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steve1

Low Pass Stories...

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Another story, from many years ago. But I'm not going to say where this occured, because the DZ operator might be watching this thread...

The aircraft was a Dehaviland Beaver, making a low pass over the skydivers. This was an open air DZ, with everyone just packing in the grass.

The Beaver makes his high speed low pass over parked cars, and everyone hears a loud "THWACK" sound. But nothing seems to be amiss.

The Beaver lands, and there is a dent in the leading edge of the wing.

In the parking lot, a truck owned by one of the skydiver's has a very tall ham radio type whip antennae, sticking up about 10 feet in the air. The top of the antennae is bent into the exact shape of the leading edge of a Beaver wing...



John, were you there the day that the old Navy plane(P-??) was doing a low pass and hitting the prop (repeatedly)? He pulled up and went around for a successful landing. The engine was toast though. Scared the shit out of me since he was headed in our general direction.



never pull low......unless you are

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In the seventies at Coldwater Ontario, Dave the pilot and I had a love hate, my balls are bigger then yours type thing going on. I would stand at the end of the runway while he tried and he would try to get close enough to make me duck.
This time he wasn't bothering to land and I had to concede defeat.
Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

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Yet another story, again from many years ago. And again, I'm not going to say where this occurred. The aircraft was a Dehaviland Beaver, but this was a different DZ from the previous "Beaver" story I told.

The DZ pickup truck was out in the airport area picking up jumpers that had landed out around the runway. The pilot brought the Beaver in for a low pass over the truck.

But he got a little too low, and hit the cab of the truck with one wheel of the landing gear. The wheel sheared off and was left sticking in the roof of the truck.

The pilot had to land without one wheel.

No one hurt, miraculously.



Your story reminds me of a Learjet incident that a friend of mine had at an airport in Idaho that was rather high in altitude and short on runway (5000').

My friend, who eventually went on to become a captain for America West. was dragging ass into the above mentioned airport in a Lear 24 and trying to touch down on the numbers to make maximum use of the available runway. However, at the approach end of the runway is a highway and about the time he crossed over the highway, yep, he struck a passing 18 wheeler with his main gear. My friend bellied in and after evacuating the aircraft he, his co pilot and the aircraft owner, who was the passenger, were somewhat taken aback by the sight of an 18 wheeler pulling on to the airport with 2 Learjet main landing gear sticking up out of the top side of the trailer. :D
The older I get the less I care who I piss off.

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John, were you there the day that the old Navy plane(P-??) was doing a low pass and hitting the prop (repeatedly)? He pulled up and went around for a successful landing. The engine was toast though. Scared the shit out of me since he was headed in our general direction.



I don't recall that one.

I was there the day one of the pilots landed the C-182 on the runway - crosswise... (using the *width* of the runway, rather than the length)

And the day a bull got loose from the adjacent pasture. The pilot tried to herd it off the runway with the Beaver, but instead, it charged...

I don't know nuttin' about where these events happened. Nuttin' at all. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

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trying to touch down on the numbers to make maximum use of the available runway.



That reminds me of another one. Someone bet an Otter pilot once that he couldn't hit a beer can on the runway on touchdown during landing.

A full beer can was placed on the centerline at the approach end of the runway.

The pilot landed with the nose wheel right smack on top of the beer, squishing the can and causing a spray of liquid to gush out in all directions.

Captured on video.

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trying to touch down on the numbers to make maximum use of the available runway.



That reminds me of another one. Someone bet an Otter pilot once that he couldn't hit a beer can on the runway on touchdown during landing.

A full beer can was placed on the centerline at the approach end of the runway.

The pilot landed with the nose wheel right smack on top of the beer, squishing the can and causing a spray of liquid to gush out in all directions.

Captured on video.



I believe I saw that one. Wasn't it during a hit & chug?



never pull low......unless you are

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We watched two nice ones at a boogie in Montana I forgot the name of the place;)

One year the pilot "elevater" (don't know if that's a common name for pilots) Had a really clean looking Twin beech at the end of the day he did his fly-by at a safe enough altitude to do a very nice 4 pt barrel roll. No point in guessing the altitude but he was low and he stopped every 90 degree's and never lost any altitude. Very impressive:)
At the same place a news crew came out and talked to the DC-3 about filming his T.O. The pilot told them no problem there's wher I'll be breaking ground you can get a good shot over there. The DZ has a 3500' field elev and it's a hot Montana day.

