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Posted By: Hal Brown
Date Posted: May 9, 2013
Description: If you look too hard at the roiling muddy water you might miss the wire--or you might NOT!
Date Taken: May 9, 2013
Place Taken: Central Virginia
Owner: Don Maxwell
File Name: IMG_2047_WIRE_.jpg   - Photo HTML
Full size     - <img src="/show.php?splash=SZINQ0000h">
Medium    - <img src="/show.php?splash=SZINQ0000m">
Thumbnail - <img src="/show.php?splash=SZINQ0000s">
Category: 23, Max Pix
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Read what others had to say:

Dan Nickens - May 10,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    That's a nasty one, Don.     
  
Don Maxwell - May 10,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    Yep. I found it the exciting way. Late one lovely summer afternoon I landed just west of the Route 150 Willey Bridge, a few miles downstream, making sure to clear the wires that cross just upstream of the Bosher dam. The river is more than 100 yards wide there and quite deep above the dam.<br /><br />It was one of those rare, perfect days, with absolutely smooth air and the sunlight through the tall oaks on the banks dappling the water. I had canoed that stretch of the river many times and knew it well--so I felt comfortable and stayed on the step, swooshing around the gentle bends in the river as only a SeaRey can swoosh, feeling one with the airplane and the water and the air. After a couple of miles I felt a need to get up in the air again. Opened the throttle and lifted somewhat reluctantly off the water. I was about twenty feet up when suddenly the wire appeared immediately ahead. There was just enough time to push the nose back down and the wire flashed by overhead.<br /><br />I climbed and circled back, but couldn't find the wire again. Later I went back in the car, found the wire and saved the GPS coordinates. For this photo the sun was at just the right angle to light it up.<br /><br />Odd. I just found it in GoogleMaps, and the satellite photo appears to show two wires. I've only ever seen one. Search for 37.559787,-77.634877     
  
Dan Nickens - May 11,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    And how did that change your day, your future, to go from idyllic bliss to a stark confrontation with mortality in such a short slice of time?     
  
Don Maxwell - May 11,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    Interesting question, Dan. It happened far too quickly to frighten me--although I recall that prickly feeling on the back of the neck while waiting to find out if the wire would catch the prop--and I didn't feel particularly rattled afterward.<br /><br />The event didn't discourage me from landing on rivers and lakes, but made me a LOT more careful about looking for wires from about 200 feet AGL before landing--and a lot more cautious about step-taxing into water I haven't checked. <br /><br />I did get rattled a year or so later, however, when a wire suddenly appeared right in front of me at about 500 feet above the Ohio River. That one really gave me the willies. It was unmarked and as far as I've been able to tell, uncharted. I know the approximate location (a little west of where the Ohio turns west at the southeast corner of Ohio), but haven't been able to find it on a chart or a satellite photo. I hadn't been even slightly concerned about wires at that height and distance from hills, so it shocked me rather badly.<br /><br />But what has affected me most, I think, is Dan Smith's fatal wire strike--and that he had already survived an earlier wire strike. (Anyone who doesn't know about Dan Smith and his wire accidents can find them documented on STS.)<br /><br />What I do now is always look for wires. Always. I've set GPS waypoints for all of the known wires in my home area--but that isn't enough, because there's no predicting when someone will string a wire across a waterway, and most of the hardest wires to see are the single wires down low. There's no requirement that they be charted. So I assume that any waterway narrower than a half-mile WILL have wires, and I look for them. A half-mile might seem awfully wide--but where would you set the safety limit? A quarter-mile? A thousand feet? Maybe in flat terrain, maybe. But the James is 600 feet wide in the photo above, and that's in flat terrain. That's 0.1 nm, 185 m, almost 5 SeaRey seconds. <br /><br />Hell, it's 110 Smoots! That's a whole lotta Smoots laid head to toe.     
  
Don Maxwell - May 11,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    Dan Smith on SnD: <a href="http://www.myfamily.com/isapi.dll?SiteID=CnhLAQ&ContentID=ZZZZZV2A&c=Content&htx=View&ContentClass=NEWS">http://www.myfamily.com/isapi.dll?SiteID=CnhLAQ&ContentID=ZZ<br>ZZZV2A&c=Content&htx=View&ContentClass=NEWS</a>     
  
Jerry Ratcliffe - May 11,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    As you say, finding it is one thing. Finding it the exciting way is a little more adrenaline forming.     
  
Joe Perez - May 11,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    Gents, let me recount "my story":<P>I am the very very lucky survivor of a Wire Strike. I happened with my son in the back seat of an Air Cam. In fact, I had two wire strikes in a row. When it rain, it pours. <P>It was almost 5 years ago. While low-level flying we hit the first one on the very tip of the nose of the Cam. FYI, we were not on floats. The wire flew up over my un-helmeted head, having slid up the motorcycle windshield, clearing me/my son's heads by inches. It caused no physical harm whatsoever to either of us, and very little aircraft damage. We survived with only bruised egos. I subsequently made a precautionary emergency landed on a sand bar in the Russian River in Sonoma County, CA. <P>I filed my NASA report, talked to my AOPA Legal Rep and the FAA. And here, 5 years later, am still around to talk to you all about it. There was fortunately, with no FAA certificate action taken, given the uncontrolled airspace I was within. With more than 35 years of accident free flying up to that time, I now regard myself as the luckiest pilot in the sky, having been saved, I am convinced, only to tell you all this story. I share this all with you so you will be extra-vigilant over those waters that "I knew so well". Ya, I thought I did, too. I was wrong. And it nearly killed me/my son.<P>My next aircraft will very likely be a Sea Rey which I now fully appreciate and am very enamored with. I will fly along and likely splash down upon this same lovely river. The Air Cam is long ago sold, in part at the time for the sake of "sell-preservation". So for now we rocket around in our 1948 108-3 Stinson Station Wagon. The Family Heirloom I am sure I will also keep. So: As the good Sergeant on the TV show Hill Street Blues used to say after briefing every day: "Let's Be Careful Out There!". If you need any further inspiration in these matters, I am available for more detailed consultation! The story only gets better, I assure you.<P>Enjoy your Sea Rey to its fullest. But Kids: Don't Try This At Home! Survey, Survey, Survey! Both in the air, and on the ground! Trust me! <P><br>[Administrator's note: I've taken the liberty of removing the unwanted iPad line breaks to make Joe's story easier to read. --Don Maxwell]<!-- >'"><br><font color=red size=6>' or &gt; missing in user HTML. Please fix the HTML.</font> -->     
  
Jerry Ratcliffe - May 11,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    Now that we have our floating dock sorted out, I'm just starting to explore the Chester River area. A couple of fun splashes yesterday, but did scour the area for wires beforehand and thoroughly from 300 feet. You guys have done a great job of making newbie SeaRey pilots like me aware of this sort of thing.<!-- >'"><br><font color=red size=6>' or &gt; missing in user HTML. Please fix the HTML.</font> -->     
  
Mark Alan MacKinnon - May 11,2013   Viewers  | Reply
    I've mentioned this before, but I've read that many power companies string wires that have been sandblasted dull black for the very purpose of making them hard to see!<br /><br />There is no excuse for this. I believe every wire strung across a stream or river, and in the proximity of any airfield, should be brightly marked, and the power companies required to do this. Maybe after enough lawsuits are filed, this will be enforced. (Wishful thinking).     


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