zero.one.victor wrote:The story about the mule waking up from his in-flight nap is pretty good entertainment, but if it really happened I'm curious what type of aircraft it was in. I have been around horses & mules just enough to know that they're awful big & heavy. I helped haul off & bury a dead mule once & we had to use the loader end of a farm-tractor & some chains to get it in & out of the pickup. Seems like something at least the size of an Otter if not a DC3 would be required. Even if a smaller airplane had the room & the useful load to do the job, it would need an awful big cargo door to get the thing aboard.
Eric
Actually, as I stated in my post, it was a calf, and I would assume a relatively small one, as the airplane was supposedly an older Bonanza with most of the interior removed. It could be a rural legend, and would be difficult to verify otherwise, as the gentleman who claims it happened passed away a few years ago in his mid nineties. (I do know for a fact he flew his late model Bonanza within six weeks of his death.)
Miles
Miles
“I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less.”
— Thomas Browne
I know a few stupid pilots who pulled their tricks in V-tailed Bonanzas right up to the moment of death!
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention. An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons.
I knew a gentleman in Jamaica who flew a calf down from Miami in his 180. Sadly, the authorities had it killed as he didn't have the required documents certifying it's health.
Rudy
C-170B N4490B
Plantation Florida
(Based at North Perry Airport,
KHWO, Miramar FL)
I remember see a series of photos in a flyin lodge in Idaho of livestock being loaded into a Stinson trimotor. Can't remember why they were being moved (they did tell me ) or of any trouble but that was a short rocky one way strip and I'd let'em out too if they wanted.
Gene
I know a Pilot (high time by the way) who flew his 170 to a small Municipal Airport in Maryland to give some classmates a ride. Since it was a little breezy on arrival, he used a homemade gust lock given to him by a well meaning friend to secure the elevator while he went looking for his friends. The gust lock was two squares of plywood covered with carpet, and held together with a long nut and bolt arrangerment that slid through the separation between the elevator and the stabilizer. It also had a red streamer attached which said, "Remove before Flight". You guessed it! In his haste to get airborne and show what a great pilot he was he failed to remove said gustlock. If only he had completed the control check he would have discovered his error. At approximately 75 ft agl, it became abundantly clear that he had screwed up bigtime. Rather than try to fly around the pattern using trim tab only, he used the throttle to make a controlled (little firmer than usual) three point landing. After he taxied back down the runway to retrieve the gustlock, lest he leave any evidence of his ignorance behind, he announced to his passengers that the gustlock neede an additional six inches of streamer. When asked why, he replied so it will now read, "Remove before Flight DUMMY". Actually he threw the gustlock away, and now uses the old seatbelt through the control yoke method.
I wouldn't have believed this had I not seen the wreckage myself. I was still in high school in the late 1940's. An American Airlines DC-4 was taking off from LGA- it never lifted off, went accross the adjacent highway, crashed and burned. Some 40 people were trapped and died from the fire. The controls were locked. I think the CAA mandated the use of check lists after that event.
Rudy
C-170B N4490B
Plantation Florida
(Based at North Perry Airport,
KHWO, Miramar FL)
They might have mandated the use of check lists, but in the early 80's the local news in Wichita Falls, TX interviewed the passengers on an American Eagle flight that had just crashed on takeoff and the passengers explained that after takeoff the pilot and co-pilot got in a heated argument over whoose fault it was that the control lock was still on the yoke.
At a dinner I once had the pleasure to attend before his death, Luftwaffe Ace and commander of the Me-262 squadron, General Adolf Galland, told how he lost his best friend (and famous WW-I aviator) Werner Molders in a take-off accident. The famous WW-I Ace had taken off with his controls still locked.
In 1973 (relatively recent still in my memory) a commuter airline known as Houston MetroFlight lost a Be-99 on takeoff from Galveston to the same cause. The company had mandated that controls be locked on each turn-around no matter how short of duration in order to avoid damage from nearby helicopter operations. The control lock had had it's streamer/throttle lock chain removed to make it less obtrusive, so that the only part that remained in use was the short "stud" which stuck thru the yoke-column where it ran through the panel. The few survivors recalled how the crew valiantly tried to get the nose pushed down time and again as each time the aircraft stalled, recovered on it's own, then stalled again, gaining altitude with each porpoise until it rolled onto it's side and crashed on the airport property.
"Controls - Freedom of Movement, Full and Correct Operation" should be part of every Before TakeOff check. Many conscientious pilots refuse to start an engine on aircraft equipped with manual flight controls until the check is made. (Noisy cables/pulleys are sometimes undetectable with an engine running.)
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention. An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons.
It never ends- I recall some years ago a family was wiped out when a Cessna 210 took off from Key West. I understand the controls were locked with a bolt through the control tube.
Rudy
C-170B N4490B
Plantation Florida
(Based at North Perry Airport,
KHWO, Miramar FL)
Thanks Miles! Kyle, clik on that site and keep cliking next image. The pictures are of the very earth I learned to fly on. 5 to 15 mins from Palmer. Anytime someone visits, we'd take them on this trip around the Knik Glacier, up the Gorge, pop over to Prince William Sound, & back. The sheep, bear, and goats, are all in the usual spots. Ain't that right, Bruce?
