My "Landing Incident"

In case other pilots (or non-pilots) want to know what happens when you crash your plane, here is my story:  On July 11, 2005, I was test-flying my plane after it's annual inspection, and upon landing, the rudder was ineffective at keeping the plane straight and I started veering to the right.  My thought was, "What is wrong with the rudder?!"  I decided to add power and attempt a "go-around", that is, to take off, but I was veering too strongly, so I accepted that I was going to run off the runway and decreased the power to idle.   As I hit the grass, the sideways force collapsed the landing gear and the prop got bent, and the left wing tip was damaged.  Stupidly, I informed the tower on the radio, "Tower, 54D is in the grass", as if they didn't know.  Their reply was "are you okay?"  I said "yes" and then realized I'd better do something useful and I turned everything off and got out of the plane.  Though, again stupidly, I forgot to turn the fuel shutoff valve to the off position.  Since I was landing at a rather large airport, Dane County Regional in Madison, WI (a Class C airport) I was greeted by several emergency vehicles and aiport officials.  It was all rather embarrassing.  Not only that, the crash happened in full view of the restaurant at the general aviation ramp.  Well, at least I provided some entertainment for the customers that day.  I had my camera with me and thought about snapping some pictures but that was just too depressing to actually do.   My plane was moved to the general aviation ramp by Wisconsin Aviation, and they did a good job of not causing further damage to the plane.  A few hours later I got to meet with FAA officials from the Milwaukee Flight Standards District Office (FSDO, pronounced fizdoh), who determined it was all my fault.  Actually by then I had convinced myself I must have done something wrong too and the only thing I could think of that I might have done wrong was to not hold the yoke back far enough to keep the tailwheel planted so the rudder steering would work.  But when the incident first happened (in FAA terms, it was ruled an "incident" rather than an "accident', fortunately), I was sure there was something wrong with the tailwheel.  The winds were light and the landing was quite good (I have made much worse landings many times).   But in tailwheel airplanes, you have to be alert even after landing because the center of gravity is behind the main gear and the tailwheel provides a nice lever arm and makes the plane prone to spinning around (called a groundloop).  The saying goes, every tailwheel pilot either has had a groundloop or will have a groundloop.   A few weeks later, the plane was moved to my hangar and set up on a nice platform built by the maintenance guys.  Here are a couple of pictures of the sad plane.





A few days after the incident I got a scary letter from the FSDO in Milwaukee saying my certificate would be revoked unless I got re-examined.  So I made my appointment to get re-examined via a checkride.  Then I had to find a tailwheel plane to rent.  There was a nice citabria in Watertown, about 35 miles away from Madison.  I started taking lessons with a very good instructor there.  Then, the strangest thing happened.  Someone crashed the citabria (no injuries)!   argh.  Plane crashes are very rare, believe it or not.   Now I had to find another plane.  Rental tailwheel planes are somewhat rare.  I found one in Waukesha, about 80 miles from Madison, and started taking lessons there.  It was a fun little plane but very different from mine.  The spring gear was very bouncy.  I had to learn wheel-landings, which I don't do in my maule, but I can see why they are useful in this citabria, as the three-point landings require a high pitch angle at slow speeds and this can be tricky to handle in a strong crosswind.   Actually, that citabria was one of the most fun planes I ever flew.   It was old-fashioned flying by the seat of your pants.   A few weeks and a thousand dollars later (from the lessons and rentals), I took my re-examination flight.  That turned out fine though the anticipation of it was not so pleasant.  We went to a grass strip I'd never been to and it was fun landing between the trees.  I learned a few things from the inspector, and he said I passed before I made a rather bad landing at Waukesha. 

The next part of the story was the plane repair.  This is where I'd have to say my luck changed for the much better.  I had no problems with the insurance company throughout the process.  The adjuster got a quote from one shop and I got a quote from another, which we went with.  A friend of mine had crashed his maule a few years earlier (really, truly, plane crashes are rare) and he found this great repair shop up at Central County airport in Iola, Wisconsin (Unertl Air).  They do fabulous work for very reasonable cost.   I highly recommend them to anyone with a fabric airplane.  They came and picked up my plane in September.  When they got it up on the wheels and rolled it out, that's when they discovered the tailwheel wasn't locking or steering.    It made this distinctive clicking noise.  I recall this on the day of my crash too, and I wish I had known more about how my tailwheel works and I might have investigated and figured out there was a problem even before taking off.    Now I understand how it works and I check the locking mechanism as part of my preflight.   Here are pictures of the plane ready for transport to Iola.



I got busy with work and didn't get to visit the shop much but here are pictures of the plane when it was fully taken apart:


Here's the engine compartment (with no engine):


and the rebuilt engine:


And here is it all put-together again, about 8 months later.  I had the engine overhauled and new fabric and paint put on.  The paint scheme is really nice:



Central county airport is probably the most fun airport I know of.  The people there are interesting and friendly.  They have a fly-in lunch every Friday.  Here is their website.

I took refresher flying lessons from this guy. 


He mentioned flying in the war and I said, which war, and he said WWII.  I couldn't believe it.  He's 82 years old!

Here's the plane back in Madison.  

I was nervous on my first landing in Madison.  I'm still nervous about crashing it, though I have to say, when I'm in the process of landing, I'm confident and comfortable.  I have over 600 hours in this plane.  I just hope I can get another 600 hours before my next ground loop.