I don't see how the guy could have flown that Taylorcraft all the way from Flushing, New York, to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with the prop setting up such an incredible vibration! For that matter, I can't figure out how, on that same day in 1955, I gave him $900 for such a rough-looking airplane without even a test hop! But the day he flew it down for me to look at brought about one of those sudden thaws that can turn a grass strip into a bog, scratching the test flight. And I had always yearned for a T-craft.
Later on, once around the pea patch was enough to convince the airport manager and me that the prop that came on the T-craft wasn't right. That prop's been hanging over my desk ever since. The mechanic scarfed up a spare to get me airborne until a replacement that I could afford showed up (it takes a special kind of guy to do things like that).
Anyway, I flew behind the loaner prop for a couple of months until word came that a prop could be had at Perkiomen Valley Airport, right over the ridge to the north. In short order, the T-craft was parked in front of the shop at Perkiomen Valley undergoing a nose job. All was proceeding well until somebody discovered that the reason the new prop wouldn't quite fit was that it was designed for a Lycoming engine and the T had a Continental. The loaner was quickly reinstalled, and the search was begun for the clevis pin that kept the hub from rotating off. That lengthy activity preoccupied the small crowd that always gathers around these operations, so nobody noticed that the skies were getting darker. Upon observing this condition, the crew chief wound a few turns of safety wire through the clevis pinholes and advised me to get on my way fast, before the squall hit. "Don't waste time running it up, just get outta here!" he admonished. Better advice would have been to tie down, have a cup of coffee, and look in Trade-A-Plane for another propeller.
Being young and trusting, I took off. I hadn't reached the altitude to turn crosswind before my lap took a bruising jar from the seat belt. Gasoline sprayed up through the tank cap and flooded the windshield. (Remember that wire riding on a cork we had for a fuel gauge?) Violence like bumper cars running amok tossed me and my airplane about the sky until, suddenly, it was glassy smooth. Valley Forge was in sight. I was not about to waste time crossing the field to make a standard 45-degree pattern entry on left downwind. I spilled altitude, turned left, and then made a sweeping right, and I was lined up. The sock hung limply from the pole, but I noticed the airport manager and his son running for the hangar doors. As we touched down, that sock sprang to life and pointed straight out at me like an accusing finger. The airplane leaped off the ground in a steep left bank.
Full forward and right on the yoke, scream, yank back on the yoke, cut the mags, unfasten the seat belt, open the door, jump out, and run back to hold the tail down. I know it's impossible, but so help me I did all of the above at exactly the same time. The T-craft sat quietly, facing 45 degrees from how it had landed. The manager and his son were right there, and we pushed the ship tail first through the rain into the hangar. He was saying something about learning to make wheel landings, and I was babbling heaven knows what when he abruptly said, "I want to see something."
He led me over to the left wing tip and there, jammed under that little red light, we found four blades of fresh green grass. I left them there as a reminder.
I later learned that the pilot who had given me the advice to "get outta here!" flew a Cessna 195 inverted into a Pennsylvania mountain a few months after this incident. Evidently he was pushing weather. I learned from this experience not to rush through run-up in order to beat weather — and I learned how to make a good wheel landing to better cope with conditions like I had that day.
Calvin Bourgeault, AOPA 96817, is a retired music teacher and a private pilot with more than 1,200 hours. He currently flies a Piper Tomahawk and has formerly owned a Taylorcraft BC-12D and a Cessna 140.
An original "Never Again" story is published each month on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/never_again/).
"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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