an instructor. Others will land on river bars and other crap that could easily end up looking like one of my favorites pictures on this forum.

I say, "Thanks for the tale, I can learn from your willingness to share!"

tom

geez i leave for a day and four pages go by. Took me an hour to read all the posts... Good Job getting home and don't feel the least bit bad about telling the story. You'll go over it a million times in your head. I know I did and all I did was ground loop at Columbia...Shit like this can happen anywhere. I've landed at about 20 strips up in Idaho and flown up there for the last 7 years every summer on vacation. THen I go and ball it up on a paved long runway in Columbia. And by the way B man will NEVER make BCAH. You have to have integrity....along with a thick skin.

It's amazing how far this post went today! Hey, I commend aktahoe1 for sharing his ordeal! I think I have learned from his unfurtionate mishap. #1, don't try to fly into a backcountry airstrip in the middle of the afternoon. By the looks of the picture, it doesn't look that bad. I'm not sure if I would have tried to fly back home that way, but it sounds like aktahoe1 and his father had the situation under control. I'm not sure what the big deal is here. Except for the legality side of it and MR. Bonanza Man calling our 182 friend a "moron". Hey, we all do crazy stuff sometimes. Like one of my friends have told me about flying in the backcountry. "You may as well through just about everything you learned back at Caldwell out the window, because out here in the backcountry, it's all about making the plane do what you want it to do!" Well, being that you have the right plane for the enviroment that your flying in to begin with. Anyway, I'm just starting to ramble on here. Again, thanks aktahoe1 for your advice. What's most important here is that you and your father made it home safe.

as for the cost. Here's a little info. In my case the insurance co said they could either look at it at Columbia and fix it there or we could haul it home. I had to be real conscious of the cost as if it came to 27000 to repair the ins would have totaled it. At columbia it was very close to that cost. So I rented a truck and hauled it home. Cost at home came to 24000 . I know if you had driven home and let it go on a truck it would have been a lot more in cost to repair. Now I know cost wasn't your consideration but I do know that feeling of satisfaction when I got mine home. Now you just have to wait for the damn thing to get fixed. Hopefully it won't take as long as mine to fix.....maybe look into that 206 nose gear stc.

The fix that you did,seems to have worked.NOBODY was there with you,so the fix seems to be the right one.
The decision to fly all the way back home is the only thing that i would question,but I was not there to see the damage,I cant comment on that.
I am glad you made it home and am thankful you had the balls to share it.
Any time you need a co-pilot,call me.
Good job.C

mr scout wrote::shock: Probably just a normal day in some parts of the country, no Gump dont get started.

Been more than once (a lot more) that I kicked out all my passengers, and flew home with broken shit or in really crappy weather.

To me it's absolutely unbelievable how soft and timid "we" have become in North America. Self reliance is looked upon as an aberration, and anything not perfectly safe, practiced, checked out and checked off is way too dangerous and oh my god don't do it...

Well, this country wasn't founded on that attitude. The West wasn't opened up by people who thought that way, Yukon gold would still be there in the ground, and nobody would dare to get into a flying machine. "If man was meant to fly, he'd have been born with wings."

Bullshit. This kid may have been dumb for breaking his airplane a little bit, but he figured out a fix using his brains and wit, had a willing and seasoned co-conspirator along to help, and the two of them had a good adrenalin rush and adventure to give them something to remember and pass along at the campfire for the rest of their lives.

More power to them, and no one can ever accuse them of being chickenshit. I'd rather fly with a guy who can think on his feet and figure out a way to get it done by himself any day of the week, than with someone who just rolls over and dribbles pee down their leg when it gets tough, and lets the government tell them what to do.

Gump

Well said Gump I like the way you think. We need more like you.

GumpAir wrote:

mr scout wrote::shock: Probably just a normal day in some parts of the country, no Gump dont get started.

Been more than once (a lot more) that I kicked out all my passengers, and flew home with broken shit or in really crappy weather.

To me it's absolutely unbelievable how soft and timid "we" have become in North America. Self reliance is looked upon as an aberration, and anything not perfectly safe, practiced, checked out and checked off is way too dangerous and oh my god don't do it...

Well, this country wasn't founded on that attitude. The West wasn't opened up by people who thought that way, Yukon gold would still be there in the ground, and nobody would dare to get into a flying machine. "If man was meant to fly, he'd have been born with wings."

