dead stick landing

Wow - I hope I'm doing dead stick landings like Frank H. Smith when I'm 87! And just think - airline pilots are still required to retire at 60.
 
Another great reporting job... Not! I have no issue with them stating in the text that the plane landed near a nuclear plant, but to put a stock picture of the plant in the story, and for it to be the only picture, serves no purpose and is a bit ridiculous IMHO. I guess the story just isn't sexy enough to tell without implying some sort of threat to the plant.

PS - Glad to hear the pilot is safe.
 
Yeah - they could at least have put a picture in so we know what kind of plane it was! :D

I heard that on CNN on the way home from work Sun. AM and that was my thought - hope I can do the same when I'm 87!

Thomas
 
Well, if nothing else this 87 year old has a good 'ticker'. Would have made mine skip a couple of beats.

Glad to see he got it down and undamaged.
 
It would be nice to know the cause of failure

It would be nice to know the cause of failure to determine if it could be fixed and flown out of there. The trooper obviously has no concept of the impact of removing the wings from an RV. The vulnerability to damage and vandalism would be another major concern for me. At least it is a tail dragger and the wings and main landing gear are not held to the fuselage with the same bolts. Mr. Smith no doubt has seen many things in his life that he has had to work through and I'm sure he will work through this one as well. At 69 years old I still do 100 push-ups and walk 2 miles every day as part of my physical fitness routine, read the labels in stores to avoid saturated fats, and keep my weight under control mainly to keep flying so Mr. Smith and others like him are an inspiration. Well done.

Bob Axsom
 
Jealous much?

I know Frank, and all the age comments are funny. You might be decrepit at 60 but Frank (@87) looks and acts like a "young" 60 something. I think you are all jealous. :rolleyes: Genetics is a beotch (if you ain't got good ones). lol G

BTW Frank is not just an around the patch guy; he competes in air races like the Sun-N-Fun 100 often and is competitive. still lol
 
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tobinbasford said:
Bob,
Perhaps Mr Smith does not want to fly the plane out of there under the circumstances, and with that information, the trooper then said, well, you'll have to remove the wings if you're going to tow it. It may not be an easy fix or Smith may not even know why it quit, and therefore that may be the best option. There's a video on the internet shot just a couple of weeks ago of a cessna that successfully deadsticked onto a highway in Louisiana after fuel exhaustion. The next day the pilot, with fuel, decided to fly it out, and ended up crashing on takeoff when he clipped an 18 wheeler and fire truck.

Tobin
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Per the video, it was pulled up on what looked like a "rollback" to be taken away but then they pulled it off. Concern express (by Trooper??) about wing length going down the highway.

Regarding flying it out, there was OIL all over the left side near where the cowl meets the firewall. Mr. Smith said he was at 8500 trying to make it back to the airport but t quit. The way he said it made me think he had had some sign of something not exactly right.

It did not look like something you would want to try to patch and fly out.

James
 
I've Been There

I am all too familiar with the oil on the side of the fuselage symptom. You are right that is not a flyout possibility - the engine is probably siezed and will probably require a new crank and main bearings. About this time you want to get it back to the hangar and take care of it right. In my case I made it back to the runway and was able to be towed to the hangar by a Chino Airport dump truck. I feel his pain.

Bob Axsom
 
another freeway landing

I know this WW2 ol' timer who was headed from my home field to an airport in Central CA -- Coalinga IIRC. probably six mos ago.

He said he was encountering terrible headwinds and worried about fuel. So he lands, on the I-5, but not sure IIRC. He slows up and sees a gas station at the off ramp. So he fills up.

And someone called the authories and the CHP showed up. They cleared a road for him and away he goes.

But a month later he's sweating it and talking about selling his plane. (something about no medical)

and he just got a bill in mail from the CHP for services rendered. $81. :eek:
 
tobinbasford said:
Here's a link to the failed attempt of a cessna to takeoff from a highway after a deadstick due to fuel exhaustion. Pilot wasn't hurt. If you look real close, right after he starts to roll, his right wing tip hits the 18 wheeler's mirror, then hits the firetruck. Shame to have such a successful landing just to ball it up on takeoff.

http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_301131559.html

Tobin
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Boy that's just a piece of video I can't stop watching. It just leads to way too many "how could this happen"s.

It's been a long time since I've flown Cessnas, but wouldnt that have been a short-field takeoff and would you use a notch of flaps for a softfield? Not that it would've mattered here, of course.