The news crew sets up their camera right where the pilot was going to lift off except they were set up in the middle of the runway:o.

Before we could ask them if they really wanted to stand there the DC-3 starts it T.O. roll and the news crew is getting a nice shot as the DC-3 gets closer and closer. We grabbed our camera just before the plane lifted off. The film crew got to see the lift off up close and personnel.

Don't know how close they got to the tail but they were straddled by the DC-3 main gear just after lift off. Our video wasn't that great but the audio of the news crew reaction was priceless;)

Something like ******** damn that the dumbest thing we ever did etc etc.

Everyone else was standing next to the runway not those guys If theres a next time they'll know better. I think the pilot was amused.

R.I.P.

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The Buzz job.
It was a cloudy Saturday morning, around 30 students had arrived at this student factory weekend. A cloudbase load was called to check the ceiling,

The clubhouse was located just off the end of a grass runway, sitting on top of a hill, with a bowl betwixt the runway and the clubhouse. As we were walking to the fully fueled plane (C182) with the pilot, my friends started chanting “Buzz job”. Not me, I´m a scairdycat.
I think that for the buzz job connoisseur that this was maybe an almost ideal scene for the ultimate takeoff buzz, to hang a right descending into the bowl and then ascend up to the clubhouse which sat higher than the runway to the pavilion that the students and instructors were assembled at.
I sat in 1st Student position facing rear, the other 3 were on their knees facing forward to view the scene. My view of the scene was looking out the starboard side and the expressions of my buddies.
The take off roll was very abnormal. The stall warning buzzer was locked in continuious mode for the first 15 or 20 secs. The Pilot wasn´t pulling up after rotaton, but just keeping it planed to build up speed.
I looked out at the grass speeding ever so faster than I had ever seen before. The the plane started banking to the right and the wingtip was mowing the the grass, then as the descent started, the neg G´s, then the posi G´s in the pullup out of the bowl.
As I felt the G´s pinning me to the floor start to loosen, a tremendous THWACK and shudder went thru the plane! Miraculously the plane kept flying but the expressions on the fwd looking passengers was one of something that is indescribable. “The windsock” said Roy. “ I saw it tumbling towards the midst of the scattering students”. The Pilot is worried that the landing gear is damaged and the club is hailing us over the com asking us if we were aware of the situation. Denial ensued, and the pilot was now at the cloudbase 800ft agl. He told Bob to climb out and check the landing gear. Bob could not see any damage to the it, and climbed back in asking if we should prepare to exit, The Pilot paused momentarily and said “NO”, “ I need your weight to keep the nose wheel light on landing”. “There´s the Second city airport, they have a bar and fire trucks” said Roy. Adding that our future at the DZ seemed very unlikely if we made it through the landing.
“Great!!! I thought,”I just lived thru a crash take off and now I have to do the same for the landing…….” My scairdycat hackles were rising to a new high.
The Pilot decided to land back on the grass strip.. The touch down was wicked in that we were waiting for the gear to collaspe as the pilot wheellied it to the last possible moment to keep the weight off the nose gear.
Taxiing up to the clubhouse… The club Pres is holding the top 3ft. of windsock 4”x4” pole pointing at the nose of the plane uttering unheard obscenities until the Pilot shut down the engine. I am 1st out, I walk around to the front and see the damage. OMFG! The cowling is trashed a foot and and half inside the prop radius. Maniacal laughter issued forth from my soul. We were dead, but lived. It did not seem possible. The club Pres was pissed about the the cowling and windsock and we were freaking out that we got a second chance to live when we should have died. I thinks that if it had hit the prop, the clubhouse would have been a flaming drive thru. The Pilot was fired. We were told to take the day off and we went BASE jumping. The Pilot was rehired a month later with a new, well earned nickname, and life went on.
(names have been changed to protect the guilty)
Take care,
space

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Here's a PIC of
" The Mighty Kaptian 'K' "

I had just made my "D" Water Jump...

"Kaptian K" was a guy I didn't know real well in
High School that became a friend when we took our
1st jump course together...B|

I could write a small book on some
of this guys 'mis'adventures...

Nice guy...good pilot...
Just not quite "One With The Planet"
if ya know what I mean! :S:S:S










~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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The camera work was a bit slow...

He had 'dipped' a wheel for about 100 yards just
prior to the PIC, he's actually pulling up here! :o


I was with him once in a 150...
He flew it UNDER a highway overpass
on Rt. 80 in Illinois....

