For your entertainment, a little flying story from a friend of mine in Anchorage. I've had to deal with bees in the pitot tube and cabin, a bird's nest under the cowling and listening to coyotes howl while refueling, but nothing like this.
[IMG]file:///E:/Atemp/P8110190.JPG[/IMG] Hi Guys,
I wanted to tell you about an adventure I had yesterday in the float plane. The incidental story is that I had someone on-board that knew something about what was going on. The significant story is that we both learned something, as we do from experience. And, there’s a pretty unique twist to it all…….
I met a check pilot for FedEx this weekend. We went for a ride last night and had a real exciting time ---- one of those stories for “I Learned About Flying From That!”
I had flown the plane the day before, on Sunday with Mary, for nearly 2 hours. Yesterday, Art called and said , “let’s go”. So, I headed over and met him at the FedEx simulator station. Arriving at the float slip, we did some prep (checked fuel, installed the stick in the back, etc.), and climbed aboard. He had helped by releasing the tie-downs on both wings and pumping out floats. I had checked each of the high wing fuel tanks (finger method), tightened caps and looked down each wing. To turn the plane around, I held onto the right wing (the plane is normally moored nose-in to the shore) and swung the airplane, guiding the tail into the bank to put the door on the right at the single dock, and went around to the right to get things set up inside. Once done, and with Art in settled into the back, I climbed aboard and did the in-cabin checkout and discussed procedures.
We taxied around to the SE departure on Lake Hood (warming the engine, checking controls, all that stuff) and then proceeded for normal takeoff into the 18O degree wind. Since the water lane is really SE, we steered about 120, but no big deal with light crosswind (8 knots) on a big lake. After raising the right float and lifting off from the step, (a standard procedure), we climbed maybe 20 ft and the left wing started to stall, for a serious left bank. I recovered, did a couple of water bounces (first right, the left) with compensating control inputs and flap adjustments after another drop of the left wing, then turned into the W-E water lane and settled it back onto the lake – always avoiding a complete stall or nose-down attitude (to limit the risk of sticking the float tips). After a long slow taxi on the water – catching my breath, calming my nerves, etc., we did some control checks, talked about CG, considered other issues, and verified that he hadn’t introduced any untoward inputs from the back seat. By then, the wind had shifted a bit, so I requested a step taxi authorization so as to check power and controls while heading over to the east end of the lake. That all checked out, the plane had no unexpected characteristics during the step taxi, and we proceeded to take off to the West. The slide and take-off was unremarkable with 10 degree flaps, raising the right float a bit to break away, and away we go. SO, I THOUGHT, BADDDD technique on the first take-off, and truly embarrassing before a real professional pilot! What in the H…… had I done that first time!?!.
Once out of the controlled airspace, I did a bit control testing, pitch adjustment, power settings and so on to ensure that all worked well, but I noticed a higher level of control input. As we progressed away, there was a sense of a need for right aileron input. Art, the zillion-hour Check Pilot for Fed Ex took the controls and commented that it seemed to take a bit of right aileron, so we observed carefully and out of the cockpit you could see about an inch of deflection beyond normal. This was unusual, as the plane had been perfectly rigged up to then, often being flown hands-off. The left wing was calling for more lift to keep things stable, straight and level. Plus, it called (as you might expect) for some additional rudder input. The discourse then was to get the rigging checked at annual.
We flew around for a while, and I declined to stop at a lake I had intended to visit that was then experiencing some winds (probably a good thing), and headed back to Anchorage with just some gentle turns here and there to see some sights. Beautiful evening, great views of Denali and other mountains and just a pleasant ride. All told, about 2.7 hours of gentle flying in good conditions.
On approach to Anchorage, all went well. 60 knots on approach to landing, a basically glassy water landing with a bit of power at the end to assure a good contact, and my comment: “I’m glad I can land better than taking off!” His comment – “Nice”.
So, with calm air, a smooth lake, and the satisfaction of a good flight, we taxi back to the tie-down to secure the plane. I stand by my car after unloading and securing the plane, take a last look while pondering the crazy take-off, and exclaim --- my God, Art, look at that! With the shadows of 9:15, a late-evening western sun reflecting off the lake, and the just-right angle from standing by my car, I can see a wrinkle on the top of the left wing. I look further and note the twist of that end . What the HEY! How is this? The end is twisted up and away from the aileron, clearly such as to have a significant impact on the airfoil and flight characteristics.
