September 10, 1998
Several of you asked me to post more of my late father's flying stories. This is one from his GA days:
In the early 50's, my father was flying from somewhere in Western Oklahoma, passing over the Dumas, Texas area, returning home to Amarillo after a day on business. At that time he was Panhandle Region General Manager for an industrial supply company who specialized in oil field equipment. He had acquired a Luscombe "Silvaire" (8E?) to get him around the Texas Oil Patch. He had recently upgraded the radios in the Luscombe. This last fact proved to be critical.
He was happily cruising along at a few thousand feet AGL in some mild chop when, without any warning, there was a loud "bang" and the plane rolled very sharply to the right, an attitude that rapidly transitioned into a spin. He had not been wearing his shoes or seatbelt, and initially lost more altitude than he wanted to just trying to scramble back into his seat. In the meantime, he realized the right wing had twisted downward on its main spar, had rotated backwards ten degrees, and was fluttering, threatening to come off entirely. He later hypothesized that the only reason it did not tear off completely was because the trailing edge root had jammed into the fuselage. After recovering from the spin very gingerly, he slowed down until the flapping stopped, since he knew as an engineer that if it continued the wing would eventually tear off from fatigue. At this point he was able to stabilize the plane's attitude in a relatively steep turn to the right by applying full left aileron and rudder and by reducing power, but with nothing left to straighten the turn. He later said that in well over 10,000 hours in the air, it was the only time he would have abandoned the aircraft if he'd had a parachute - but no 'chute.
Fortunately, the Texas Panhandle is pretty flat, and he was able to spiral down to a forced landing, although he had almost no ability to control where. He touched down on one wheel, and began a turning rollout until the roll authority of the twisted wing dropped to the point that he could get the other wheel down. As he began to straighten out, he suddenly realized that there was a fairly large arroyo directly in front of him. He was still moving fast enough that he didn't think he could stop before it and could see that he was going to smash head on into the bank on the opposite side if he didn't do something. Fortunately, being a tail dragger, the Luscombe could be nosed over with the brakes, which is what he did, on the theory that the vertical stabilizer would be the best plow to help get him stopped. The combination of the impact of the noseover, coupled with the vertical stabilizer digging in, stopped the Luscombe with 7 ft of tail hanging out over the edge of the arroyo. We used to have a picture of it in that condition. Pretty impressive.
Concerned about the possibility of fire, he released his seatbelt, dropped onto his head, and scrambled out. After waiting to be certain there would be no fire, he eventually climbed back in and retrieved his shoes. Unfortunately, he could not get them back on because his feet had swollen from their impact with the rudder pedals during the noseover. Here he was, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the Texas panhandle, in his stocking feet. A couple of miles away, he could see a farmer plowing a field, so he set off in that direction, carrying his shoes (you Texans know about "goatheads", ouch!). Taking the direct route, he climbed over a barbed wire fence that surrounded a large field that was between him and the field the farmer was plowing. He had gone a few hundred yards into the field when he realized that the cow he had noticed earlier was not a cow after all, but a bull, who seemed to object to his trespassing in his field. He chased Dad all the way back to the fence, which he vaulted over by throwing his shoes first, grabbing the wire, and flipping over it just as the bull arrived. He then had to walk an extra few miles around the perimeter of the fence while the bull followed him.
Eventually he reached the farmer, who got pretty excited when Dad pointed out the wrecked airplane in the distance with its wheels in the air, which the farmer had not seen crash. Dad climbed onto the tractor, and then hung on for dear life while the farmer raced across the plowed field to his farm. Dad had a few barbed wire cuts, and bleeding feet from his trek across West Texas in his socks, so the farmer wanted to get him to the doctor. He piled Dad into a Model A pickup, started the engine, and wheeled around in the farmyard. Dad flew out into the dust. The farmer stopped, very apologetic, helped Dad back in, and then fastened the passenger door shut with the piece of coat-hanger wire that he had forgotten in his haste.
When they finally got to the doctor's office, the nurse looked a bit concerned, apologized and left. After about 15 minutes she returned with the doctor, who had obviously spent the entire afternoon in the bar down the street, which was apparently his habit. He tried to treat Dad's cuts, but was so far gone that Dad had to help guide his hand so that the antiseptic would get on the cuts instead of everywhere else.
Finally, exhausted, he sat on a bus the rest of the night to get back to Amarillo to his family. All in all, a very trying day! The investigation revealed that the A&P who had installed the new antenna for the upgraded radios had drilled through the secondary spar connector, which failed and allowed the wing to rotate on its main spar. It is likely that the only things that prevented the wing from failing completely were the struts and the trailing edge jammed into the fuselage. Dad always figured that it just wasn't his time that day.
Bob
Copyright Ó 1998 Robert T. Chilcoat