AT NIGHT!!!! :S:S:S










~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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OK, here's mine.

It was an Air Trash wedding (couple hundred sit down) at the Ritz Calton. There were 30 of us in a DC-3 jumping into the beach with the hotel up on a cliff. The groom had been telling the hotel staff about the jump on the wedding day but they didn't really believe him.
:)
We took 2 passes and built our formation with the kind of view you only get over the beach.

As I was walking up the beach I got to watch the 2nd pass and life was grand.

On the buff overlooking the beach right next to the hotel, was a copula where the bride and the best man (who hadn't jumped but was a pilot for United and had a couple of thousand jumps) were waiting.

The pilot JF made a turning pass through this cresent shaped indentation in the cliff where the hotel was. It looked to be just about ground level if you were by the hotel and laid the DC-3 up on it's left wind and slowed the bride and bestman the bottom of the plane 20-30 feet from the edge of the cliff in a carving turn.

The hotel staff where said to be diving out gound level windows thinking th plane was going to hit.
The best man wasn't too sure that JF hadn't taken it a little too far also and almost hit the deck.

I was down on the beach and had an excellent view.

We all went on and had a really good time.

I love to do another wedding like that one again :)

Red, White and Blue Skies,

John T. Brasher D-5166

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In the mid-1970's an oil company in a certain country in the Southern Hemisphere sponsored a parachute demonstration team which traveled around to small towns to do jumps into service station openings, agricultural fairs, and special events. The contract was given to a local drop-zone operator who ran a couple of turbo-charged Cessna 206's for normal jump operations and the "shows". Trips to towns 1000 km away were common. Some trips were 2 or 3 day affairs, while others were out and back the same day. Anywhere from 2 to 6 jumps were made on each outing.

One particular pilot, I'll call him "B", did most of the flying. B loved flying, loved skydivers, and skydivers loved him in return. B had an effervescent personality, and I signed up to go on as many trips with him as I could.

We always made our jumps. My log books note half a dozen in 25 to 30 mph winds, on PC's and always into the middle of town. We might not have been very smart in those days, but damn, we could spot! Low cloud was never a problem. I can't recall ever having to cancel because of low ceiling. That part of the world is truly blessed with a wonderful climate.

B. loved to fly low, and his specialty was a low level "beat-up" after we had landed. His beat-ups were very low at some of the smaller towns where local authorities were not likely to worry much about Civil Aviation Regs. On the cross country flights that took us over farms and open grazing land, B. would fly at ground level. High tension power lines were not a problem: we would simply fly under them. It was not unusual to see the lower half of a pylon flash past the window.

A show with B. was invariably an adventure, but one adventure stands out among the others, at a town about an hour and a half from home. There were 5 of us: B., his 10 yer old son, and 3 skydivers. It was in August 1974, on a brilliant sunny day with light winds and into a large fairground with lots of outs. In a word: perfect.

The organizers picked us up at the airstrip and we went into town to check out the DZ. The fairgrounds were surrounded by tall gum trees with the grandstand at one end and a golf course around the perimeter. Opposite the grandstand was a gap between two huge gum trees. The gap was - well, at least as wide as the wingspan of a 206. The boughs of both trees met about 25 feet off the ground.

We saw B. eying this up, but having our own stuff to attend to, didn't give it much thought.

So, back to the airstrip we went to gear up and get into the air. This time B. didn't climb to WDI altidude as he normally did, but instead flew to the DZ at 500 feet on the gap-in-the-trees side. As the 206 did a wing over and dove toward the ground, I thought, "Oh no, here we go!". When the aircraft leveled out, it was like sitting in an automobile roaring along at 180 knots. A forest looming rapidly larger in the windshield. Wheels almost on the ground.

As we went into the gap in the trees there was a flash of green and a deafening crash. The sound was terrifying. In an instant the aircraft rolled and yawed to the left. B. had rotated at the very moment that we went through, and his lightening quick reflexes got the wings level just as we cleared the grandstand and the trees behind it.

I saw stars in front of my eyes - the cabin was full of plexiglass shards blowing around in the slipstream roaring through the now shattered left window. Lionel, sitting next to me and facing aft, shouted,"Holy shit, look!"

I looked back and saw the vertical stabilizer with a huge gash in it, cut right back to the rudder about half way up. Trailing from the tailplane was all kinds of garbage - strands of antenna which had been ripped off as well as a length of the power line that we had now obviously flown through. Wire was dangling from the left strut, the fiberglass wing tip was gone, and there was a scrape mark up half the still intact windshield.

