Bad days

[cjsmith]

I may have some bad days sometimes but I’m pretty sure I’ve not had a day quite this harrowing.

Comments

[hitchhiker]

holy shit! i'm very impressed he made it out alive!!

[siliconshaman]

Given that his plane isn't really meant to work as a glider.. yeah!!

[cjsmith]

Yeah, the joke among Pitts pilots is that the reason we carry keys is so that if the engine fails you can drop them out the canopy to see exactly where you're going to land.

[siliconshaman]

I seem to recall reading that the only thing with wings worse at gliding, was the space shuttle...

and that was described as having the gliding trajectory of a brick outhouse. [NASA's actual wording was 'near ballistic'.]

[cjsmith]

Yeah, not only did he lose all hope of producing thrust, but his CG was suddenly wack, too. Ah, acro pilots. :)

[redbird]

An impressive example of "any landing you walk away from is a good landing," I think the most impressive I've heard of since Sully landed a passenger jet on the Hudson River.

[cjsmith]

That was super.

The saying goes that if you can use the airplane afterward, it's a great landing. I've had one good landing. There was no risk in flight, just a lot of difficulty controlling it on the ground. That was harrowing enough for me.

[siliconshaman]

The joke I heard from my grand-dad [who flew sorties for SOE in stripped down Wellington bombers during WW2] was that landing is never a problem. They've never left a plane stuck up there.

An acceptable landing is when you come down near where you meant to.
A good landing is when you can walk, not run, away afterwards.
A great landing is when you can fly the plane again.
A really great landing is when the ground crew don't need to repair it first.

[cjsmith]

I have a buddy who was told a version of that joke upon his first solo. "But, instructor! I don't feel ready! What if I can't land it?" Response: "Don't worry. You can't leave it up there." [door slams as instructor steps away]