Bullshit. This kid may have been dumb for breaking his airplane a little bit, but he figured out a fix using his brains and wit, had a willing and seasoned co-conspirator along to help, and the two of them had a good adrenalin rush and adventure to give them something to remember and pass along at the campfire for the rest of their lives.

More power to them, and no one can ever accuse them of being chickenshit. I'd rather fly with a guy who can think on his feet and figure out a way to get it done by himself any day of the week, than with someone who just rolls over and dribbles pee down their leg when it gets tough, and lets the government tell them what to do.

Gump

I like this guy!! Well said, Gump!!

Interesting thread so far! Perhaps more interesting for me than most, because I too had a minor mishap at Big Creek about two weeks ago.

I was flying into backcountry strips east of McCall with my Dad in my 172. I arrived at Big Creek without incident, and we stayed on the ground until about 1130AM. When we were getting ready to leave, I checked the temperature (80 deg. F), calculated the density altitude (8400 ft.), then checked the performance charts to verify that I could get out of there. Everything looked good, and since the windsock was limp, I took off from runway 01 since it's little higher than the 19 end of the runway.

As expected, I lifted off just before the half way point and started to slowly climb. All of a sudden, at about 50 feet off the ground, I could feel the airplane drop. I instinctively started to pull back on the yoke, and the stall warning came on for an instant, so I immediately pushed the nose forward a little. I could see I wasn't going to make it so I cut the throttle and put it down on the remaining runway. I had a little over 600 ft. of runway left, and I braked hard and skidded for 200 yards to the end of the runway. I didn't want to go over the embankment at the end, so I aimed for the far left corner thinking I would put the wing into the trees if I had any speed left. I was down to about 10 mph when I hit the white rocks that mark the corner of the runway and I came to an abrupt stop. We got out of the plane and immediately felt the wind. I looked back up at the other end of the runway, and I could see that the sock was still limp there! However, there was a 15 mph tailwind for the last part of the runway, and I hadn't been aware of it or I never would have taken off. The wind had to come from somewhere, and in retrospect, I had to have flown into a downdraft that then became a tailwind.

One of the main wheels had hit a pretty good sized rock, and that is what stopped us. That put a side force on the nose wheel which was in the rocks, and the jolt broke one half of the nose wheel, and the tube was torn. There was no other discernable damage to the aircraft, despite being joyfully inspected by every pilot that wandered by! Ray Arnold of Arnold Aviation in Cascade showed up in a turbo 206, and said he would find me a wheel. My dad rented a cabin to spend the night. The next day Ray brought a loaner wheel and he even installed it for me while I pushed down on the tail, but it was pretty late in the day, so my Dad and I spent another night and then came out the next morning.

I'm confident that I did the right thing by deciding to abort the takeoff. One big factor in my speed of decision making was that I had been practicing the week before on MS Flight Simulator by pretending that I had lost an engine on takeoff and I had been trying to figure out how high I needed to get before I landed straight ahead vs. trying to turn 180 deg. to land. (for the record, I decided I'll never turn 180 unless I'm at least 1000 ft. AGL). As a result, it was natural to act quickly and decisively. So, I'm happy with how I handled the crisis, the only thing I wished I would have done better was to have never taken off.

I learned a couple of good lessons. The rule about doing mtn. flying in the morning is a good one, not just for density altitude, but also because of unpredictable winds once it starts to warm up. I hadn't given the winds the weight they deserved. Carefully check the far end of the strip for wind conditions. I glanced at the sock down at the other end before taking off, and I thought it was also limp, but I didn't really study it or look that closely. I'm not sure if I just saw what I wanted to see or if the wind started after I started my takeoff roll. I'll be studying it with binoculars next time!

I was pondering duct taping the wheel together, stuffing the tire full of pine needles, and flying it out if I didn't get a wheel in a few days. My thought process was that the airplane was airworthy, although it wasn't quite as groundworthy, and I didn't want to be there so long that a weather system moved in. I would have left my Dad there because he has a sister in McCall that could have easily driven in to get him. However, I got a replacement wheel, and the point was moot. But now that I've experienced the anxiety of being stuck at a relatively remote airstrip, I can fully understand the incredible emotional need to get the plane out of there ASAP!