Art and I confer, then I call my partner Burke, who arrives shortly since he lives quite nearby. The three of us look it over and can only find evidence of something, somehow, having hit the wing near the rear end of the wingtip, putting an upward and forward force that twisted the end up a bit (check the photos). Yet, it’s in a spot that no one can drive to, there’s another plane alongside that inhibits machinery, we never landed anywhere either Sunday or that evening, and we didn’t strike anything with the wing during our “adventurous” take-off (which, had it had struck water or something else, would have otherwise probably flipped the plane, putting us in the drink). WHAT HAPPENED? I say, more than once……
After mulling over all the possibilities (can you envision three of us staring at this for an hour or more?) and confirming by my Check Pilot that the left wing never made contact during the takeoff and with no indication of any forward motion contact during the “adventurous departure”, we came to the realization that the possible cause was an upward and forward thrust of A BULL MOOSE, many of which wander around the airport and have been known to damage planes, especially during the rut. This is early in the season; nevertheless, moose have been in the area, and Burke observed that some folks had been watching moose there over the last several days. (After Mary and I took these photos this evening, we saw a cow and calf walk right past the gate on Lake Shore Drive and start feeding next to a plane near the entrance, and inside the fence.) The individual poke marks on the rear of the fiberglass wing tip, and angle of impact, suggests a moose probably just lifted his head into the left wing with an abrupt and upward thrust, sometime Sunday night but in any case prior to our flight on Monday.
The Airport Police and airport Operations folks came upon our call, established a case file, took pictures, and basically nodded with our hypothesis. All basically agreed that moose were a problem around there. Our recommendation was to take the moose out and turn them into burger!
So, then the Real Lessons: Just because you flew yesterday, assume nothing! After a wild control response, put it to land (or dock) and look over everything. Don’t assume (as I did) that it’s probably just poor piloting technique. When you find there’s something out of whack (like an aileron deflection), CAREFULLY go back to square one and check it out. I’m just glad we didn’t try anything fancy last night during the flight (although I must admit that I had a haunting feeling throughout the flight that it was best not to push anything, such as landing at the lake with strong winds). I’m also glad I had a big old lake to carry on about during that bad take-off, rather than just a 50-100 ft. wide runway.
After lying awake half the night thinking about it, I was not surprised to get a call from Art this morning, doing some of the same post-event evaluation – lack of careful walk around, not returning for inspections after the exciting aborted take-off, etc. The insurance adjuster came by today, shrugged, took a few pictures, left some forms to fill out, and asked that we get some repair estimates (that all according to Burke, since I was working and wasn’t there to greet the adjuster). AVEMCO is giving us the option of repairing or replacing the wing, with the fellow that had rebuilt the plane a couple of years ago (Fred Johnson) providing the repair estimate. AVEMCO will however, cover only the lower of the two costs, plus ancillary expenses like lift trucks, shipping of parts, etc. The adjuster seemed to believe it could be repaired, but we’ll see.
Ah, life in Alaska. And airplanes. Never a dull moment, and always something to learn.
I wanted to tell you about an adventure I had yesterday in the float plane. The incidental story is that I had someone on-board that knew something about what was going on. The significant story is that we both learned something, as we do from experience. And, there’s a pretty unique twist to it all…….
I met a check pilot for FedEx this weekend. We went for a ride last night and had a real exciting time ---- one of those stories for “I Learned About Flying From That!”
I had flown the plane the day before, on Sunday with Mary, for nearly 2 hours. Yesterday, Art called and said , “let’s go”. So, I headed over and met him at the FedEx simulator station. Arriving at the float slip, we did some prep (checked fuel, installed the stick in the back, etc.), and climbed aboard. He had helped by releasing the tie-downs on both wings and pumping out floats. I had checked each of the high wing fuel tanks (finger method), tightened caps and looked down each wing. To turn the plane around, I held onto the right wing (the plane is normally moored nose-in to the shore) and swung the airplane, guiding the tail into the bank to put the door on the right at the single dock, and went around to the right to get things set up inside. Once done, and with Art in settled into the back, I climbed aboard and did the in-cabin checkout and discussed procedures.
We taxied around to the SE departure on Lake Hood (warming the engine, checking controls, all that stuff) and then proceeded for normal takeoff into the 18O degree wind. Since the water lane is really SE, we steered about 120, but no big deal with light crosswind (8 knots) on a big lake. After raising the right float and lifting off from the step, (a standard procedure), we climbed maybe 20 ft and the left wing started to stall, for a serious left bank. I recovered, did a couple of water bounces (first right, the left) with compensating control inputs and flap adjustments after another drop of the left wing, then turned into the W-E water lane and settled it back onto the lake – always avoiding a complete stall or nose-down attitude (to limit the risk of sticking the float tips). After a long slow taxi on the water – catching my breath, calming my nerves, etc., we did some control checks, talked about CG, considered other issues, and verified that he hadn’t introduced any untoward inputs from the back seat. By then, the wind had shifted a bit, so I requested a step taxi authorization so as to check power and controls while heading over to the east end of the lake. That all checked out, the plane had no unexpected characteristics during the step taxi, and we proceeded to take off to the West. The slide and take-off was unremarkable with 10 degree flaps, raising the right float a bit to break away, and away we go. SO, I THOUGHT, BADDDD technique on the first take-off, and truly embarrassing before a real professional pilot! What in the H…… had I done that first time!?!.