It also looks like he wasn't lined up with "the runway" whenhe applied full throttle.I wonder why? He must've turned about 30 degrees AFTER applying full throttle.

Doesn't look like a well-planned take-off ( I mean, 'geez', move the darned truck!) , but since he ran out of fuel while en route, planning doesn't appear to have been a high priority.
 
bob,

it looks like a slight curve and he opted to stay on the sequeway (is that a word?) rather than give himself an extra five feet by driving through the grass portion.
 
Bob Collins said:
Boy that's just a piece of video I can't stop watching. It just leads to way too many "how could this happen"s.

It's been a long time since I've flown Cessnas, but wouldnt that have been a short-field takeoff and would you use a notch of flaps for a softfield? Not that it would've mattered here, of course.

It also looks like he wasn't lined up with "the runway" whenhe applied full throttle.I wonder why? He must've turned about 30 degrees AFTER applying full throttle.

Doesn't look like a well-planned take-off ( I mean, 'geez', move the darned truck!) , but since he ran out of fuel while en route, planning doesn't appear to have been a high priority.
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My father's an active member of the cessna pilot's assoc. forum, and there's quite a thread over there (the pilot of the aircraft is/was a member there) about this incident..
Anyways, the pilot decided to take off on the highway because when they originally tried to load the C210 on the flatbed towtruck, the pilot was quite sure that they wouldn't get it on the truck without scratching his paint.

So he got permission from the police/fire dept/etc to have them close the road, and he'd take off again later in the day. Only issue was that he was quite impatient. The 2 vehicles that he hit with his right wingtip were going to be moved, but he decided he could go and clear them anyways. What the video didn't show was the firefighters/police officers waving to him to stop because in another couple of minutes they were going to move those 2 vehicles in question, and he would have had the entire width of the road..

The ironic thing is that the tow truck that the plane was loaded on after the takeoff crash was the same towtruck that the pilot didn't want his plane on because it would scratch his paint....
 
Look at the power lines

Look at the Video. Look at all the polls, power lines and congestion with business. If I was the Cop I would not have let him take off.

I think pilot's in these situation let themselves get into "FLIGHT or Fight mode". The pilot wants to get out of there, making it go away. May be economical, social (embarssment, ego), time and fear (of FAA violation) puts the pilot in a mind set to take risk (and use even less judgment than what got them there in the first place).

I know these are bad reasons to compromise safety. However every pilot is affected by outside forces which affects their decision making; no one is immune from these pressures. We are all human. This is the same thing that makes pilots push bad weather or do other stupid things. The good thing is examples like this discussed on forums may help a future pilot in the same scenario say "take it apart", instead of "Stand Back, Clear!", even it the Cop says go for it. This is not the first plane to crash trying to take-off after a forced landing.

(Joke: The late Don Adams (Agent Maxwell Smart) the Pilot, "Chief, I missed it by that much.")

If Frank could have taken off it would have been much safer with the Highway he was on. However things like the above makes it no wounder Highway Patrol SOP is to not allow takeoffs on city streets. However cases like the above Video where Law enforcement allowed a Pilot to make a bad choice, and no doubt had some explaining to do himself, shows why many cops demand you truck it out.


It's too bad for Frank, he was very close to the airport. He could have easily towed it on a flat bed with wings; oh, well nothing like taking the wings off. The only thing keeping him from the airport was a mile or two of low use 4 lane hi-way, wide off ramp and a mile of 2-lane rural road leading to the airport ramp. The biggest obstacle would have been the airports electric sliding fence, about 25 wide for cars to access the ramp area. :eek:

George
 
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Bob Axsom said:
At 69 years old I still do 100 push-ups and walk 2 miles every day as part of my physical fitness routine
Bob Axsom
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Wow! I got short of breath just reading that, and I'm 44!

Cheers,
Martin
 
Old Pilots

rv8ch said:
Wow - I hope I'm doing dead stick landings like Frank H. Smith when I'm 87! And just think - airline pilots are still required to retire at 60.
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There is good news on the mandatory 60 age limit. Looks like it will go to 65 in the near future with some restrictions.

Our local airport was reciently named the Clayton Scott Field to honor his contribution to aviation at a celebration held in the Seattle Museum of Flight. He owns a pair of Cessna 195s that he's converted to floats and has made numerous first flights over the course of his career. Scotty flew a twin Aerostar in to attend the ceremony. The occasion? His 100th birthday...
 
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