Never Again: Smoke on

A light breeze out of the south and a Runway 18 departure had me headed straight toward Las Cruces, about 200 miles away.

It was mid-July and even at 8 a.m., it was warming up in the high desert around the Rio Grande Valley. Mid Valley Airpark is in the valley near the river, and the runway is still almost 4,900 feet above sea level. It’s nice to have the big Franklin up front to pull the draggy STOL airframe along—especially in the density altitudes we see here. I decided to head for cooler air above and was climbing to 8,500 feet for the cruise down.

I had always wanted to fly. Unfortunately, my eyes were not mil spec and when I went into the U.S. Air Force through ROTC, I wound up as a tactical controller. So, at least I got to talk to all the tankers, strike aircraft, rescue helicopters, defoliant dump trucks, forward air controllers, and so on while I was deployed across the runway from the 3rd Marine Division’s main base just south of Vietnam’s demilitarized zone

After my Dong Ha tour, I wound up at Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico. At last, there was a base flying club and I signed up. I learned to fly in a Piper PA–140 and PA–235. My instructor was an Air Force pilot. One thing he stressed was making power-off landings every time the opportunity presented itself. “Some day it won’t be by choice, and you don’t want to have to think your way through it then,” he said.

Climbing through 7,800 feet, there is a thud followed by a loss of power, the cockpit filling with smoke. The climb is no longer happening. Your basic aviation nightmare.Flash forward: I’m about 12 miles south of Los Lunas just past the railyards at Belen, New Mexico, climbing through 7,800 feet when there is a thud followed by a loss of power, the cockpit filling with smoke. The climb is no longer happening. Your basic aviation nightmare.

I cut what little power remained and slid the canopy back a few inches to clear the smoke. No heat yet. It smelled like oil, but there was no apparent fire. I had just filled the tanks and as they say, “The only time you have too much fuel is when you’re on fire.” But, no flames. Heart rate down a few beats.

Now the Rallye’s STOL qualities might become important. I was going to land, somewhere. Below me were farm roads, the old Highway 85, I-25, and lots of fields—to the east across the river, miles of open land sloping up to the Manzano mountains. To the west—more high desert and the Belen airport (E80) about four miles away.

Quickly calculating distance and glide ratio, I made a fast turn toward E80 and got on 122.8 MHz to declare the emergency and advise Belen traffic that I was inbound from the southeast on a very nonstandard approach to Runway 21—and that I had one shot. After already making several hundred power-off landings in the previous 40 years of flying, the rest seemed strangely automatic. Focused. Squeaked on the numbers with enough momentum to turn off at the first taxiway. The airport fire department, in the form of a young guy on a dirt bike carrying a fire extinguisher, met me. The smoke trail was apparently airshow quality.

Dents from the inside looking like lumps sticking up on the engine case top cover were all the clues needed. The engine was done. Either a wrist pin had broken or the number three piston had broken. As the engine windmilled during the descent and landing after I had closed the throttle, the connecting rod hammered the piston into something roughly the size of a hockey puck, and then beat a hole through the cylinder wall. That allowed oil to pour onto the exhaust manifold, making all the smoke. It also broke the cam into several pieces and left about 15 pounds of assorted Franklin engine shrapnel in the pan as it flailed around.

But, other than that, the airplane was fine. I found an almost new PZL Franklin in short order, and some months later the Rallye was back in the air—and has been ever since. And now, every time I slide the canopy closed, I send a mental “thanks” to my U.S. Air Force flying club instructor.

Lanny tonning is a private pilot who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.