It was a beautiful April morning in Indiana. The weather forecast promised clear skies, but afternoon wind gusts as high as 15 knots were blowing across our grass strip. The old Aeronca Chief that my wife and I had recently purchased had not proven to be very good at negotiating stiff crosswinds, so the flight would be short, with only some local sightseeing.
On the takeoff roll the Chief did its best to swap ends — as usual — but we were off smoothly and climbing out over the maple trees that had yet to sprout leaves. We continued our climb straight out to about 2,000 feet. The left window had rattled slightly open twice already, so the climb was mostly spent in preoccupation with this nuisance.
We leveled off and powered back to about 60 percent. A left turn back to the airport was initiated. As we cruised along, looking down, my mind drifted to Oshkosh and the annual fly-in. There I'd be, sitting under the wings of the world's unique and most beautiful aircraft, listening to the flying stories that are told in this magical place. One story that I had heard last year seemed to stick with me. A couple of older pilots had told about their adventures in Piper Cubs and Taylorcrafts in the early 1950s. They said they had often gone up on days with thermal activity and proceeded to turn the mag switch to the Off position and glide their little crafts on the rising air currents. They would thermal around until they'd had enough, then turn the mag switch back to On and continue under power.
I had glider time, and because it was starting to get bumpy, I knew the thermals were at work. I decided to try the glider thing myself. I discussed the idea with my wife, and she trustingly uttered, "Sure." I throttled back to idle and slowed to about 55 mph. I continued to ease back on the yoke to maintain altitude while the speed bled off. I reached over and placed the mags in the Off position, in anticipation of the fun ahead. The cockpit got quiet — with the lack of an exhaust note, it was uncomfortably quiet. The prop stopped at this low speed, but I had been assured by the old pilots that one needs only to enter a shallow dive to begin the rotation again, so I wasn't worried.
The first thing I realized was that thermals must be a lot stronger where these gentlemen came from, because my best efforts at thermalling couldn't hold the Chief in anything but a shallow descent. This was my first clue that I had been, shall we say, gullible. I continued my efforts, but a descent was all I was going to get on this day.
I decided it was time to call this off and head back to the airport. I put the Chief into a shallow dive at about 1,500 feet agl and waited for the prop to begin turning. I saw nothing positive happening, so I increased the descent angle a bit. Still nothing. I pushed as hard as I dared and took the poor little Chief to the airframe's redline — still nothing. At this point I abandoned the thought of the engine's restarting and a pull-up was made to regain all possible altitude. From here on out, things started happening very fast. My wife was silent in the right seat and had decided that her best bet was to let me concentrate. I zoomed back up to about 800 feet and found the airport off my nose. I set up the best glide speed with the trim and monitored the sink rate to make sure that we cleared the power lines at the end of the runway. My best estimate was that we were not going to clear the lines. This is not good, I thought. I searched my short list of alternatives and decided to make a shallow turn to miss the wires. I had trees and houses to the right, so my only option was to the left. I made the turn at about 50 feet, leveled out, pulled up to clear a barbed wire fence, and basically stalled into a freshly planted bean field.
We were fine, the airplane was fine, and we somehow landed between the rows, so even the beans were fine. It is difficult to describe one's feelings after such an incident. I felt lucky, stupid, happy (to be alive), naive — and unable to walk because of my shaking knees. My wife looked over and said, "That certainly was exciting!"
I learned a few things on that spring day. I don't believe every hangar-flying story I hear anymore. I now practice engine-out glides more than most pilots, and I believe that I have used up more than my share of luck for one lifetime.
Michael Leasure, AOPA 1086902, is an assistant professor of aviation maintenance who has accumulated 750 hours of flight time in 18 years. He now owns a Cessna 170A.
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