Dangers of Road Landings

Stubby wrote:

The real fools would
play "chicken" with the plane, trying to become propellor-bait.

Pilots in China during WWII had to deal with this behaviour all the time. The
lower class Chinese believed that if they ran close enough ahead of the props of
a rapidly moving aircraft, the props would chop up their personal demons, who
would be following them. Did you notice if any of these guys near Boston were
oriental? :-)

George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.

This is good advice.
If I had my way, I'd have every student pilot in the world sit down and have
a cup of coffee with an experienced ag pilot as a pre-requsite to the PPL.
Dudley Henriques

wrote in message
oups.com...
As a pilot who operated off county roads, has made many landings on
freeways and interstate highways, I don't feel uncomfortable doing it.
But, the average pilot doesn't give much thought to the possible
consequences or the hidden dangers. Much more to it than meets the eye.
This was an intentional post to make pilots think and to stir the pot a
little. This includes airplanes and helicopters.
Selway Kid

Dudley . . . I am certain you are right. A lot could be accomplished
if students would spend a lot of time with the "old pelicans" No
pressure . . .no rush . . . probably not in a cockpit . . . Better in a
hanger or sitting watching others in the pattern.

blue skies

John

Back in the 60's the US ARMY had an excellent course and the facilities for
teaching road landings in F/W aircraft.

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
k.net...
This is good advice.
If I had my way, I'd have every student pilot in the world sit down and
have
a cup of coffee with an experienced ag pilot as a pre-requsite to the PPL.
Dudley Henriques

wrote in message
oups.com...
As a pilot who operated off county roads, has made many landings on
freeways and interstate highways, I don't feel uncomfortable doing it.
But, the average pilot doesn't give much thought to the possible
consequences or the hidden dangers. Much more to it than meets the eye.
This was an intentional post to make pilots think and to stir the pot a
little. This includes airplanes and helicopters.
Selway Kid

High on the list of the hazards of road landings is that you might end up on
the 6 o'clock news...as was the case with the pilot in Baton Rouge.

Bob Gardner

wrote in message
oups.com...
As a pilot who operated off county roads, has made many landings on
freeways and interstate highways, I don't feel uncomfortable doing it.
But, the average pilot doesn't give much thought to the possible
consequences or the hidden dangers. Much more to it than meets the eye.
This was an intentional post to make pilots think and to stir the pot a
little. This includes airplanes and helicopters.
Selway Kid

Well, it was the takeoff that he messed up.
I tend to think that all the attention was a large factor. He may have been
a little too focused outside the plane. On one occasion I had to fight a
tremendous urge to show off.
Years ago with 200hrs under my belt, I got into the line-up to fly down the
Chicago lake front during the Air & Water Show. Fighting that little voice
saying "Go ahead and roll it, you can do it! The crowd will love it" wasn't
easy to ignore, but I did. The likely outcome would have been a Tri-Pacer
and it's dead pilot being fished from Lake Michigan or worse, an encounter
with beach comers.

Marty

"Bob Gardner" wrote in message
...
High on the list of the hazards of road landings is that you might end up
on the 6 o'clock news...as was the case with the pilot in Baton Rouge.

Bob Gardner

"George Patterson" wrote

First instinct for most in New Jersey would be to hit the gas to cut you
off.

LOL!

Almost. You would have a better chance of being cut, it the plane had turn
signals, for warning of a lane change. g
--
Jim in NC

"Dudley Henriques" wrote:
This is good advice.
If I had my way, I'd have every student pilot in the world sit down and have
a cup of coffee with an experienced ag pilot as a pre-requsite to the PPL.

My private checkride was conducted by an experienced ag pilot examiner.
No coffee, but a large chunk of the oral exam consisted of him relaying
ag-pilot stories.

There used to be a road alongside a Jean NV restaurant (the Bonny and Clyde
death car was exhibited there, maybe still is there, 35 or so years ago)
that a friend and I used to fly to from NLV in the early 70's or so.

I was in my C-140, and he in his C-120. The last time we went there, unknown
to us, there had been a drag race on this abandoned road and more unknown to
us they had left some tall, very tall, upright posts on each side of the
narrow road.

We just thought we were soooo cool, landing and then taxiing up to the front
of the restaurant, impressing all the girls. Hey, we'd done it several times
without incident.

On takeoff, this last time, he preceded me and I watched, as I was rolling,
him make a really slow low turn to the left, looked really dangerous. As I
rotated, I suddenly saw those poles and turned hard to the left, but the
left wing hit the pole putting a nice deep dent about 2' in on the port wing
and breaking the pole off.

Scared the living crap outta me.

Never landed on a road again.
"kontiki" wrote in message
...
.Blueskies. wrote:

Potholes, sharp turns, powerlines, ground traffic...
curbs, signs, fire hydrants.....

On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:31:36 -0700, "Tom" wrote:

There used to be a road alongside a Jean NV restaurant (the Bonny and Clyde
death car was exhibited there, maybe still is there, 35 or so years ago)
that a friend and I used to fly to from NLV in the early 70's or so.

I was in my C-140, and he in his C-120. The last time we went there, unknown
to us, there had been a drag race on this abandoned road and more unknown to
us they had left some tall, very tall, upright posts on each side of the
narrow road.

We just thought we were soooo cool, landing and then taxiing up to the front
of the restaurant, impressing all the girls. Hey, we'd done it several times
without incident.

On takeoff, this last time, he preceded me and I watched, as I was rolling,
him make a really slow low turn to the left, looked really dangerous. As I
rotated, I suddenly saw those poles and turned hard to the left, but the
left wing hit the pole putting a nice deep dent about 2' in on the port wing
and breaking the pole off.

Scared the living crap outta me.

Around here, if there's a nice paved road, pick a nearby field. Most
of the roads around here have so many wires crossing them it's like a
net and it'd be difficult to get down between them.

The expressway might not be too bad, but it even has low hanging power
lines over it. However M-20 coming in from the west is 5 lanes wide
and the last 4 or 5 miles have wires over the road every few hundred
feet with a couple of exceptions.

If you find a pave road in the country and a space with no homes or
corners it would *probably* work, but if there is a row of home or
even a few you'll probably find electric or telephone wires over the
road.

OTOH, I remember a stretch of road a ways north of here, but still in
the county that had a big 36 painted on it and about a half mile later
was an upside down 18. It wasn't there long before someone had it
painted over.


Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Never landed on a road again.
"kontiki" wrote in message
...
.Blueskies. wrote:

Potholes, sharp turns, powerlines, ground traffic...
curbs, signs, fire hydrants.....