The Pilots Lounge

Day 3 - it almost ended there

Day three of the trip was a nice sunny morning.We woke up in an old barn type hangar just south of St Louis, rolled the trike out of the barn and took off. Within minutes we were over the Mississippi river and playing around with an inversion layer about 600 ft. Anna klara was amazed at the temp difference as we climb and descended through it. I was amazed at the wind gradient difference but did not think much of it.

WE flew low down the Mississippi spotting working barges and landed at a near by commercial airport with about 4 knots of wind from the West. After some breakfast and a chin wag(Australian for talk)with the local flyers, we took off and headed south down the mighty Mississippi with plenty of fuel on board to reach our destination only 60 minutes away.

About 35 minute into the flight we hit what must have been a front. The wind picked up to about 20-25 knots in an instance. I remember looking down to my horror and seeing large tree branches getting blown around like small ones! It certainly verified what my GPS was telling me as the ground speed had drop right off. This was a near head wind and as we were flying low to avoid the even higher wind speeds up top, it was like being in a washing machine, but this seemed the safest place to fly.

At this point many decisions needed to be made under pressure. I realised this could spell a quick end to this adventure and the pressure was truly on now. The wind got stronger and stronger the higher we went, so I was left with no choice but to fly low in the turbulence, once clearing high tension power line of the Mississippi by just 100ft. Fuel burn was up as I had to keep the flying speed up to battle the turbulence. We were getting bucketed around now, with no downwind airports in reach, and a gamblers chance of making our destination airport, I decided I had had enough.

The flood plain just off the Mississippi was going to provide us with the best opportunity to survive this one. It was about survival at this stage. I let Anna Klara know we were going to land in the fairly open field below. We circled and both looked out for obstacles and tried to gauge the surface. It looked fine, but anything does when you are being beaten up by the wind and running out of fuel. The saying “Its better to be on the ground wishing you where in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground” never rang truer at this point.

Out we went over the river and came in for final. We had a far bit of space to land but it was the rotor coming over the line of tree upwind some 1000ft away that I was weary of. We were hit by one angry piece of wind about 30 ft off the deck, Anna Klara screamed her one and only time during the whole trip. It was severe and set the trike's right wing dangerously close to the ground. I corrected it aggressively and prepared for another. It all went pretty calm from there and I did my slowest ground speed landing ever. The terrain was a little rough but it suited us to be on the ground.

We had survived the air with the challenge now being to get the Trike to shelter without getting blown over on the ground. We managed to tie down the Trike behind a tree line and waited out the weather. One of the local farmers got us some fuel. The wind subsided as quickly as it arrived but it waited 4 hours to do so.

With dusk arriving and nothing to eat, we defined our take off strip , power up the Trike and shot off down the bumpy paddock til we reach the smoothness of calm air flying. Felt good to be alive, felt good to get out of the little whole we had got ourselves in.


The second little mishap - EATING THE TREES.............



The second major scare happened on dusk just as we entered Florida. It was a combination of running out of light and running out of fuel that caused the running out of runway !! Also we where running
away from the Destin Airport as we where sick of it. All this running, as it does, seems to add up to trouble.

So we took off from Destin at about 4:45 pm in 10 knots of wind with a plan to head North. Once airborne we found a much stronger wind at 1000ft, that was not only stronger than a usual wind gradient,
but also had turned into the head wind from hell. So we made the decision to go East instead. We flew at about 500ft all the way down the beautiful Florida coast.

All was well and we had some airports in mind that we could reach so Anna-Klara directed me there using the GPS. All along the coast the sea breeze and the Northerly wind was converging, making a really rough ride.The fuel burn seems to go through the roof with a two stroke in these rough condition when you have to vary your RPM.It did not take long before we where thinking that it was time
to get out of this bumpy place. There was the option to land on the beach below but with some serious population around there is the chance it would become a circus.. besides this there was a significant onshore breeze that represented a cross wind on the beach strip below..this was just a back out plan if needed..

So there we where, rough air, low fuel, low light and as we looked down at our airport on the GPS, it was merely an old STOL airstrip used by banner planes to clip on advertising banners. It was a short strip in its day but now had had the trees on the approach left to grow out..the air was rough and I know I had to come in fast to maintain control.We where two up with a fully loaded trike minus fuel.

