normb@tekred.UUCP (Norm Babcock ) (11/21/84)
CFI: "There you are, at night, when the engine suddenly
quits. You turn on the landing light, and find that
you're 200 feet above trees. What do you do?"
Student: "Turn off the light?"
Question: How do you make a plane go up?
Answer: Pull back on the stick.
Question: How do you make the plane go down?
Answer: Pull back harder.
A British pilot friend of mine advises that if you have to
go down in trees, the best method is to land in the tops.
The theory is that the relatively limber tops will slow the
a/c down, and scrub off a lot of energy, before dropping down.
He says he has two friends who had to do this, one in a light
twin, and both walked away with very little damage to body and
soul. The old stall-just-before-impact trick is not as effective
because of the attitude as the a/c filters down through the
branches,plus the probability of gaining a little more altitude
just before impact.
In response to Ron Wanttaja's comment re the big guys keeping
their eyes open, I agree 100%. I've noticed at the bigger
airports that the jets (including bizjets) sometimes have a
truck driver mentality in that their attitude is "I'm coming
in, get out of my way." Some of the pilots seem to assume that
the tower will make all the arrangments. I'm equally sure that
some of them fly small stuff, and do try to avoid making it
tough on the 150 guys. Here at Redmond, which is uncontrolled,
(but does have a FSS), we have 150s to DC-6s, and the ocassional
727, (and once in awhile a military a/c), I'm impressed that
all a/c and their missions are considered to be equal. Everyone
goes out of their way to make it safe for all.
Norm @ tektronix!tekred!normb