Mooove over, Bessy! - Brief Article

Approach,  July, 2002  by Ken Durbin

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

I was only slight left wing down and correcting on what was my best guess at final. I felt a little high-profile but wasn't sure. It was hard to tell exactly where I was because it was a grass field on Mustang Island, and I was attempting to land my newly acquired Eipperformance Quick Silver ultralight aircraft.

It was my first landing in this single-seated flying machine and my fifth landing since I received abbreviated training in a loaner aircraft. I was completely on my own. No radios, no control tower, no asphalt, just me and a few sea gulls.

A farm road and high-voltage power lines bordered the field. To my novice eye, it looked like I was about to land a little long. As I approached midfield, I looked beyond the barn that sat at the end of the landing strip. There was a fence, a road, power lines, and sand dunes. It occurred to me, if I waited much longer to waveoff, I might be forced under the power lines and above the 15-foot sand dunes.

I had flown over the sand dunes earlier in the day and the thermals that rise off them tortured my ultralight aircraft and me. I decided to wave off and rolled the motorcycle-grip-accelerator to full power. My 30-hp, two-stroke engine, screamed back to life and drove my 36-inch, balsawood prop to its maximum rpm. I pulled back on the stick, started to climb, and then banked left. Since I was nose high and slight left wing down, I felt a gust of wind, or burble, that had risen over the dunes and barn in front of me. It hit my kite like a brick wall. I felt the aircraft pitch up and momentarily slow. I could feel the increased drag. I adjusted my pitch forward slightly to decrease the climb angle. It appeared to be only slight turbulence.

I was 45 degrees through my shallow turn, at about 350 feet, when it happened. The engine's whine increased to a screaming pitch, along with a corresponding increase in RPM. I felt no G-load increase. I looked at the engine block bolted to the root tube above me. There was no visible sign of failure, but I imagined the increased RPM wasn't a good thing. I looked over my shoulder at the prop--it was windmilling and provided nothing in the way of forward thrust. I rotated my twist grip to idle and rolled wings level.

I was going to land whether I wanted to or not. With a 7-to-1 glide ratio at 350 feet, I had about a half-mile until I met turf. My instrumentation consisted of an altimeter on a string around my neck--it was flapping in the wind behind me. I wasn't sure of my altitude, and I didn't feel it was important to wrestle with the string behind me. Regardless of what the gauge around my neck might tell me, I was sure it wasn't enough for a 90-degree turn into the wind, let alone a 360. What I saw in front of me was what I got--and it wasn't good.

I was lined up for a crosswind landing and headed for the middle of a rather large gathering of "moo-moos." With no airspeed indication, I was taught--as brief as my instruction was--that to avoid stall, I needed to keep the wings level on the horizon. To do so, I would look left and right to check that the wingtips where parallel with the visible horizon. It appeared that, unless I pulled back on the stick, I would hit one of those milk producers right in the nether regions. I started to yell as I approached them at about 50 feet.

Here is a data point for you. If you never have heard your voice change a few octaves as your adrenaline-filled vocal chords attempt to move grazing cattle, then I dare say, you cannot truly appreciate humility nor self-embarrassment. It was the most ridiculous thing I ever have heard and was the source of great disappointment when the out-of-body experience was over, and I recognized my voice. Evidently, the cows thought it ridiculous as well, for not one of them moved. In hindsight, that was fortunate, because I vertically cleared the last one by six feet.

Surprised by my good fortune, I almost forgot about making a crosswind landing in a 400-pound-motorized kite. As soon as the aft two wheels of my tricycle landing-gear touched earth, I pushed the stick hard right and completed a 90-degree turn into the wind. My right wing dipped to within two feet of the turf, and my left wheel rose off the ground as I balanced the aircraft on the nose and right landing gear. The balancing part sounds like skill--it was luck.

As I came into the wind, I centered the stick and rolled to a stop. The kite now rested in a huge muck puddle. My bovine friends hardly noticed the wide-eyed and trembling idiot who had just dropped into their pasture. I sat there for what was probably 15 minutes. I shut down the engine, climbed out, and looked back at the half-mile I would have to drag this cursed contraption to the barn. The dealer--my instructor--landed a few minutes later. I asked him if he would mind helping drag my flying machine to the barn. He rather gleefully explained I should fly it back. I mentioned something about his mental health and his genealogy, while he flew off to retrieve a wrench and a prop-drive belt. He returned and replaced the belt.