Gary's AOPA Article

[fritzthefox]

I love that placard...I think I'm going to have to get one

Great story! More fun to read than it was to experience, I am sure...thanks for sharing!

[CAPFlyer]

My question is Gary, did you get that from Boss or did he get it from you?

[Dasher]

...I'm just glad it turned out the way it did.

Gary

So are we.

Wow!

Thank you for sharing this.

[Dasher]

I love that placard...I think I'm going to have to get one

Great story! More fun to read than it was to experience, I am sure...thanks for sharing!

Everyone needs a placard ...

Mine says, "harden the f*ck up".

From this guy...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5-ZLQGwkvU

[retroaviation]

Gary -

Although your take-away at the end of the article is "wear a helmet", I think the equally important take-away is formation mutual support.

Based on your description of the event and your limited ability to see and talk, the actions of your wingmen played a significant part in you getting on the ground safely.

From their initial advice to you to get out of the airplane, to handling the radios for you, and finally bringing you down on their wing to the runway to land, you all exercised key elements of mutual support that make formations phenomenally helpful for handling emergencies.

With one small exception, it looks to me as if the other aircraft in your flight performed their chase-ship duties very well. My questions about that:

- What are their (and your) levels of formation pilot training?

- How did you brief you would handle emergencies like that?

- Did the in-flight execution go as briefed?

Overall, bravo handling a tough emergency and thanks for sharing it!

There is absolutely no doubt that the fact I had two very good wingmen assisting me, was quite helpful. As the question was asked previously, I don't know just how things would've turned out had they not been there. They were definitely as much a part of the success of this flight as the helmet.

Our levels of formation pilot training vary. Our little gaggle of fun-havin' aviators at the DeWitt Spain Airport have different backgrounds and such, ranging from military training, to TRARON. We liked having a bunch of fun, but we also took our formation stuff seriously. Dang near every flight we went on was at least a two ship, most times it was more. For a while, we (I was merely the greasy mechanic) had a 3 ship T-6 formation acro act based out of our hangar and would often practice with the North American Team (now Team Aeroshell).

We didn't exactly brief that type of emergency, and I must admit that not every formation flight we had made a mention of emergencies during the brief. However, we did discuss emergencies frequently and actually had several different crop duster strips we'd use as emergency runways from time to time.

As far as the flight going as briefed, with the exception of the canopy emergency, it went just as planned.

Thanks for the "atta-boy," Randy. It means a lot coming from you.

Gary

[Ztex]

That story is the kind that scares the crap out of me...something unexpectedly catastrophic like that is one of those things you can not train for.

What the heck hit you? No bird parts? No flying wood particles? 727 panels? Nothing?

Yikes!

Good job by all to make the happy landing!

[retroaviation]

That story is the kind that scares the crap out of me...something unexpectedly catastrophic like that is one of those things you can not train for.

What the heck hit you? No bird parts? No flying wood particles? 727 panels? Nothing?

Scared you??? Heck, what do you think it did for me? Actually, its weird, because I didn't get scared until after the flight was over and was standing outside the airplane, looking at it. THAT'S when I got scared.\

As far as what caused it, I just can't say for sure. There are several theories, but one that makes the most sense to me is a bird strike, with the portion of the canopy that it hit being somewhere at the bottom of the Mississippi River now. I dunno. I don't reckon it matters though.

Gary

[JDK]

Glad to hear you made it out of a really testing situation Gary.

As well as Randy's point about the team, there's also the difficulties of coming up with the right or just a viable mental model when things don't work like they should. Aviation is something that surely tests how adaptable you are when something fundamental (like control input) doesn't do what it should.

I'm reminded of Neil William's famous recovery after the wing failure in his Zlinn, a classic 'how'd he survive that' but also a brilliant case of coming up with the correct mental model of what went wrong and being able to act on it... If you've not read it, it's worth getting. IIRC it's in Airborne by Neil Williams. (Edit: corrected to the right book, not Aerobatics thanks Bill!)

Here's an online version.

http://www.aerobatics.org.uk/repeats/zl ... ailure.htm

Last edited by JDK on Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Bill Greenwood]

Neil Williams other book is AIRBORNE and has the same story about the Zlin failure, called 'THE DAY I SHOULD HAVE DIED". It is a great book with a bunch of super stories, including what it is like to fly a Spitfire. His writing is almost as good as his flying and he was, I think, nine times U K acro champion. It seems crazy that he did not have a parachute in that Zlin, but acro guys are a far out lot.

Bird strikes can be scary. I know a T-28 pilot who was low over a lake in Florida, when a big bird came through the top of his canopy, above the windscreen, and hit the top of his head, I think he had a helmet but it still knocked him out, at perhaps 300 feet AGL. Luckily the T-28 is dual control and his wife was in the back seat. She was not a pilot, but was quite experienced and was able to grab the controls and fly the plane for a few minutes until he could to recover enough to land. They were with a formation, but that didn't really affect the result this time. It was the low level part that made it such a near thing.

[phil65]

Nice article Gary and I see your photo of the Spitfire is on the cover of Trade-A-Plane too!! (Third Sep. Issue)

Phil