Last week I did my best to gain your sympathy by whimpering and whining about getting my butt kicked by Covid. Now, a week later, I’m still whimpering and whining, but it’s not because I’m sick. It’s because The Redhead and I are STILL sick! I’d better get well soon because we’re about to run out of NCIS, Gunsmoke and Castle reruns. And there were 635 episodes of Gunsmoke! Really!
My creative genes and my ability to type are both just about zeroed out right now, so, rather than leaving this page blank, I thought I’d throw an old column at you. One that doesn’t do much for my image, as a pilot, but one that clearly shows whatever dignity I may have had at one time committed suicide decades ago.
I’m not going to do an audio thing on this. I’d sound like a frog telling “and-there-I-was” war stories.
Grassroots
Dog Bites
Most of us go through our aviation lives gracefully avoiding airplane accidents. This, of course, depends on your definition of "accident." It also depends on your definition of "graceful." As it happens, I have a lifetime of less-than-graceful airplane accidents behind me. Granted, they aren't the kind that generate tons of FAA paperwork, but every one left their impression on me. Literally and figuratively.
Let's take the day the Dog bit me, for instance. The Pitts shares a hangar with the Desert Dog, our faithful, if seldom-flown, Cessna 140A (Editor Comment: Sadly, the Dog went away years ago). The two of them seem to co-exist in that tight space quite nicely considering they are as different as two aero creatures can possibly be. One is rambunctious. Continually ready to rock and roll while testing me every inch of the way. The other is benign. Eager to please. Friendly. At least it was until it bit me.
The tail of the Pitts snuggles back under the left wing of the 140 and I was busily engaged in expounding on Anti-Gravitational Concepts as Interpreted by Curtis Pitts while I pushed the Pitts out of the hangar by the tail.
I had forgotten about the Dog.
As I passed under the wing...no, let me correct that. As "most" of me passed under the wing, she reached out and bit me. I heard it before I felt it. It sounded as if I'd thumped a ripe watermelon with a ball bat. I felt the stinging in the middle of my forehead as I fell backwards to the ground like a bag of beans. Damn that smarts!
I hadn't hit the ground before I knew what I'd done. I'd walked into the trailing edge of the Dog’s sharp, corrugated aileron. Talk about stupid! However, instructors know what's most important in situations like that: At all costs, always try to look good. The instant I hit the floor, I bounced back up as if I wasn't hurt and continued the intellectually-profound lecture without missing a beat.
Then, with the Pitts outside, a friend I hadn't seen for a long time walked up. This was a guy I have a lot of respect for and I try to keep from looking the fool around him (not always easy). About halfway through what I perceived to be a witty exchange with both him and my student, I felt something running between my eyes: Blood was flowing freely down my forehead from my dog bite. So much for trying not to look the fool. Neither my friend nor my student had said a word. They just let me stand there babbling like an idiot. An idiot with a leak.
Now, in the space on my medical form where it asks for identifying marks, I write "... two inch horizontal mark with triangle, indicates level of stupidity contained herein ..."
If that was the only time I had been hurt while making a fool out of myself around an airplane, I'd say I was ahead of the game. Unfortunately, that's far from the case.
While I was stripping the paint from the Dog's interior, I steadfastly refused to believe the airplane had wing struts. Four times in one morning, I hurriedly leaped out of the cockpit, dashed around the open door, and ran headlong into the wing strut (140As only have one). The last time I hit it so hard right across the top of my noggin that it knocked me flat on my back. I "relaxed" on the pavement for a few seconds and enjoyed the stars floating in front of me. As I lay there, I heard someone in the group sitting in front of the hangar say, "...hear that? I make that four for Budd, I've got five bucks saying he makes it six times before noon..." No one would take the bet.
And then there was the T-28 incident at Oshkosh: I was standing on the Trojan’s left wing shooting pictures of the front cockpit. Big, healthy, film-eating Nikon F in hand, I turned and stepped towards the trailing edge of the wing to clamber down the huge flap to the ground. I knew I was in trouble when I felt the frosty cold metal of the flaps wiping itself clean on my butt as gravity yanked me past. I had only one coherent thought: Save the camera! Save the camera! I hit the ground in a sitting position, Nikon held high in one hand like a bronco rider trying for eight seconds. My less-than-spirited bounce back to my feet couldn't erase the hysterical image of what just happened. And I’m certain I was the bright spot in all the spectators’ morning. Fortunately, I'm used to being laughed at.
I returned from an air-to-air photo mission once with a cut and gigungous bruise over my right eye. In trying to twist around to shoot back from the front pit of my Pitts, I had caught the leg of my flight suit on the stick forcing the airplane to pitch down. Hard! My Nikon rocketed off my lap and smacked me on the forehead as it went over the side of the open cockpit. The strap around my neck was all that stopped it from being converted to expensive junk in the cornfield below. Like an idiot, so I could twist around, I wasn’t wearing a seat belt and negative Gs did what negative Gs are supposed to do. I would have followed the camera overboard had it not been for panic-driven hands and knees clamped onto tubing and stringers.
The camera was dangling over the side with the strap choking me blue. Blood was running into my eyebrow. We were pitching nose down and I struggled to stay in the airplane while untangling my flight suit from the stick. The guy flying the airplane was certain we were going to die and was pulling on the stick with both hands but I was blocking it. In one blurred motion, I ripped the flight suit loose, the stick came back HARD, five G's crushed me into the seat and the camera strap threatened to take my head off. We put a removable front stick in the airplane the next day.
39 years of flying (now 66 years) gives you lots of opportunity to look stupid. The most embarrassing, however, was when I stepped out of the back seat of a Champ with the student still in the front seat. My foot slipped on the wet step and I fell out of the airplane with my left foot still inside and jammed under the front seat. I wound up dangling upside down, head nearly on the ground. My student had tears coming down his cheeks he was laughing so hard. I, on the other hand, thought my leg was broken.
There are some situations in which it is flat impossible to maintain your dignity. I should know. I've done a lot of research in that area. bd
I don't think you can really call yourself a pilot if you haven't walked into the trailing edge of a Cessna wing.
I have my diamond print scar! I too shared a hangar with a C140 while driving my Smith Mini Plane.