REFLECTOR:Confession Week!!!

Douglas Holub reflector@tvbf.org
Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:45:35 -0500


I had just packed up the whole family into our Tri-Pacer to make the 1000
mile trip from Eufaula, Alabama to Reading, Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving
about 15 years ago.  I was a low time pilot and very excited about our first
trip to Grandma's house in the airplane.  As I began taxiing away from the
FBO, one of the attendants started waving his arms and pointing at my nose
wheel.  I didn't turn off the engine soon enough, and the tow bar bounced up
and hit the metal Sensenich prop.

It put a little ding in the prop.  The "elders" at this little rural airport
stood around my airplane, stroked their beards, and offered opinions about
whether or not I could fly to Pennsylvania with the ding. The consensus was
that I could.  I took the plane up and flew around the patch once and didn't
feel or hear any problems. Then I called someone I trusted who ran an
airplane remanufacturing business. He told me to take the propeller off,
stick it in the Buick and drop it off at Sensenich on my way to Reading. I
am pleased that I had the sense to take his advice. I think that I would
have been hearing real or imaginary noises during the whole flight if I had
flown with the dinged propeller.

We flew to Grandma's the following year.

Doug Holub
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ronnie Brown" <romott@adelphia.net>
To: <reflector@tvbf.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 10:17 AM
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR:Confession Week!!!


> Here's another prop story, but not on a Velocity.
>
> While I was working on my Velocity at the airpark, I heard a plane taxiing
> out.  It was a pretty RV-6A.
>
> Since I was several hundred feet away, I couldn't quite make out what
seemed
> to be out in front of the nose gear as it went down to the other end of
the
> runway.
>
> Then as it turned around and started its take off, I could see it was the
> TOW BAR!!!  As the RV rotated the tow bar dropped down and I thought, well
> at least it may fall off.  But when the tow bar drooped down about 30-45
> degrees, it bounced up and into the performance prop.  The prop turned
into
> a shower of toothpicks (looked like steam or water), the engine oversped,
> but the pilot alertly pulled the power, and made a quick landing on what
was
> left of the 3000' runway.  I jumped in my truck and drove to his end of
the
> runway.  He had no idea what had happened, just that his prop was about
two
> foot shorter than it used to be.  I explained to him that his tow bar was
> the culprit.  We found the steel tow bar halfway down the runway, severely
> bent and mangled from the encounter with the prop,
>
> What was amazing was that he taxied through about 400-500 feet of grass
and
> halfway down the runway without the tow bar causing any steering problems.
>
> He has that on his pretaxi check list now!!!
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Tstockmn@aol.com>
> To: <reflector@tvbf.org>
> Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 10:24 PM
> Subject: Re: REFLECTOR:Confession Week!!!
>
>
> | In addition to the usual takeoffs with the speed brake down (I told the
> passenger it was a defense against bird strikes) or the accidental bumping
> of a mag switch, I did something more expensive early on.   I was not too
> pleased with the static RPM at run up, so was trouble shooting if it was
the
> engine, performance prop or both.   I had just finished retiming the
engine,
> so decided to do a static run up in front of the hangar.  I picked up all
> the tools, etc and cleared the area.   I started the engine and then
slowly
> pushed the throttle forward.   At about 2200 RPM, there was loud
!WUMP-WUMP!
> and the plane shook.   I immediatly pulled the mixture, throttle and
killed
> the mags. I was rewarded with a shower of thousands of pieces of rug yarn.
> I had forgotten to pick up a rug in front of the plane and it was sucked
> into the prop.  One prop blade went through the roof, another shot down
the
> taxiway and the third was never found.   All that was left was the hub.
I
> now hav!
> |  e a $2000 "sculpture" on my fireplace mantle to remind me of the event.
> Unfortunately, it made a rather loud noise which attracted everyone at the
> airport.   I also won the award at our annual airport banquet for the
> dumbest stunt of the year.
> |
> |
> |
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