I’m a lucky boy. The airport where I’m based is about a mile from my house. While others are vexed by the trials and tribulations of their daily commute, I can generally get from the front door of my house to the front door of my hangar in under four minutes.
It’s a luxurious life.
While motoring home the other day on the six-lane divided road that connects the street the airport is on to the street my home is on, something unusual happened. The speed limit is 45 mph on this road. Most of the traffic was scooting along at roughly 50 mph. Rules, harumph.
I noticed a car in the right lane roughly a quarter mile ahead of me. This car caught my eye for two reasons. One, it was only moving at about 20 mph, well below the posted speed limit and just a fraction of the pace the rest of the traffic was setting. Two, thick white smoke was belching from the vehicle. Not from the tailpipe. No, this smoke was billowing up from the engine compartment, surrounding the car in a sheath of partially burnt liquids that trailed behind it for quite some distance.
As I passed in the left lane preparing to turn left onto my street, I caught the driver’s expression. Her face betrayed two powerful emotions simultaneously: Growing fear mixed with blind determination.
The banging of the engine was clearly audible as the smoke poured out. The badly damaged engine was giving its last effort, spurred on by an accelerator pedal that I would imagine was pushed to the floor. But the car would not accelerate again. It was on its last legs.
The driver continued to conduct herself as if her trip from Point A to Point B was sacrosanct. Hers was an unwavering mission that called out to be completed at all cost.
Sadly, that cost was rising with each passing mile as she refused to accept reality.
Had she pulled off the road at the first sign of trouble, the outcome of her journey would have been very different. With her damaged car settled quietly into a parking lot where she could shut down her broken ride and evaluate the situation, she might have gotten away with nothing more consequential than a tow company bill and a repair of several hundred dollars for the car itself.
As it was, her persistence in trying to complete her original plan while disregarding her reality was going to result in a tow company bill and a scrapped car that would need to be replaced entirely.
The financial difference in the two scenarios would be measured in thousands of dollars — perhaps tens of thousands of dollars.
I found myself hoping her car was at least paid off. If she still owed a balance on it her day was going to get much, much worse as the unavoidable outcome of her determination unfolded.
As I turned off the main road onto my street her car fell behind me, moving ever slower, smoking just as furiously, headed for an ignominious end that would leave that poor driver in worse shape than she’d feared possible when she turned the key and started her journey.
About 45 minutes earlier I had been flying through entirely crystal blue cloudless skies with a young woman who was checking out in the high school aero club’s Cessna 152. Her intent is to provide some limited flight instruction in that airplane, which doubles the number of qualified mentors available to members. A talented pilot who frequently pilots larger, more complex aircraft on chartered routes, she and I had a wonderful time — although that flight was not entirely uneventful.
When preparing to enter slow flight with the intention of doing some power-off stalls, the young lady in the right seat incrementally set the flap switch to the full down position. I noticed fairly quickly that our nose began bobbing up and down, an issue my right seater was trying to correct for with limited success. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. Turning for a better look I confirmed our flaps were moving up and down by several degrees, uncommanded.
This suggested a problem. Not an insurmountable problem, but a problem nonetheless. After retracting the flaps we discussed the issue briefly and decided to continue with slow flight and power-off stalls without flaps. You can do that. There’s no law against it.
And this is what I love about pilots. Problems deserve solutions. We recognize that fact and conduct ourselves accordingly. The thought process never for a moment suggested that we should persist in our original plan with no regard for what was happening.
The woman I was flying with made the very reasonable decision to evaluate the situation, consider options, and commit to a plan of action. All with the safety of the flight being the bright shining light she would use to inform her decisions.
I’ll take any excuse to practice good decision-making followed by a few no flap landings on a long, flat runway.
The long and the short of it is this: The aero club has a repair bill coming up. I suspect the flap switch has worn in a way that is causing spurious connections that confuse the drive motor.
But our check-out flight went beautifully. Not only did we get to perform all the maneuvers we wanted to do, but we also got to handle an in-flight issue that tested our problem solving talents.
We landed safely with 1.2 hours on the clock and a perfectly preserved airplane to tuck away in the hangar. I’m afraid the woman sitting in a dead car on the side of the road had a very different outcome to her day.
Accepting reality is not always convenient, but it is a worthy goal. The savings can be considerable in terms of cash — and life itself.
