Bryan Wood
Well Known Member
Greetings,
Sher and I are just in from 4 nights at Reno and we almost lost our RV to a bad landing yesterday. The landing was not ours however, our plane was tied down in the transient area at Sierra Air Center. While Sherri was attending a class I decided to go for a ride over to Trinity Center after reading the last issue of Pilot Getaways to see this beautiful place in person. While parking the rental car I was gazing through the fence at the RV as this Cessna 206 came into view and proceeded to make my stomach turn. Not seeing the approach I don't know what happened to him, but he was landing on 16L which had him about 150 feet off the side of the transient row. It looked like he never flaired and he flew nose first into the runway and bounced. I don't think the mains ever touched the ground and then after the bounce the nose went high and the left wing dropped. At this point I could hear the engine noise pick up and he was flying left wing low and going right at the line of planes parked on the transient row.
From my angle it looked like he went over them and then banked to the right and wallowed off. I couldn't believe it, this idiot almost wrecked my airplane and about 8 or so others. Needless to say I expedited my trip to the ramp to see this bozo try to land when he came around again. Once outside I met an older gentleman who was in a state of shock and he told me that the airplane was one of his. I asked if he had a flight school and he told me that he was the head of the local Civil Air Patrol and this was one of their planes with a retired military pilot flying with thousands of hours and that he had 3 cadets in the plane with him. He also said that it has been a long, long time since he had seen an airplane in this kind of trouble. Well, about this time the 206 came in again for another landing and this one was much better. He did however have a flat front tire and he was unable to taxi to the ramp. Later when I returned from Trinity the ramp person told me that the pilot had told him earlier that he was going to let one of the kids try to land the 206 and believed that this is what I saw. Thankfully they were all okay, and thankfully 3 1/2 years of time in my garage was spared. For cryin' out loud, keep those insurance premiums paid. You never know.
Sher and I are just in from 4 nights at Reno and we almost lost our RV to a bad landing yesterday. The landing was not ours however, our plane was tied down in the transient area at Sierra Air Center. While Sherri was attending a class I decided to go for a ride over to Trinity Center after reading the last issue of Pilot Getaways to see this beautiful place in person. While parking the rental car I was gazing through the fence at the RV as this Cessna 206 came into view and proceeded to make my stomach turn. Not seeing the approach I don't know what happened to him, but he was landing on 16L which had him about 150 feet off the side of the transient row. It looked like he never flaired and he flew nose first into the runway and bounced. I don't think the mains ever touched the ground and then after the bounce the nose went high and the left wing dropped. At this point I could hear the engine noise pick up and he was flying left wing low and going right at the line of planes parked on the transient row.
From my angle it looked like he went over them and then banked to the right and wallowed off. I couldn't believe it, this idiot almost wrecked my airplane and about 8 or so others. Needless to say I expedited my trip to the ramp to see this bozo try to land when he came around again. Once outside I met an older gentleman who was in a state of shock and he told me that the airplane was one of his. I asked if he had a flight school and he told me that he was the head of the local Civil Air Patrol and this was one of their planes with a retired military pilot flying with thousands of hours and that he had 3 cadets in the plane with him. He also said that it has been a long, long time since he had seen an airplane in this kind of trouble. Well, about this time the 206 came in again for another landing and this one was much better. He did however have a flat front tire and he was unable to taxi to the ramp. Later when I returned from Trinity the ramp person told me that the pilot had told him earlier that he was going to let one of the kids try to land the 206 and believed that this is what I saw. Thankfully they were all okay, and thankfully 3 1/2 years of time in my garage was spared. For cryin' out loud, keep those insurance premiums paid. You never know.
