On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:42:54 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

don findlay wrote in news:5446b3ed-023e-46ec-a748-
:


visible. A few inches to the right would have put us over the centre
of the mound and Mike agreed this
could have caused the plane to cartwheel, but, he said, a miss was as
good as a mile."

(And then there is a bit about having to clear sticks off "the
runway" (of native scrub) before he could take off again.)
------------------------------------------------

Is this a credible story? It's the bit about "breaking hard" before
the quartzite outcrop and the 'anthill' that could have tipped the
plane that worries me. And the "sticks". If there was a stick
problem to get up off the ground, there would surely have been one
coming down, ..yes?/ No?

Would a pilot, (even a cavalier 'bush' pilot) take this risk on the
edge of the great Sandy Desert for a look-see stop? (spinifex clumps,
rocks, sticks anthills)

What do pilots say?


He mis-spelled Maule and braking, but aside from that it sounds like
pretty standard bush pilot stuff.



Bertie

a friend of mine used to do this in his supercub when prospecting for
orebodies.
he said that he eventually stopped when he realised that he could
never reliably see the ant nests in the spinifex. he missed a 3ft high
one by 6 inches and never knew it until walking the takeoff line to
check it.

taildraggers like the supercub and the maul get tipped on the nose if
they hit an obstruction while landing.
these ants nests btw can be huge. it is not unrealistic to see a mud
ants nest chest high and about the area of a small car. land into one
of those and you are history.

after a fire the area was probably littered with sticks about the
diameter of your thumb, fairly straight and anything up to 6 ft long.

I dont read anything in the account that is implausible.
Stealth Pilot