The old safe pilot definition -"same number of take-offs as landings" has been visited on this blog before. I'm not quite sure how POT, or prang on take-off qualifies - maybe the duration of actual flight (in this case about 4 seconds) is a consideration. Compared to the awful Beach Musketeer featured last time, the Rockwell Commander 112A is a fine slippery cruiser, 200ish horse flat 6 Lycoming, VP prop and retractable undercarriage make long commutes a pleasure. The resulting mess of this failed take-off looked very unsightly and might have distracted other pilots coping with our 600 hundred metres of ex WW2 perimeter track which serves as a runway. Quickest solution to tidy things up was to track the PC180 a few yards off the strip into the sugar beet and put a sling through the doors for a short lift to the graveyard behind Hangar 1. I mentioned earlier the satisfying sound of a metal prop ploughing its own furrow - on this occasion the change from full rev floundering in a half-stalled take off to "engine stop" was startlingly sudden as the poor thing found a pile of broken concrete stacked up awaiting clearance. "Damaged Beyond Economical Repair" in assessor's lingo. MORE FLIGHT !
2 comments:
A burned-out tractor, a broken airplane; to lose one may be a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness........and I bet if it had been a Tempest it would have been taken away more carefully!!!
Marvellous. Not quite F.U.B.A.R, but at least it gives me an opportunity to trot out my grasp of U.S. Army acronyms.
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