Take Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge, for instance. Who's he? On September 17, 1908, just after 5 p.m. he was a 26 year old Army officer who had volunteered to be a passenger in a plane flown by Orville Wright. Orville was demonstrating the plane for the Army and was flying at Fort Myers, Virginia for a crowd of about 2000. Orville was keeping it very simple and had successfully flown three laps over the parade ground at an altitude of approximately 150 feet.
Then Orville heard light tapping. He turned and quickly looked behind him, but he didn't see anything wrong. Just to be safe, Orville thought he should turn off the engine and glide to the ground.
But before Orville could shut off the engine, he heard "two big thumps, which gave the machine a terrible shaking."
"The machine would not respond to the steering and lateral balancing levers, which produced a most peculiar feeling of helplessness."
Something flew off the airplane. (It was later discovered to be a propeller.) Then the airplane suddenly veered right. Orville couldn't get the machine to respond. He shut off the engine. Yet he kept trying to regain control of the airplane.
". . . I continued to push the levers, when the machine suddenly turned to the left. I reversed the levers to stop the turning and to bring the wings on a level. Quick as a flash, the machine turned down in front and started straight for the ground."
Throughout the flight, Lt. Selfridge had remained silent. A few times Lt. Selfridge had glanced at Orville to see Orville's reaction to the situation.
The airplane was about 75 feet in the air when it started a nose-dive to the ground. Lt. Selfridge let out a near inaudible "Oh! Oh!"
The airplane had crashed.
Lt. Thomas Selfridge was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the first man to die in an airplane.
Orville Wright was released from the Army hospital on October 31. Though he would walk and fly again, Orville continued to suffer from fractures in his hip that had gone unnoticed at the time. Orville later determined that the crash was caused by a stress crack in the propeller. The Wrights soon redesigned the Flyer to eliminate the flaws that led to this accident.
Why do I share this bit of history? Because sometimes...stuff happens. I had an experience that was nothing like Orville's but never the less tested my nerve.
There is an old aviation joke that says that the propeller is just a cooling fan for the pilot. If the propeller stops turning you will see the pilot start to perspire. It's not a very good joke but unless you are flying a glider the sound of your engine is a comfort and as the title of this entry states, "silence is not golden."
My flight from Bay Bridge over to Cambridge on April 9th had been rather uneventful. The weather was decent and the sun was shining. The preflight had gone just fine and the landing was uneventful. When it came time to leave approximately 30 minutes later I climbed back on board, started up and taxied over to the far side of the field and runway 34. I got to the end and ran the checklist and the runup. Everything was fine and appeared normal.
Prior to getting on the centerline of 34 I performed the last three pretakeoff tasks; transponder set to altitude encoding, landing light on, electric boost fuel pump on.
Power was set to full, engine gauges were good and the airspeed indicator was "alive." I rotated off and started a straight out departure climb. I had slipped past the end of the runway at Vx and transitioned to Vy. Full climb engine power is about 5200RPM. BBRRMMMM....Ruuuurrrrr, the RPMs dropped, a lot, it felt like the engine was going to stop. I could see the blades of the prop turning. A moment later the engine RPM's came back up again, possibly to full power. A random thought crossed my mind. Had I shut off the fuel valves before I started the engine? I quickly looked down and confirmed that both fuel valves were in the ON position and the electric boost pump was still ON. The engine was still running. I had a brief moment of denial about actually having a problem. Apparently this is a normal reaction. Only a few seconds had passed since the engine had faltered. A glance at the altimeter showed I was only about 800 ft above the ground. I quickly realized that there was no guarantee that the engine would continue to run and that it may fail at any moment. I still did not know what was wrong with it and I reasoned that I should use any remaining engine time to turn around and land, the sooner the better. I keyed the mic, "Cambridge Traffic, Tecnam Six One Niner Bravo Victor is making a return to the field for a precautionary landing, Cambridge!" My voice was most likely higher and faster than my usual "airline captain voice." I realized that I didn't use the word emergency or even a Mayday or Pan-Pan call. As I banked left into the turn and looked over my shoulder at the runway below I knew I didn't have time to do anything other than what is required in an emergency. The mantra is "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate." That