Best Yarn Spinner in Soaring?

There have been some amazing stories posted over the last couple of years
(the "Overspray on the Yuppie Farm" being a recent favorite). Who are some
of the other great yarn spinners in soaring? I for one vote Tony Benson
(P4) of Aero Club Albatross in Blairstown, NJ. Witness:

Years ago I had as a student Glen Wargo,a soft spoken, sweet heart of a guy.
We had just taken off and were two or three hundred feet in the air when the
canopy started to get splattered with oil. It turned out that this
particular L-19 was fitted with a quick drain oil valve that was designed to
drain the oil sump in seconds. I have no idea why someone would want to do
an oil change on an L-19 at pit stop speed, but that's what it was designed
to do and was at the moment doing.

I wasn't unduly concerned. I knew if Jessie [Blairstown towpilot] wanted us
off he would wag his wings then give us the rope, or do both simultaneously.
I had, on several occasions, had the tow plane lose power and settle, and
watched as the pilot reached up in the wing root and turn the fuel selector
valve to a tank that actually had gasoline in it. Jessie wagged us off.

I turned off to one side to give Jessie all the room he needed and happened
into a thermal. As we thermaled up Glen starts yelling.."he left the engine
running...he left the engine running". I explained that Jessie needed the
engine to make the 180 turn.

"But do you realize what happens to an engine without oil." I explained that
a 180 turn was a semi tricky thing and not infrequently gave a type of
accident known in the trade as non-survivable. Jessie needed the thrust
provided by the engine to safely make the turn.
"Do you know what no oil does to the bearings."

I explained that, after the crash, witnesses would describe the plane
disappearing behind the trees in an extreme nose down attitude. Then there
was a loud thump and a column of black smoke.

"The journals--the main and connecting rod journals"

When the wreckage cooled sufficiently, they would extract Jessie from the
wreak. At this point, Jessie would look like a cross between a car radiator
hose and an outsized charcoal briquette.

"Rocker arms can go an hour without oil ..."

I was in one of my Zen periods and asked Glen if he was familiar with the
statue of Justice, the blindfolded lady with a balance scale held in an
outstretched hand. Although by middle age you realize that Justice is
peeking out from beneath the blind fold. Glen said he was familiar with the
lady.

I suggested that if we took, and put on one side of the scale, a six
cylinder, air cooled, rreplaceable thing. Othe other side placed Jessie..
"But in an air cooled engine, the oil does sixty percent of the cooling"

I gave up, I even passed up the opportunity to ask why then wasn't it called
an oil cooled engine.

[Note: in fact, Jessie successfully landed the wounded towplane. The crash
sequence was merely to illustrate to the student what could happen if . .
.. ]

I think George Thelans account of the Puchaz wreck at Minden was the
greatest work of fiction I have seen for a long time.


Al

"BTIZ" wrote in message
news:gRnTa.12868$Je.11949@fed1read04...
snip the fuel gage is even out there on top.

Not on a D model.