We assessed the strip by doing a low pass and was quiet concern when I put my foot flat to the floor and slowly climbed out of the old strip which was a merely a clearing in a surrounding forest about 1 miles inland. Was it a tail wind that casue the low climb. It did not seem comfortable and certainly was never a preference. On climb out we look at our options the nearest airport was about 15 minite away.It was rough, the fuel may have made it but it was a case of the devil you know in this instance.

So we went round and had a little talk to ourselves as the nerve where running and the our bodies pumping out adrenaline. With more speed than usually we flew in on final. There was no wind sock and been 1 mile back at dust it was had to know what the wind was doing at treetop level and below. (don't forget there was a convergence going on). I was predicted that would not be much wind on the
ground as the strip was a cut out from a small forest.

WE cleared the tree with maybe more margin than we needed too on a still day and came screaming in to feel a huge ground speed underneath us. The speed was not washing off. (slight tailwind on the ground). It was do or die, we where now half way along this small strip with only trees at the end. I could not fly out of this one any more. The instinct was to put it on the ground and take the pain.Anna klara (see video below) has stoped filming and had your hand on my shoulder as we both knew it was all a little too wild.

The trike finally touched down and I tucked the bar right in on my chest and jammed on the front drum brake the trike slowed .Thank God the trike slowed quicker than usual on the uncut grass strip..as we approached the trees at the end of the runway life seem to be coming back in control but only just. We made it to the end of the strip with just enough room to turn the trike around as if everything was fine and we meant to land like this(and we did ?)


Everything was really alive now as we buzzed back up the strip, we just got out of a mess and the trike was fine and so were we..really buzzing and feeling alive we were.The next thought was will we be able to get out of the strip when it is time to go.The RV park manager was good enough to mow the grass strip for us and we waited for a headwind. After a successful climb out with just me on board , I landed easily in calmer conditions and pick up Anna Klara and made it out.

What do they say,

"it is better to hit the hedge at the end of the runway slow than to hit the hedge at the begenning of the runway fast". In our case it was 50ft high trees. To clip those trees on approach in the turbulence would have been a disaster.Anyway,glad to be here to tell the tale.

VIDEO of LANDING

The third - The dying flying engine.


It was late afternoon, take off time. We have had a nice long lazy lunch in town and head back out to the airport to continue the flying mission. WE had taken off and all was normal for the first 10 minutes of the flight. We found ourselves over some rough country and I had to take some detour of our straight line flight path to make sure we where not to far from somewhere to attempt an emergency engine out landing if necessary.

I started being a little extra carful as I noticed the EGT's on the Rotax 582 2 stroke creeping up just a tad higher than usually. I put it down to atmospheric changes. But none the less I kept my eyes on things. It was about 10 minutes after that that the engine clear missed a beat both Anna Klara and myself became concerned. As we discussed it, the Rotax 582 took another hit, with the rev dropping to 3000 and the EGT going off the scale. We were in trouble. As any pilot would, I started scan the area for a place to emergency land. Anna Klara was busy on the GPS looking for airstrips.We where at about 2500ft, higher than usually because of previously spotted EGT rise.

Anna Klara found a private strip some 2-3 miles away. It was roughly on our current heading and there where a reasonable chance of getting there if the engine did not quit. The engine picked up a little once I back off the throttle for 30 seconds due to the high high EGT that threatened to melt the pistons.We had reasonable power back for a while then it came off again. I then calculated fuel starvation and applied the choke, first a little and then full choke, this made no difference, the engine was still not normal and the EGT where still off the scale.

This all was happening very fast, at which time Anna Klara pointed top what looked like a little disused road in the middle of a forest. She said it was the private strip according to the GPS map. We where soon in landing distance for a tail wind landing..that was a relieve, the engine was now providing enough power for level flight so I keep close to the strip and enter a short circuit.

We slung our flying machine around and came into land on the airfield with the engine still idling and on taxi back it had full power BACK !!. We where relieved but also really concerned about this little mystery..the residents who lived on the strip came out immediately with guns and said get off out strip !!! Just jokes, they where super friendly and nice.They where all pilot so out came the tools , beers and the stories.We stayed there a couple of days and chilled
out.The full story and pictures are here

Runway refugees

At the end of the day , we believe it was a clogged fuel filter that caused this fuel starvation problem. There was a thought that it could have been carb icing as the atmosphere was hazy and the temperature right.But the fuel filter was pretty filthy one I cleaned it out..