First thought: "Lets get the hell out of this wreck!"

Second thought: "Wait a minute, we're only at a hundred feet."

The aircraft was controllable, B told us to sit tight, and he got us safely back to the strip.

Well, what now? So far from home and two jumps still to do.

While we were mulling this over and assessing the damage one of the organizers arrived at the strip bringing chunks of the wing tip. Together we cleared the debris from the aircraft and started to patch up some of the damage. The leading edge of the left wing had caught one of the wires dead centre and it had left a deep indentation along the leading edge out towards the tip. We rolled up a magazine and taped it into place with masking tape to try to restore the leading edge to its original shape. For the damaged tail, someone punched holes in the skin and used wire coat hangers to stitch it together. The broken window and the missing wing tip had to stay as they were.

B. fired the engine up and took off for a test flight. It was flyable, although maybe not airworthy in the generally accepted meaning of the word.

So, the show sent on, a little behind schedule, but without further incident.

Everyone was very quiet on the trip home, which was flown at a more normal cruising altitude, with rigs close by and an eye kept on the tail.

The story should end here, but it doesn't.

Two years later I went back to the same little town, in the same aircraft and with the same pilot. While we were looking over the DZ, I couldn'thelp but notice B., this time very closely checking out the gap between the same trees. No overhead lines anymore, a replacement cable had been buried.

B. smiled at me and said, "I'll let you guys out first this time."

From the ground it really was a spectacular show, and he did it not once, but twice.

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I have total admirastion for any guy who will take a bull by the horns, regulations or not

***
I agree...;)

But then again on the other hand...[:/]

"The Mighty Kaptian" as we referred to him in those days,
spent 3 years and all of his GI Bill to get every flying rating there was.
He was doing a bit of corporate flying in King & Queen Airs,
on the list at several majors.B|

Future looked promising, but he "pushed" the limits once too often,
and as a result the Feds took his ticket FOR LIFE!!!:o

It's often a fine line one must tread! :|











~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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Guys like "B" make life interesting, dont they?


YAHOOOOOOOO !!!!!:ph34r::ph34r::ph34r::ph34r:



Call me a wimp, etc but I'd rather watch from the ground than be in the airplane on the extreme stuff.:o

Funny thing, when you have to go along for the ride for work:| it doesn't seem as extreme as when they do it for fun and take you along for the ride without asking.>:(

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i know im not quite old enough to be posting in here, but just letting you guys know that not all crazy pilots have disapeared from skydiving. I've seen some pretty crazy stuff in my short time in the sport (2 years)
I also really enjoy you old dinosaurs :P stories in here, they are quite funny and exciting. keep em coming.

MB 3528, RB 1182

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Back in the 70's I came up with the bright idea to go snowshoeing for several days in the Bob Marshal Wilderness. I talked an old jump buddy, Paul Juel to come along. Paul later made almost 3,000 jumps before hangin it up.

We packed up a pile of low tech gear and food into our packs and drove about 60 miles from Missoula where I lived at the time. The trouble was we didn't really explain to anyone where we were going or how long we'd be gone. We planned to leave one rig at one trail head and then make a big circle and come out another place.

What an ordeal. Nine days later we finally completed a very long loop and came out in the right place. In some places we hiked up frozen rivers. Above timber line we picked the easiest route. Through heavy timber we tried to follow the trail as best we could. We averaged about eight miles per day going from sunup to sun down over many mountains and frozen valleys.

On the trip over one mountain pass we noticed an airplane flying but didn't pay much attention to it. Apparently it was a forest service plane that was looking for us. Someone saw our rigs parked for over a week and figured we were lost. The police checked license plates and called Paul's parents up. They didn't have a clue where Paul was. So before long a search was in progress.

Many days later Paul and I stumbled out of the woods exhausted and crawled into his truck. We found a couple of cold brewskies behind the seat, and started driving out down an old logging road. We were celebrating how we had survived this ordeal and were enjoying the comfort of a nice warm pickup when..."Kerwoom" a huge Cessna 180 fills our windshield and flies through the trees ahead of us. "What the hell!" It was "Crazy" Jay with a couple jumpers on board, coming to look for us. How he had found us and recongized our pickup, I'll never know.

It's great to have friends out there that care enough to come looking for you when they figure you need help!. We also learned to tell more people what's up before heading out on the next adventure...Steve1

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