The TV news a couple days ago had a report on a Cirrus parachute "saving the day" in an engine-out situation on Long Island. Good deal, the pilot & companion walked away. But the report also had footage of another Cirrus-chute deployment, that thing was really coming down fast under the chute and swinging around wildly to boot. I think if you had a decent place to land, that would probably be a better show. From that example, I imagine after coming down via chute the airframe's pretty much used up.

They're falling out the sky all over the place...

Damn thing almost got skewered by the flag pole!

There's more than one way to be a poor pilot.

While camped at the Chicken Strip I watched a couple guys come in and land. 170 and 180 if I recall correctly. They were just back from the high sierra fly in and pretty full of themselves. Rather than shut down and have a look around on foot, or simply make their turn to the left instead of the right, both of them hard-sandblasted our camp and airplane while taxing around trying to decide where to park, and the dipshit in the 170 managed to sand blast our camp twice while turning around like some sort of damn dog in a bed.

I watched all this through binoculars from the springs, unhappy to say the least each time our camp and plane disappeared in a high pressure cloud of dust and volcanic cinders. I didn't say much to them that night since I was rather sure I was not going to remain civil if I broached the subject. Also, I had half an hour of cleaning sand out of things before we could go to bed.

The next morning the 170 guy starts up his engine and then, for reasons that must have made sense to him, took off less than ten seconds later. Start up, full throttle, take off...just like that. Once the shock and confusion wore off I checked my CHT's to find out what the engine temp was after sitting all night...38 degrees.

If anyone needs proof that flying a tailwheel doesn't necessarily mean you can find your own ass with two hands and a flashlight, there it is.

I don't even want to get started...got chores to do.

Zzz wrote:I've blown people's entire camps (tent, campfire, children) into the weeds while taxiing into a parking spot under power...more than twice. I was given the ass-chewing I was due.

Ok, here are mine.

1) Zane's reminded me of the time that I had to apply power to get over a little bit of a bump while beginning my taxi. Of course, I had completely forgotten about the parachute operation two hangars over from me and the gravel patch in between. My buddy ran over and made nice with them on my behalf. I literally never realized what I had done. He had to tell me when I got back.

2) When doing my Maule transition training landed at the wrong airport while making calls on a nearby frequency. Of course, on this one I will share the blame with my CFI who claimed to be familiar with the area and has a day job flying for a major. Uh, ooops.

Hammer wrote:The next morning the 170 guy starts up his engine and then, for reasons that must have made sense to him, took off less than ten seconds later. Start up, full throttle, take off...just like that. Once the shock and confusion wore off I checked my CHT's to find out what the engine temp was after sitting all night...38 degrees.

To be fair, the engine does warm up a lot faster at full throttle!

The next morning the 170 guy starts up his engine and then, for reasons that must have made sense to him, took off less than ten seconds later. Start up, full throttle, take off...just like that. Once the shock and confusion wore off I checked my CHT's to find out what the engine temp was after sitting all night...38 degrees.

I think I just threw up a little....

I mean I'm more than capable of doing something dumb for sure.. but wow, that's pretty ignorant