A couple weekends ago. I’m headed over to Sussex (N63)
for a hundred dollar hamburger. It's a straight shot out the BDR
285 radial about 60 miles. I'm buzzing along westbound at 4500
MSL south of the Carmel VOR. Now I don't like being in that area
north of HPN without having the reassuring voice of New York
Approach whispering advisories in my ear. I call him up on 126.4
and he gives me a squawk code and advises radar contact
established. Minutes later approach speaks up with my call
sign:"Traffic eastbound one mile your twelve o'clock
indicating 4500. If you don't have contact initiate immediate
right turn and climb." Hey, I’m thinking, that's my
altitude, as I more or less simultaneously reach for the
throttle, start to crank in a right bank, and look for the
interloper. And there he is, coming fast. A low-wing, white with
red trim. My mental velocity vector processor quickly informs me
that the dumb s.o.b. is going to miss me, but not by much. We
pass port-to-port at the same altitude and about 200 yards
separation. I call approach to say thanks and let him know what
the actual separation has been. If that character's track had
been just a little further North, the approach controller's
traffic advisory could have made the difference between a really
close call and that rarest of events, an en route midair
collision. So the Old Buzzard's message here is simple: Get
flight following as much and as often as you can. Asking is easy,
they don't charge, and the butt you save may be your own!
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It's one of those foggy days at BDR when even the gulls are
walking. I'm sitting around with my friend Pete swapping hangar
flying stories and he recounts this tale of a time way back in
his student days. Pete is doing bumps and circuits (like the
Brits say) with his CFI on Runway 29. The instructor, to
demonstrate one of the finer points, says "Let me take this
one." Pete says "Your airplane" and settles back
to watch. Mind you, both of these guys are now focused on the
technique of this here landing. They get down into ground effect
and the CFI is flaring the airplane. As they get to the
intersection with 24 the airplane suddenly rolls about 60 degrees
starboard and gets blown off the right side of the runway. Kinda
makes their hearts go thumpety-thump! Well, Pete figures he's
here to tell me the story because that day the CFI is both good
and quick. He's at full power and leveling the wings and going
around in about the time it takes Pete to go
"Whatthehellwasthat!?" Come to find out, while they
were on base the tower clears a Dash 7 for takeoff from 24, the
intersecting runway. The Dash 7 is a big airplane with an
absolutely hellacious wake. If the deHavilland's on 29, the
controller issues a wake turbulence warning. But since it's on
24, that's not required. Pete’s message is this: No matter
how interesting it is inside the airplane, you have to stay aware
of all your surroundings. The controller is there to help, but
you gotta be alert and maintain situational awareness! So get
your head outside and THINK.
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I’m up in the club office one day, enjoying the stale
coffee and watching the wonderful world of aviation unfold out
the window. Here comes ol’ Grover in his Skyhawk,
‘44Romeo, pulling up to his parking space which he
overshoots by four feet, as usual. He gets out, shaking his head
over the mis-alignment of aircraft and parking space. I’m
waiting for Grover to duck under the wing, drape his 200 pounds
over the stabilizer and shove the ol’ girl’s
tailfeathers over so she’s pointed where he wants her to go.
But, no-o-o! Wonder of wonders, he fishes around in the cabin and
out comes a towbar! He hooks the towbar up and steers the nose
gear with it while pushing on the prop in close to the spinner.
Now, I’ve never seen good technique from Grover before, so I
figure something happened and I contrive to "run into"
him before he gets out of the FBO. "Grove’," I
say, "what’s with the towbar routine parking the
airplane? I ain’t seen you do that before." "Geez,
Buzz," Grover starts in, shaking his head mournfully,
"I just got her back from annual and they soaked me over 500
bucks to replace a rib and some skin on the stabilizer. They
shown me where it was broke, right where I always used ta’
push down on it!" So I smile as I turn away. Been telling
ol’ Grove’ that for years. NOW HEAR THIS: Use the
Towbar! Do NOT lean on the stabilizer of the Cessna to move the
tail sideways. You WILL break the airplane! OK?
