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 Previous Item - Fly Southwest it's refreshing
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Lucky  Passenger - Oh Deer! |
|  Next Item - DAVE LIMA'S 50TH BIRTHDAY
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Tony Gugliuzza - Mar 24,2009
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Late last summer I took this fellow - Dave - for his first ride in a small plane.<br />It was late afternoon in perfectly calm air and he was enjoying the ride immensely (so was I).<br />We were flying from a field where a bunch of PPCs and PPGs were flying. After sightseeing for a little while, we were right near the field and suddenly decided to land for some reason that I can't remember now. I hadn't planned on landing just then but it was no big deal. Smooth as it was I was set up on a hands off perfect gentle approach, ready to give my passenger the perfect landing to which all future landings would be judged. About 5 seconds before we would breach the threshold of the strip, he looks to me and says, 'when does the landing gear need to be put down?'. <br />I looked at him and casually replied, 'Oh, I guess we can put it down now.', and I lowered the gear and did perform a greaser to be remembered.<br /><br />He wasn't fooled - I had forgotten.<br /><br />Fortunately, I had given him my standard pre-flight briefing which included him having co-pilot duties of checking the gear, and he wasn't afraid to speak up.<br /><br />This past weekend I was hanging around the same field with the parachute guys and he was there and asked me for another ride. I had to run the plane home (about 3 miles away) and was planning on driving right back to the field so I invited him.<br /><br />We took off and enjoyed another super smooth flight, being just before sunset, just tooling around while waiting for the sun to drop behind the hills so I would be able to see when landing (my runway alignment has the setting sun smack at the end of it).<br /><br />Landing at my home field is sometimes unnerving to the uninitiated, so I explained that and reassured him that I was 100 times more comfortable landing there than I was at the field that we had previously taken off from and landed on.<br />The smooth air made the approach gentle and uneventful and I got right down to the runway and checked my descent, ready to let the speed to slow and the plane to settle.<br />All of a sudden there appeared a deer in the middle of the runway not 300 feet away and he had stopped to look at us.<br /><br />I slammed the throttle to the stop - yes, I must admit I slammed it, and did not ease it as I usually do on a go around. I still had enough airspeed to pop it up enough to clear the deer, and the Rotax came through by ramping up to full power without a hiccup and we were flying again.<br />My passenger has seen three or four deer in the field to the left of the runway and seen them running towards the strip, but was unable to get out any words in time. I believe he panicked, but was pretty cool about it afterward, and we went around for an uneventful landing.<br />I typically don't panic and have quite a bit of experience dodging deer in two dimensions from living in upstate NY.<br /><br />I sure wish I had my video camera running. At least I had a witness on the ground that confirms that, had I not gone around, we would have been having venison for dinner.<br /><br />So, Dave, may passenger has gone on two flights with me and both times we had a little could-have-been incident. So is he bad luck, or good luck?<br /><br />I am an optimist, I think he is good luck since both times embarrassment and airplane damage (and possible injury, in the case of the deer) was avoided.<br />
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Dennis Scearce - Mar 24,2009
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Both times, you both walked away and nothing was bent. Sounds like a couple of good flights to me.
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