Once out of the controlled airspace, I did a bit control testing, pitch adjustment, power settings and so on to ensure that all worked well, but I noticed a higher level of control input. As we progressed away, there was a sense of a need for right aileron input. Art, the zillion-hour Check Pilot for Fed Ex took the controls and commented that it seemed to take a bit of right aileron, so we observed carefully and out of the cockpit you could see about an inch of deflection beyond normal. This was unusual, as the plane had been perfectly rigged up to then, often being flown hands-off. The left wing was calling for more lift to keep things stable, straight and level. Plus, it called (as you might expect) for some additional rudder input. The discourse then was to get the rigging checked at annual.
We flew around for a while, and I declined to stop at a lake I had intended to visit that was then experiencing some winds (probably a good thing), and headed back to Anchorage with just some gentle turns here and there to see some sights. Beautiful evening, great views of Denali and other mountains and just a pleasant ride. All told, about 2.7 hours of gentle flying in good conditions.
On approach to Anchorage, all went well. 60 knots on approach to landing, a basically glassy water landing with a bit of power at the end to assure a good contact, and my comment: “I’m glad I can land better than taking off!” His comment – “Nice”.
So, with calm air, a smooth lake, and the satisfaction of a good flight, we taxi back to the tie-down to secure the plane. I stand by my car after unloading and securing the plane, take a last look while pondering the crazy take-off, and exclaim --- my God, Art, look at that! With the shadows of 9:15, a late-evening western sun reflecting off the lake, and the just-right angle from standing by my car, I can see a wrinkle on the top of the left wing. I look further and note the twist of that end . What the HEY! How is this? The end is twisted up and away from the aileron, clearly such as to have a significant impact on the airfoil and flight characteristics.
Art and I confer, then I call my partner Burke, who arrives shortly since he lives quite nearby. The three of us look it over and can only find evidence of something, somehow, having hit the wing near the rear end of the wingtip, putting an upward and forward force that twisted the end up a bit (check the photos). Yet, it’s in a spot that no one can drive to, there’s another plane alongside that inhibits machinery, we never landed anywhere either Sunday or that evening, and we didn’t strike anything with the wing during our “adventurous” take-off (which, had it had struck water or something else, would have otherwise probably flipped the plane, putting us in the drink). WHAT HAPPENED? I say, more than once……
After mulling over all the possibilities (can you envision three of us staring at this for an hour or more?) and confirming by my Check Pilot that the left wing never made contact during the takeoff and with no indication of any forward motion contact during the “adventurous departure”, we came to the realization that the possible cause was an upward and forward thrust of A BULL MOOSE, many of which wander around the airport and have been known to damage planes, especially during the rut. This is early in the season; nevertheless, moose have been in the area, and Burke observed that some folks had been watching moose there over the last several days. (After Mary and I took these photos this evening, we saw a cow and calf walk right past the gate on Lake Shore Drive and start feeding next to a plane near the entrance, and inside the fence.) The individual poke marks on the rear of the fiberglass wing tip, and angle of impact, suggests a moose probably just lifted his head into the left wing with an abrupt and upward thrust, sometime Sunday night but in any case prior to our flight on Monday.
The Airport Police and airport Operations folks came upon our call, established a case file, took pictures, and basically nodded with our hypothesis. All basically agreed that moose were a problem around there. Our recommendation was to take the moose out and turn them into burger!
So, then the Real Lessons: Just because you flew yesterday, assume nothing! After a wild control response, put it to land (or dock) and look over everything. Don’t assume (as I did) that it’s probably just poor piloting technique. When you find there’s something out of whack (like an aileron deflection), CAREFULLY go back to square one and check it out. I’m just glad we didn’t try anything fancy last night during the flight (although I must admit that I had a haunting feeling throughout the flight that it was best not to push anything, such as landing at the lake with strong winds). I’m also glad I had a big old lake to carry on about during that bad take-off, rather than just a 50-100 ft. wide runway.
After lying awake half the night thinking about it, I was not surprised to get a call from Art this morning, doing some of the same post-event evaluation – lack of careful walk around, not returning for inspections after the exciting aborted take-off, etc. The insurance adjuster came by today, shrugged, took a few pictures, left some forms to fill out, and asked that we get some repair estimates (that all according to Burke, since I was working and wasn’t there to greet the adjuster). AVEMCO is giving us the option of repairing or replacing the wing, with the fellow that had rebuilt the plane a couple of years ago (Fred Johnson) providing the repair estimate. AVEMCO will however, cover only the lower of the two costs, plus ancillary expenses like lift trucks, shipping of parts, etc. The adjuster seemed to believe it could be repaired, but we’ll see.
Ah, life in Alaska. And airplanes. Never a dull moment, and always something to learn.
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