Excellent story!

Yes, a great story and a couple of lucky guys. Makes you wonder if they were any higher then 800 feet, if they would have made it?? ...and another justification for me of spending my life at 500 feet maybe?

I flew in Africa for a while. Twin Otter and C-208. We had a "competitor" who also flew the Caravan. They were flying it with inop flaps (a no no in the Caravan) and bald tires. They flew a two pilot crew in the 'Van and one crew decided to land down wind at Goz Bieda in southern Chad. The high landing speed of no flaps and down-wind caused a bald tire to blow, they lost control and went off runway and struck the prop and bent it. For my company this would have meant a new prop and PSRU and probably a turbine inspection to the tune of $100,000 (and a fired pilot). They just flew in a mechanic (they are called engineers there) bent the prop straight, put on a new tire and went right on flying for several weeks until they did a better prop repair and finally got the flaps fixed. There are a lot of operators in Africa like this and the South African and Ex Eastern-Block pilots (mostly Russian) that do most of the flying there are mostly crazy. If you mention any concession to safety you are considered a woman. Of course the fatality rate per hour flown in Africa is 14 times that in the USA. It does show that you might get away with a lot and be ok. If I had a prop strike in a remote area and it didn't look too bad I would try to straighten it. I I would then do a thorough run up. If it felt smooth I might try to fly it out. If not I would get the prop repaired or replaced even if it meant walking.

Bumper, I don't remember where I found this image, but it shows Sheldon's 4 automatic 12 ga. rig on his Cub's wings. There are much better pictures of this in Life magazine.

Zane wrote:There is a story out there about a 170 that lost a single blade, which resulted in the entire engine/mount/cowling departing the aircraft. The pilot deadsticked it, flat firewall straight ahead, to safety. Aviator myth or true story?

The balance had to have been obscenely out of wack.

I've posted the NTSB report before. It was the result of a mid-air collision. Engine departed the air frame before she could retard the throttle. Female pilot suffered only mild injuries after putting the firewall aft down in a field.

Question is, did she wheel land or three point?

edit: And there is this one, which is a different one than the one I was remembering: http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20 ... 0672&key=1

185 Bushbird wrote:This is a interesting one that a plane will not fly with a engine attatched! I bought this 172 after the mid air, insurance bid buyout. It had no engine, a slice in the left boot cowl from the prop hit plus left wing strut almost cut in half, otherwise fuselage was in good shape other than the brown streaks on pilot & co-pilot seats!. I had it rebuilt ,float kit, LR fuel, 180hp pen yan conversion, new floats, it resides MN on floats now.

NTSB Identification: FTW90FA151A.
The docket is stored on NTSB microfiche number 44583.
Accident occurred Tuesday, August 07, 1990 in ELMENDORF, TX
Probable Cause Approval Date: 5/3/1993
Aircraft: CESSNA 172M, registration: N1466V
Injuries: 1 Minor, 3 Uninjured.
A USAF T-38 & A CESSNA 172 COLLIDED AT 4200' MSL. DRG IMPACT, THE VERTICAL STABILIZER OF THE T-38 STRUCK THE RGT SIDE OF THE 172'S ENG. THE ENG SEPD & THE 172 PLTS LNDD ON A ROAD. THE T-38 DSCNDD OUT OF CTL, BUT THE T-38 PLTS EJECTED SAFELY. BFR IMPACT, THE STUDENT IN THE 172 (WITH A VISION RESTRICTING DEVICE) & HIS INSTRUCTOR (CFI) WERE PRACTICING AIR WORK MNVRS. THE TANDEM SEAT T-38A (WITH AN INSTRUCTOR PLT IN THE BACK SEAT & A RATED PLT IN THE FNT SEAT) WERE BEING VECTORED FOR AN ILS RWY 33 APCH TO KELLY AFB. THE T-38'S SPD WAS ABOUT 330 KTS; THE SPD LIMITATION OF 250 KTS HAD BEEN WAIVED FOR T-38 ACFT, DUE TO THE ACFT'S LACK OF CONTROLLABILITY AT THE LOWER SPD. THE 172 WAS EQUIPPED WITH A TRANSPONDER, BUT IT WAS NOT EQUIPPED WITH MODE C. THE T-38 WAS EQUIPPED WITH A MODE C TRANSPONDER. BOTH ACFT WERE IN RADIO CTC WITH THE SAN ANTONIO SOUTH DEP CTLR, BUT ABT 3 MIN BFR THE COLLISION, RADAR SVC WITH THE 172 HAD BEEN TRMTD.

s:

So I just landed in Austin and on the descent, the guy I'm flying with tells me a story of a C172 he hit with his T-38 while based in Texas. So I try to Google it to find some pics and found this thread. Kind of cool to meet the guy, hear the story, and then hear of the guy that bought the 172.

