REFLECTOR:Confession Week!!!

[reflector at tvbf.org]

In a message dated 5/31/2004 10:24:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Tstockmn writes:

> I immediatly pulled the mixture, throttle and killed the 
> mags. I was rewarded with a shower of thousands of pieces of 
> rug yarn.

Ah! This and the tow bar stories remind me of two quick stories from my A&P days... 

One was a family with a C206 that lived in an airport community. They had a hanger with doors on both ends so they could taxi through. After a vacation trip they taxi into the hanger and the family dog is so very exited they are home he runs out to the plane to welcome them! You guessed it, he ran right into the prop. We got called out to R&R the prop but while we were there the owner asked us to clean up the hanger...as  there was blood and chunks of rover in a perfect line all the way around the hanger, the floor, the walls, and even up on the ceiling and he was afraid to get up on a ladder tall enough to clean the cieling.

I respected props before that. I have been terrified of them ever since! I bet the guy that invented "food processors" was a pilot!

The good ole tow bar incident. Way back when GA was real busy we did "quickie work" outside. We would not reshuffle the hanger for an oil change since it was full of "long term" work like annuals and major repairs. So George and I are working on two planes that are sitting out in front of the hanger wing tip to wing tip. He starts the one he is working on up...so in rapid succession I hear "Clear PROP!" the engine fires then I hear loud CLANG from behind, something goes SWOOSH right past my head then from down the taxi way I hear more "clang clangity clangclang". So I look towards the clanging noise and there is a tow bar bouncing down the taxiway. Meanwhile George has shut down the engine he just started. 

I'm slow, I admit it! 

I started to piece it all together and figured it out, George started up with the tow bar on! He was unlucky enough to have the engine catch right on the first jug, it fired, smacked the tow bar and sent it flying right past my head and a good 100 feet down the taxi way. He also took about 2 inches of off the end of the prop blade. Poor George, if the engine would not have caught right off and the prop hit the tow bar under starter power it probably would have just knocked the tow bar off the NG strut without any damage. 

DM Rob