{"id":154,"date":"2010-08-14T14:03:15","date_gmt":"2010-08-14T18:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joeclarksblog.wordpress.com\/?p=154"},"modified":"2012-11-10T10:11:21","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T14:11:21","slug":"joe%e2%80%99s%c2%a0luck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/?p=154","title":{"rendered":"Joe\u2019s\u00a0Luck"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was at the airport when a man inquired about flying lessons. He asked all the usual questions and then pointed to his wife and two boys. \u00a0\u201cCan you teach my wife how to fly also? \u00a0You know, in case I have a heart attack or something while flying.\u201d\u00a0 I quickly think, Uhmm, two students instead of one. Twice the flying, double the income.<\/em> \u201cYes, we can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, I would like her to go first.\u201d \u00a0I thought that was a little odd, as he seemed to be the enthusiastic one of the two, but Whatever,<\/em> I thought, as I led her out to \u201cTwo Three Zero,\u201d a Cessna 150 I spent a lot of time flying at my first job.<\/p>\n

I introduced her to the airplane by showing her the things we inspect before flying. I explained how we test the fuel for water and contaminants, check the oil level, and inspect the airplane\u2019s general condition.\u00a0 When we were at the engine, she looked at the cowling and saw the scars left over from an old sheet metal repair.\u00a0 \u201cWhat is this from?\u201d she asked.\u00a0 Being an honest flight instructor, I told her the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout five years ago a student pilot on his very first solo had the left front cylinder separate from the engine case.\u00a0 The airplane lost power, but he was able to turn downwind to make a safe landing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow often do you have engine problems in these little airplanes?\u201d For a beginning pilot, I thought it was a rather astute question.<\/p>\n

\u201cMa\u2019am,\u201d I began \u2013 in making one of the biggest mistakes of my life, \u201cI have been flying for nine years and I have 2300 total hours and I have never had an engine problem<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Never, ever, make such a dogmatic statement.\u00a0 Once it flies out of your mouth, it is going to happen.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes later, we were leveling off at 1700 feet over Tampa Bay.\u00a0 As I reduced power to cruise, there was a very loud and sudden BANG<\/em> from up front.\u00a0 The vibrations were terrible and I immediately turned back to the airport.\u00a0 The engine was only giving me about 1700 to 1800 rpm and it was a hot day.\u00a0 I maintained altitude as the airplane slowed and did what I could in the cockpit to restore power.\u00a0 I looked at my new student who was really enjoying her flight.\u00a0 She was, in a word, oblivious.<\/p>\n

When the airspeed settled at five knots above stall, I could no longer afford to let the airspeed decrease.\u00a0 While maintaining my margin of five knots, the airplane settled into a very slow drift-down from altitude.\u00a0 As fast as I could, I did the math in my head to determine if we had enough altitude to make the field.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t looking good.\u00a0 I would have to tell my new student\u00a0– on her very first lesson\u00a0– that in all likelihood, we were not going to make it back to the airport.\u00a0 Luckily, cow pastures surrounded us and when we reached 1000 feet, I made the decision for a safe landing in a pasture over trying to stretch it to the airport.\u00a0 Now all I had to do was brief my student on the emergency landing.<\/p>\n

\u201cUh, you\u2019re not gonna believe this but,\u201d I began and then explained the situation.\u00a0 Her eyes tripled in size as she looked back at me.\u00a0 \u201cHey!\u00a0 You don\u2019t see me getting excited about this do you?\u201d\u00a0 Little did she know my heart rate quadrupled about a millisecond after the BANG<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We were about three miles from the airport when I turned Two Three Zero into the wind on a northwesterly heading to line up with a pasture.\u00a0 We continued the descent with power and then something wonderful happened.\u00a0 The power available curve increased in the more dense air near the surface of the earth and touched the bottom of the power required curve.\u00a0 All it once, we were maintaining altitude at 300 feet above the ground.\u00a0 Since the terrain between the airport and our position consisted of pastures, I turned back toward the airport.\u00a0 We finished the flight with an uneventful landing on the same runway we had departed.<\/p>\n

My two students continued to fly with me until I moved on to Part 135 charter work.\u00a0 I lost track of them and never found out if they finished their flight training through certification.<\/p>\n

One thing\u2019s for certain: I will never forget the two of them and the event of my first engine failure.<\/p>\n

-30- <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2010 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was at the airport when a man inquired about flying lessons. He asked all the usual questions and then pointed to his wife and two boys. \u00a0\u201cCan you teach my wife how to fly also? \u00a0You know, in case … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[326,339,363,816,1020,1265,1282,1422,1498,1807,2294,2303,2454,2843,2845,4095],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flight-instructing","category-flying-2","tag-airplane-lost-power","tag-airspeed","tag-altitude","tag-cessna-150","tag-cow-pastures","tag-emergency-landing","tag-engine-problems","tag-first-solo","tag-flying-lessons","tag-heart-attacks","tag-maintaining-altitude","tag-make-the-field","tag-my-first-flying-job","tag-power-available-curve","tag-power-required-curve","tag-uneventful-landing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4706,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/4706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}