Soon after completing his training and graduation from the Spartan School of Aeronautics, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, my brother purchased a 65-horsepower 1946 Luscombe 8E aircraft for recreational use as well as to build up time for future ratings. The airplane was equipped with only basic instrumentation; i.e., altimeter, airspeed indicator, needle and ball, magnetic compass, and tachometer. This is the airplane in which I trained and took the checkride for my certificate.
From 1947 to 1954, my brother and I would spend the majority of each summer working on cross-country pipeline construction in Oklahoma, Illinois, Colorado, California, and Minnesota. The work schedule was seven days a week and 10 hours a day—or more—but we were making good money and enjoying life. Along with transporting our wives and all the clothes we owned to the various job sites, we arranged to get the Luscombe to each job headquarters to use for recreation.
At the time, my brother was a commercial pilot with a multiengine rating, flight instructor certificate, and around 500 hours as pilot in command of various aircraft. I had been his first student and had flown about 90 hours since my first solo.
The crux of this story occurred in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, in the summer of 1954. We were constructing a section of 24-inch-diameter oil pipeline, and each morning we had to ride an old school bus to the job site on poorly maintained secondary dirt roads.
This was a rough, dusty trip of about 45 minutes to an hour; then after 10 or 12 hours of work, we returned the same way. It made for a very long workday. After a couple of weeks—and since we had the Luscombe with us—we decided to fly to work in the morning. We could land on the construction right of way or in the wheat field (if it had been cut); or, if it had rained during the night, on the main highway adjacent to the job site. This reduced our travel time to and from work by more than an hour each day, and it was enjoyable. One morning the ground fog was so dense we decided to drive our car to work. By the time we got to the job site, the fog had dissipated. The next morning was a repeat—same thick fog, same drive to work, and the fog had dissipated.
The following morning the airport was again blanketed with the fog. Since we had driven to work the two previous days and arrived after the fog had dissipated—giving way to days that were clear and sunny—we decided to fly. We planned to take off, climb above the fog, dead-reckon to the job site, and land, as we were sure that the fog would be gone. We took off, climbed through the fog, and broke out at around 900 feet. We established our course to the job site, poured ourselves a cup of coffee, and sat back, thinking how smart we were.
After our estimated elapsed flying time to the job site had passed, there was no break in the undercast whatsoever. We had about one and one-half hours of fuel on board, so we set up a holding pattern that would keep us over the job site. After 35 or 40 minutes, the undercast had not changed, so we set a course back to the airport, thinking (hoping) that maybe it had cleared there. After our estimated flying time back to the airport the undercast was still in place. We had no radio, so we couldn't get weather reports from anywhere.
After discussing our situation we decided to let down in the fog to 300 feet indicated, to find out whether we could see the ground. We made two letdowns but to no avail—we still could not make visual ground contact. There was a 500-foot microwave tower in the vicinity of the airport, so we were pretty desperate.
We climbed back above the fog, discussed what our next move should be, and decided to look in valleys to find a thin spot where we might see the ground. After 15 minutes or so of this, we estimated that we only had 15 or 20 minutes of fuel left. We decided we would continue searching the valleys until our fuel ran out, stall the airplane, kick it into a spin, and hit the ground at something less than flying speed—and maybe survive. We put all of our heavy work clothing against the windshield and dash and prepared for the worst. We started flying the valleys again, and at the lowest point of one deep valley we saw wheat stubble through a hole no bigger than 20 feet in diameter. We did an immediate crop duster-style one-eighty-degree turn and dove through the hole, and I abruptly hauled the stick back and rounded out about three feet above the stubble, landing straight ahead. We saw a farmhouse about a quarter-mile away so, after we calmed down a bit, we walked to the house and asked the farmer, who was quite surprised to see an airplane in his field, where we were in relation to Thief River Falls. He said we were about seven miles northwest of the tower. Since we had been in the air for more than two hours without ever seeing the ground, we felt pretty good about our navigational skills.
By now the fog had lifted to about 50 feet, so we took off and followed the roads to the airport. When we landed and taxied to the gas pumps, the elderly gas jockey, with whom we had become good friends, came out with tears in his eyes and hugged us like long-lost brothers. We had taken off before he'd gotten to work and after two and one-half hours we hadn't returned. He figured we had crashed somewhere. He didn't realize how close he came to being right. Needless to say, from that time on, neither of us ever challenged fog again.
Kenneth E. Bond, AOPA 130511 , of Deming, New Mexico, holds single- and multiengine ratings and has been flying for 41 years.
"Never Again" is presented to enhance safety by providing a forum for pilots to learn from the experiences of others. Manuscripts should be typewritten, double-spaced, and sent to: Editor, AOPA Pilot , 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701.
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