POST SCRIPTS

I used to fly Cessna's and Piper Cherokees...but had a lot of trouble with the radio with my hearing loss. (Funny that aviation is still stuck using AM radio with all its low fidelity and interference problems after all the advances in technolgy we have, its the same radio band as in the 1920's.)

Anyway, one day I was flying into Muncie Indiana, for touch and go's...and had a lot of trouble understanding the tower. Even after asking them to repeat twice it was still tough to understand, but I thought I got it after looking at the sectional map to check the runway again.

So I merged into the pattern...and soon found myself looking at aircraft coming straight at me!

I had gotten the active runway backwards, and was flying in the pattern reversed. After doing a 180 and apologizing to everybody on the tower frequency and on UNICOM, I landed and took a break.

I decided then and there, that my poor hearing had endangered myself and others, and that I couldn't keep flying. So after returning home I "pulled over" for good, and now only fly with a buddy who can work the radio.

I flew a tail dragger, 150's, 172's and once a turbo 210, that was a great plane. I was 8 years old when I had my first plane ride, a neighbor took me up in his Piper Cub and let me try the stick, it was a really thrilling experience for a kid and I always knew some day I would be flying solo.

Many years later I was headed to Oroville in a Cessna 150 coming in from the direction of Quincy, approaching Lake Oroville. The weather was kinda rough, really heavy cloud layer. I was flying VFR and the ceiling was dropping, narrowing the distance between me and the rocky ground below, but I knew I could out run the weather, although I could see flashes in the clouds at a distance. The flashes meant lightning leaping from cloud to cloud and that always made me pucker a little, even thought a lightning strike on a small plane is rarely fatal thanks to some built-in protections.

I was just about 10 miles north of Feather Falls and I get this wham-wham-wham-wham rapid fire pounding noise. All had been humming right along and suddenly it sounds like I'm on the inside of a base drum. Trust me when I say, any unusual sound in an aircraft is not a welcome event, but a wham, wham, wham, beating the aircraft is unnerving to say the least.

I look right and left to see if a wing strut is coming loose (my first concern). I think (did tighten the gas cap overhead? And yes I absolutely did, I was always very methodical in my preflight) So, while this baming noise is going on I cut back on power to lessen the stress on the aircraft and see if that changes the noise and it does, oh it's still whaming, but not as violently.

By now I know this sound has to be somewhere on the wing section overhead and I think unpleasant thoughts like possibly the main spar has developed a fracture, oh thats not good, really, really not good. However, flying at less than cruise speed lessens the noise, so I continue on, not a heck of a lot other options. No where to set down.

Now I am planning for the worse. If something lets go, like a main spar end of planning...next thought. Ok, if I start losing my ability to control the aircraft like a flap is separating, I might still have a chance to put it in...but where? Below me are granite boulders the size of semi's and tall pine trees, not exactly an ideal landing spot. Then I think water landing, lake dead ahead...oh, why did I think "dead", bad choice of words. I remember reading the headlines just a month earlier when another pilot ditched on the South fork, the results were fatal. According to the story, the plane flipped over and sank quickly...real hard landing. Then I think somewhat comically, "Hey, I am literally between a rock and hard place, how ironic." I know it isn't all that funny now, but at the moment I almost laughed out loud. I always turned to morbid humor to help me in tense situations, especially as a cop which I was at the time. (Some of the funniest lines I've ever heard came at the worst moments in my police career, unfortunately such morbid humor is mostly unfit for public print.)

Then I think, if this plane is falling apart on me and the worst happens, I at least want someone to know it wasn't pilot error, so I call in on the Unicom and appraise the mechanic on the other end of the my situation. He's very helpful and goes through a check list of what I'm experiencing verses what it might be. He strongly suggests, it's just the gas cap that has come off and is hanging by its chain and it's pounding on the aluminum skin. Sounds plausible, but no way, I secured it and I know that's not the sound...he still thinks it is.

The minutes pass very slowly when you are in a stressful situation like that, but finally I'm clear of the last of the hills and its wide open valley and lots roads, what a great sight. And still my plane is flying just fine, except for this really bad noise.

I declare an emergency and go for a straight in approach, as is warranted, sooner I get on the ground the safer I will be and everybody below me will be. I do an extra light touch down and taxi over to the mechanics hanger (the noise has all but stopped) where a small group of onlookers has gathered. I shut off the engine and roll to a stop, release my really tight seat belt and hop out. I see the mechanic and he is pointing at something and everybody is looking at it and I turn around, look up and there it is... the source of the noise and my anxiety. The rubber sealing the windscreen had pulled out and flopped over the top of passenger compartment.

This part had been flailing violently, pounding away on the ceiling right over my head! Oh brother, what I just went through over something so weird and something that should never have happened, but did. lol

Pilots never really get used to those little failures like that, even though 99% of the time they have a safe landing. Because a little things that goes wrong at 5 or 6 thousand feet have the potential to ruin your day and maybe your life.

Oh, why did I quit flying? Well, including this odd event, I had a number of truly close calls, freaky things, a wind sheer on landing (that's always thrilling), a sudden wind gust on take offs (plane tends to try to roll over onto the wing tip) and then there was my law enforcement work, which was mostly in narcotics...nothing in law enforcement is really safe, but that's the worst. So, at the time I felt like I was really pushing my luck for all its worth and I decided to stop flying for awhile and to this day I never really got back into it...saved a bunch of money too!

While some planes have a better glide ratio than others, a good pilot should always look for the back door. While covering a plane crash near a local private field I learned one interesting technique.
There are a number of orchards near the end of the runway, apparently pilots have learned over the years that the trees make an excellent if a bit rough cushion for light planes. When I had arrived on the scene there indeed was a small Cessna hung up in the trees about 4 feet off the ground. The only injujry the pilot had incurred was from getting out of the plane.
As "Chico International Airport" is surrounded by houses, this might not be such a great idea.