Didn't look too seriously to see if it had been posted, but this is a case of FWF departing airframe:

http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentRe ... 120000.pdf

This pilot likely wouldn't have been so fortunate in any other CG scenario.

Littlecub wrote:If your more likely to Die by stayin' put than gettin' out, that is a call to make

Not a hard call to make get home first and deal with what ever comes of it later.
One time over the mts during a hunt ................

This was one of my biggest chukle and worries...few years back, I saw this pilot (could very well be someone on here!) land into whitehorse and turning around below the tower to park in the public parking, he turned around but a little too far and hit a rock on the embankment I think...whatever he did, he bent his prop, and I mean he bent it...museum quality. The mechanic shop looked after him but the replacement couldnt come in fast enough for him, so the day after, I saw the guy take a hak saw to it and cut off 6" off each end....we couldnt believe it and had a good laugh but I never, never, never thought' he'd go flying with that thing...(182 I think?? its been a while)... well sure enough, we see him taking off the next day...Unbelieveble... that's where the worry part came in...A C172 spins at 76,000 G's at the tip so you can just imagine what kind of damage a sawdoff prop can do... in the end we never saw any news about a crash on his route (he was flying back to the lower 48 from AK)

gotta love the MT prop, it breaks, you order new blade, put it on, go fly! Cheers!

I remember hearing a story about an old time Alaska bush pilot that got forced down by weather in white-out conditions on the Yukon. He hit a snow drift and cracked a good section off of one blade (wood prop). So he waited until the weather got better, got out his survival hatchet and gave it a matched set. He was able to fly on to his destination without any trouble.

BRD wrote:Bumper, I don't remember where I found this image, but it shows Sheldon's 4 automatic 12 ga. rig on his Cub's wings. There are much better pictures of this in Life magazine.

The actual shotgun setup used on Sheldon's cub is in Talkeetna, AK, I look at it every time I fly in there. They have the guns in a glass case at the museum there. Pretty cool setup and I guess it was quite the wolf killer.

A number of years ago I took of from a major coastal town and was heading west over some large mountains. The piper Archer was at max climb speed and I was nearing my required altitude when suddenly the wings were flapping like a bird. I couldnt read the instruments from the vibration. Yep, I was concerned. I was over tiger country and nowhere to land. I had another 50 miles to run over mountains but had only been flying for the last 25 mins. So a 180 deg turn was made and power was reduced to idle. Vibration was tolerable at idle. To my horror a solid cloud base had moved in behind me when I was tracking west and I was only VFR. I was managing a descent rate of 350 ft/min. The instruments were still un readable due to the high freq of the vibration. I had a garmin 296 with me and the instrument page was selected. So cross referencing it and the aircraft gauges I tracked back to my departure airport through the soup. A hole appeared in the cloud base over the airport and I was at 1800ft above the airport. The landing was very rough but I really enjoyed those bumps and the final runout on the runway.
After shutdown ,it was found 2.5 ins of prop tip had departed.Every thing was inspected very closely and no other damage was found. What started the tips departure was a stone damage on the leading edge of the prop. The aircraft sat there until a new prop arrived next day and I went to the beach to Rellaaaxx.

This is a flying with a bent prop and some more…story.

I guess it is “ok” to tell this story now that both parties are “gone” and neither by natural causes unfortunately.

Back in the early nineties, I had a friend ask if he could start keeping his Citabria outside at my place. I guess where he had been keeping it (his cousin’s husband’s place), the husband was selling rides in my friend’s Citabria and leaving it out of gas for the owner when he’d show up to fly.

So he brought it up and tied down to my concrete tie downs. The very next day this cousin’s husband who had recently sold his 450 hp Stearman was checking out the new owner. They used my place because it was a long grass runway without trees to hit.

On one of the landings, they lost control in the Stearman, left the runway and broadsided the tied down Citabria at the left wing and folded it up like an accordion and bent the fuselage in a big bow.

The Stearman then spun around 90 degrees and then went over an 8 foot bank backwards into the same pond that sank my Scout years later. There were two witnesses.

The Stearman is sitting in the pond with the top of the tail fully submerged and still running, pointed up the steep bank. No one gets out. They just power up, and climb up out of the pond with the full 450 hp and with water still pouring out the back of the plane, they line up with the runway and fly away.

Meanwhile, the Citabria is an unrecognizable pile of splinters.

After landing 20 miles away, it turned out the Stearman’s prop blades were out of track 6 inches, the leading edges of the left wings were beat up almost flat and the flying wires were chewed up too.

The new Stearman owner stepped up and bought the crashed Citabria and had both planes rebuilt.

I greatly miss those guys. Books could be written too.