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It’s a nice early spring day at the airport and I’m
walking out to the ramp to preflight the aircraft. It’s
medium busy - there’s a Cessna on short final, looks like
one of the Caravans turning base, nobody on the downwind. Of
course there’s no way I can’t stop in my tracks and
watch the landings -- never get tired of watchin’ airplanes
land. It’s a puffy kind of day and the guy on final has some
work to do...he’s a little high over the threshold and he
pulls the power and starts to sink, then -- I guess we’ve
all done it -- he bounces pretty good. He comes back down, on the
mains not the nosegear (whew!) but there’s this
s-c-r-e-e-c-h and a puff of blue smoke! Ooh, I hate that sound!
Our friend (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) has
gotten his (her?) foot (feet?) on the brakes while airborne. This
has resulted in applying another black stripe to the surface of
Runway 29, and probably in the junking of another aircraft tire.
These little rubber doughnuts are a lot more expensive than the
tires on your Toyota! The demonstration I describe here
isn’t the only technique for shredding tires! There’s
taxiing too fast and havin’ to nail the brakes...and even
pivoting the aircraft on one main when cornering. All bad ideas!
And by the way...in case the previous user of the airplane has
screwed up a tire, you better roll her half a tire during
preflight. Funny how the worn spot is usually on the bottom!
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My friend Jerry is going on the other day about the new
airplane his flying club has picked up. Now, I know that these
guys have been Cessna drivers and the new bird is a low-wing job.
So I ask Jerry how he feels about the transition.
"Hey," he says, "it’s a wing, right?
What’s the difference whether it’s on top or on the
bottom?" "Yeah, in lots of ways that’s true,"
I answer, "but let me ask - when you flew the Cessna how
often did you switch tanks?" He looks at me like I’m
nuts. "Never. You check the selector is on Both and
that’s that." "Uh-huh. But your new plane
don’t got no Both. It’s got Left and Right but no Both.
Now you gotta think about Fuel Management." "Whaddya
mean Fuel Management", Jerry asks, interested now. So I tell
him. "Jer’, Fuel Management is what you do so you
don’t wind up like those guys you read about in the NTSB
reports. You know the ones - where it says ‘Fuel Selector
was at Left, less than one gallon of fuel found in Left tank, 17
gallons were recovered from the Right tank.’ Fuel Management
is developing whatever habits you have to so that every 20 or 30
minutes, without fail, its ‘Boost pump ON - Switch tanks -
Boost pump OFF.’" "Remember," I point out,
"Silence may be Golden, but it sure makes your heart go
pitty-pat when you’re cruisin’ along at 3500 MSL and
the airplane gets r-e-a-l-l-l-y quiet. Save your non-powered time
for the Glider Rating."
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I’m in the club office the other day just lookin’
out the window and listenin’ to the tower frequency when two
pretty good sized dogs wander into view. Just trottin’
along, havin’ a good old time together. The mutts head out
toward Runway 29 which happens to be active. I think,
"Uh-oh", and turn for the telephone to call the tower
as the pooches are crossing taxiway Delta. Before I can grab the
phone I hear tower say to the guy on his takeoff run,
"35Romeo, dogs on right side of runway!" I turn back to
the window as the doggies get to the middle of the runway and
35Romeo, a Cessna 172, approaches from the left. "Oh,
my", I think, "this could get messy." The pilot of
35Romeo proceeds to do everything just right. He sees the
animals, rotates early. He has some speed so the Skyhawk pops
off, but the pilot holds her down in ground effect. The right
gear misses the lead dog by maybe three feet. 35Romeo accelerates
to flying speed and then pitches up and climbs out. I let out the
breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding as I hear,
"Tower, 35 Romeo, thanks for the warning on the dogs."
By this time the airport ground crew is headed out for some
serious dog wrangling. We often sweat the landings and treat the
takeoffs as routine -- but you never know! So don’t fixate
on the airspeed indicator or on the runway centerline. Someday,
peripheral vision, quick thinking and a hand on the throttle will
keep you and the airplane in one piece.
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This page last edited: 10/06/99
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© 1997, 1999 Frank Van Haste