While I can’t attest to the veracity of this story, the photos are pretty amazing. An e-mail that’s probably been sent around the world tells the story of a fly-in fishing excursion in the Alaskan wilderness where the pilot and fishermen made a cardinal mistake: Leaving a cooler stocked with bait in the plane. You can imagine what happened when a passing bear smelled the bait…
The pilot used his radio and had another pilot bring him two new tires, three cases of duct tape, and a supply of sheet plastic. According to the e-mail, he patched the plane together, and flew it home.
The moral of the story? Don’t leave home without duct tape.
Got another story for you {yawn}. This story has to do with duct tape. It was my habit of flying over to Auburn Airport in Northern California on weekends to have breakfast prior to airport hopping and airplane watching. I noticed an old Aeronca Chief taxing to the fuel pump area. It looked to be in very sorry shape, however, I always wanted to fly an Aeronca Chief just for the experience of doing so. I walked up to the old farmer looking pilot (owner) and introduced myself. We made a dead on the spot: If I could fly his bird around the pattern a few times, I’d trade that experience for giving him a glider ride the next time he came to Reno. He agreed. The refueling was complete so I jumped in to the right seat (used to be a CFI). He got into the left seat. We took off. The plane was simple to fly and very interesting. The instrumentation, shall we say…was minimal;. Everything appeared to be original but in very poor condition. It’s like nobody ever maintained the bird.
I made the first landing, which was typical for any of the Aeronca’s and Champs: If you’ve flown one, you’ve flown them all. During the take off run after the first landing I asked the owner what the numerous pieces of duct tape on the wings were for? He mentioned that he had traded a motorcycle for the old plane and had to tape up the torn spots in the fabric. That peaked my attention. By the time we made it around for the second final approach I learned that the old plane wasn’t legal to fly, hadn’t had an inspection for many years, and that the fabric was so sun weakened that it required those little pieces of duct tape to stop the tears. YIKES!
After that second landing I turned off the runway and taxied in. The owner said, “I thought you wanted to go around at least a few more times?” My reply…”Not any more.” I was beginning to wonder if the owner was even a licensed pilot or if the plane was even registered?
This has been floating around for over a year. Does everyone really want to point this out to the FAA? I guess if the guy that did this is an A&P it’s OK but if not he ought to be whipped for taking pictures and posting them!
I used to do a weekly commute out of a cow pasture in Carlin, Nevada, to Reno in my Cessna 175 on Fridays, and returning to that cow pasture on Sunday afternoons. The rancher had given me permission to use his land because it saved a 25 mile drive to the nearest airport in Elko, Nv. in the opposite direction. After a few weeks, someone had been damaging my horizontal stablizer. It looked like they used a half inch wide piece of steel to gouge the sheet metal. The damage got worse, Finally, I flew the plane to Elko, a fenced off secure airport where there was an aircraft sheet metal shop. I stopped by that shop for an estimate. The worker said, “Oh, you’ve got horses.” I asked him what he meant by that? He said, “Those are horse teeth marks. “Are there cows there too? You’re lucky the cows didn’t rub up against the tail section because it would have ripped the tail right off!” I am now much wiser about parking where there are loose horses and cows.
With all that duct tape, who needs sheet metal?