means that the first priority is to FLY THE AIRPLANE. A failure to maintain control of the aircraft this low to the ground would have dire consequences. The UNICOM never replied to my radio call. As I turned onto the downwind leg I could see two other aircraft near the opposite side of the runway. They were not moving and made no radio calls as I got to the midfield point. Things were going better. The engine was still running and I was able to climb to 1000ft to enter the downwind leg of the pattern. I was confident that if the engine quit at that moment I could make a landing on the runway. And I knew this because on March 22nd, just 18 days earlier, I took my instructor up with me and practiced engine out emergencies at Ridgely where I was able to pull the power at mid field and land without much of a problem. The Base and Final legs this time ended me up a little high on final. Once I got down on the runway I taxied back to the terminal and shut down the engine. I sat for a moment and took it all in. I opened up the canopy and heard the sound of liquid hitting the pavement. Curious as to what it was I got out of the airplane. My legs were a little wobbly as I looked around and found the source of the noise. There was fuel draining out from under the airplane. I got back into the cockpit and shut off both fuel valves. This stopped the leak. I pondered this for another minute and then decided to have a look under the airplane. My attention turned to the fuel drain. The drain sits at the bottom of the fuel system and allows you to take a sample. You use a small jar and drain the fuel during your preflight to check for water or debris in the fuel. Since water is 2lbs per gallon heavier than the fuel, it would drain to the bottom of the fuel system. On this particular airplane on this particular day, the fuel drain valve was a small screw in type that opened when you turned it counter clockwise. "Righty tighty, lefty loosy" The valve was...gone. This left a hole in the fuel system.
And so I began to realize what had happened. There is an engine driver fuel pump that supplies fuel pressure. Normal operating range is from 2.2 to 5.8 PSI. As a safety backup there is also an electric boost pump that is pilot controlled. The boost pump can supply adequate fuel pressure in the event of an engine driven pump failure. For safety on takeoffs, approaches, and landings, the electric boost pump is switched ON. During my climb out is when and where the fuel drain valve departed the airplane and opened up the hole in the, up to this point, pressurized fuel system. Fuel took the path of least resistance and began to squirt out of the bottom of the airplane. Fuel pressure dropped causing a loss of engine power. Both fuel pumps were running and were able to compensate for the leak and provide enough fuel pressure to run the engine.
In hindsight this led me to an important question: Would the engine have continued to run if the valve had failed with the electric boost pump turned OFF? Since the engine runs the normal pump and my RPM's had dropped so precipitously, I think the engine would have failed.
I knew that flying the airplane again was not an option. It was the first time I had ever landed anywhere and had not been able to get back. After a telephone call to the flight school manager explaining the situation and making sure that she knew the aircraft was undamaged, it was agreed that I would wait for her to pick me up by car. She said she knew an aircraft mechanic on the field and that we could either repair or hangar the airplane.
Fortunately the airport has a decent restaurant that was still open. I've learned that cheating death makes one a little peckish, so I set off to rectify the problem. The Reuben tasted especially good so I decided that a slice of cake was necessary to celebrate my aviation prowess.
After what seemed like forever the flight school manager had arrived. We pushed and pulled the airplane about a half mile down the taxiway. So much for the glamour of aviation. We got it over to the shop and proceeded to try and figure out if we could fit something into the screw hole to keep the fuel from coming out. We searched through several batches of metric and imperial sized bolts but could not come up with anything that fit. We decided to move the airplane into his hanger and call it a day.
We were then offered a ride back to the terminal building and that's when things got a little silly. Our mechanic friend gestured over to our ride. A stretched Lincoln Town Car. A pink one.
We piled in the car, I in the back and the other two about a mile ahead of me in the front. I commented that perhaps I could expect no more from my life. What, having cheated death and hitching a ride in a bubble gum pink limo all in one day.All that was left was the long car ride back.
Earlier I wrote about Orville Wright being visited by his friend who asked him if he was afraid to fly again. I was certain that I would fly again. Would I be a little nervous on the next take off? Probably.
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