Dangers of Road Landings

Which reminds me...Those posts... that is.

One of the locals was on his way to Sun-n'-Fun some years back when
the engine in his Comanche 180 quite over the Tennessee mountains. He
was out of gas, but should have had enough to make the fly-in with
plenty of reserve.

He dead sticked it onto a gently winding mountain road and was doing
really well until he got to that mail box set on top of a steel pipe
full of concrete. It put more than a 2" dent in the wing. Actually
it took most of the one wing off, but it didn't hurt the mail box one
bit.

Turns out the mice had gotten into the wings and eaten holes in the
bladders. Apparently they didn't leak until the fuel got down to the
point where there wasn't enough pressure to hold the bladder against
the aluminum and the holes opened up.

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

Tom wrote:

Scared the living crap outta me.

Never landed on a road again.

But that had little to do with landing on a road and more to do with not
doing a proper runway check before takeoff. Any time you land off-road,
it is smart to walk the "field" prior to takeoff. Even major airports
do periodic FOD checks on the runways.


Matt

Good chance he was relating experiences as they relate to what you were
about to do in your flying career. I do the same thing. Not to impress
young pilots with my daring-do, but to pass on the experience I got the
hard way.
I've done more stupid things and made more mistakes than any room full
of a hundred pilots or more. Fortunately I learned from those mistakes
before one killed me.
I've logged more than 13,000 hours in the lowest reaches of the
airspace system in both airplanes and helicopters, and another 9-10,000
hours at in the safer altitudes. The areas of most danger are those
down low.
Cheers
Selway Kid

This is a really good idea. It's also a really good idea to sit down with
an experienced local glider pilot before flying in or near mountains. You
can get an accurate idea of where to expect downdrafts and rollers.

Seth

"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

does anyone have the video from this?


"Marty" wrote in message
...
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

Yea, when I was living in Rural North Dakota would not be uncommon to see AG
aircraft on the road or taxing down the street!


"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

I did some spraying near McCluskey one year!! You have to be from there
to know where it is.....Or, be a spray pilot ggg

wrote:
As a pilot who operated off county roads, has made many landings on
freeways and interstate highways,

I can see why some pilots might operate regularly from county roads,
but not from freeways and interstate highways. No doubt I am suffering
from a temporary lack of imagination.

It seems to me that the hazards would vary greatly depending on kind of
road and whether the road is used regularly by aircraft. It would also
depend on locale.

In western Washington, for example, operating from any kind of road
would be very difficult. Few roads run straight for any distance and
almost all of them are crowded by trees. Most pilots in our area would
prefer a golf course over a road for emergency landings (and there are
plenty of golf courses). The roads also tend to run up and down steep
hills and most of them have powerlines. Freeways would work a little
better in an emergency, but we have an awful lot of overpasses, signs,
and even overhead electric cables for buses. Traffic seems to me to be
the least of the problems.

I could see landing on some pipeline rights of way, which look more
attractive than most roads, or even some forest service roads, rough as
they are, before a county road or freeway.

Montblack wrote:
("John Doe" wrote)

does anyone have the video from this?

1973 Cessna 210L using the road as a runway.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2965211C
(Same link as below ...wait for it. Link still works on Halloween)

http://www.wafb.com/global/video/popup/pop_player.asp?ClipID1=565126&h1=Pilot%20Who%20Mad e%20Emergency%20Landing%20Crashes%20Plane%20on%20S econd%20Attempt&vt1=v&at1=News&d1=188533&LaunchPag eAdTag=News&activePane=info&playerVersion=1&rnd=72 883635

Anybody figure out a way to save them to disc?

("John Doe" wrote)
does anyone have the video from this?


1973 Cessna 210L using the road as a runway.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2965211C
(Same link as below ...wait for it. Link still works on Halloween)


http://www.wafb.com/global/video/popup/pop_player.asp?ClipID1=565126&h1=Pilot%20Who%20Mad e%20Emergency%20Landing%20Crashes%20Plane%20on%20S econd%20Attempt&vt1=v&at1=News&d1=188533&LaunchPag eAdTag=News&activePane=info&playerVersion=1&rnd=72 883635


Montblack