brent@poseidon.UUCP (Brent P. Callaghan) (10/01/85)
Ken's experience with a flakey DC3 engine brought to mind
an incident at Z-hills some years ago. We were climbing
out in 40-Tango and I was sitting near the door. At about
4 grand I noticed black smoke streaming back from under the
wing. We watched the smoke for a minute or two, the engines
sounded fine. When it got real black and we could smell it,
someone went forward to inform the pilot.
The pilot shut down the engine and turned for home. We were
quite a few miles from the airport out over the swamps and
with 40+ on board, we were losing altitude. We really weren't
too sure whether we would make it back, or have to exit over
the swamp (yecchh!).
We made it back with 2000 feet to spare.
The pilot send back a message saying he would make two runs
across the airport for everyone to exit. I suppose 30 got
out on the first pass and 10 on the second.
After a safe landing in the packing area, we watched 40-Tango
come in for a nice single-engine landing. Jim Hooper
refunded our tickets and got on the phone to order a new
engine.
--
Made in New Zealand --> Brent Callaghan
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