Scudrunners

Copy and paste from the internet.


Well, I don't think this guy is still flying anymore, but here is a story from the book I'm writing, about the worse (bad) pilot I ever flew with. His name has been changed to protect the guilty as hell.

About a month after Biff and I had returned from FE school there is a trip in the Kingair 200, the one that was later stolen from us, yes really stolen. Ever since we had returned from FE school both of us had been riding side saddle in 727s, which was about to drive me to death from boredom, but ol' Biff really enjoyed the FE job. To be quite honest, from what I heard from the other 72 pilots he did a real good job at the FE station, probably a lot better job than I did. I flew as co-pilot on the 72 a few times when he was the FE and noticed some things that puzzled me and the other pilots.

First off he loved doing all the radio calls, he'd beg to handle all the en-route ATC radio calls. Well, that didn't bother me or about anybody else, those damn ATC calls kept waking us up. Then one day we are heading out toward the West Coast, I have my seat reclined back where my head is touching the FE panel and I hear Biff calling the FBO at our destination on the number 3 VHF. This was SOP for the FE and should not be a problem, but there was a problem, we were about 500 miles out. So I inquire of ol' Biff, as to just what was he doing calling this far out. By this time the PIC in the left seat had woken up.

Biff replies, with a snotty tone of voice, "I'm working the skip."

The skip, what fukin' skip I think. I look at the PIC and he looks back at me, then shakes his head telling me to handle it. "Un Biff, this skip, you want to amplify what you mean?" I ask him.

He gives me the 'you stupid person look' and says, "I'm skipping the radio signal off the atmosphere."

"Uh Biff, that only works on the HF radio, not VHF,"

"DOES NOT, WORKS ON BOTH!" He practically yells at me.

So I tell him, "Okay, whatever trips your trigger.", turn back around, look at the PIC and shrug my shoulders. So for the next hour or so he keeps calling this FBO. Sure enough, about a 100 miles out, the 'skip' works and he talks to them.

So with that experience with Biff, we are assigned the Kingair 200 trip, together. As Biff has blown so much smoke up the chief pilot's butt, Biff is assigned as the PIC, as he claims to have thousands and thousands of hours in the Kingair 200. I at the time only had about a 150 hours in the 200. There's not much I can say, but I figured I could keep him from killing us no matter which seat I was in. The night before the trip started Biff calls me at home and asks me to do the flight planning and pre-flight as he would be running late, no doubt due to saving the life of a pregnant Nun. I had no problem with that and assured him all would be done when he graced us with his presence. About five minutes before scheduled departure time Biff comes rushing up to the aircraft, out of breath as if he had ran all the way to the hangar.

"Well, is everything ready", he asks me, while he stares up at the low clouds, as if he'd never seen such a sight before.

"Yeah, we're ready to go, I've checked the weather, all of our stops are above minimums, should stay that way or be better by the time we arrive and it should be clear at our RON when we get there."

"What about here, I don't like the looks of those clouds. What do you mean stay above minimums, how bad is it?" Now he's got this wild eyed look on his face and is looking around everywhere.

"It is 500 and 3 here, first stop is 200 and one and forecast to be at least 500 or above by the time we arrive."

"Well I don't like it, there could be embedded thunderstorms."

"If there are, they are stealth thunderstorms because there are none on radar. Now, if you think it is too bad to go, you need to go upstairs and tell the Chief Pilot." I was sick and tired of his nonsense and firmly put the ball in his hands, after all, he was the PIC, it was his call.

"Go upstairs? Oh, huh, well let me see the weather reports." So I hand him the weather printouts, he takes and starts walking around the ramp, he would stop, run his finger on the paper, nod his head from time to time. Then he walks back up to me and the aircraft.

"Okay, it doesn't look that bad now that I have read it. But say, why don't you get into the left seat and fly, while I re-familiarize myself with the old 200's cockpit."

Re-familiarize my arse I think. "Sure thing." I say and I go switch my headsets to the left seat. So I sit there for about five minutes, the 'passengers' were loaded, but still no Biff. So I twist my head around to where I see can behind the left wing and he's just standing there starring at the weather print out. I yell at him to get on board and I swear to God he jumps ten feet into the air. Finally he gets to the cockpit and after knocking me in the head, knocking things all over the cockpit he finally gets settled into the right seat. I ask him to get the clearance while I run the checklist, which he agrees to. Five times he cannot copy the clearance. First he says the controller is talking too fast, she wasn't, then he said it was his headset, the overhead speakers where on, then something else. I finally told him to just sit there and I copied the clearance. Now this was a standard NE departure that all of us had been getting for years, all I needed to do was to write down the initial altitude, which would change from time to time and the transponder code, the routing we all knew by heart.

Anyway, off we go and Biff is now doing a good job on the radios, until we get cleared above 18 thousand.

ATC: "XXX cleared to FL 210."

Biff: "Uh (he always said 'uh' every time he talked on the radio) roger, XXX is cleared to 21 thousand."

It took a minute for what he said to sink in, 'what did he say' I thought.

ATC: "XXX now cleared to FL250."

Biff: "Uh roger, XXX now cleared to 25 thousand."

ATC comes right back and says: "XXX confirm cleared to Flight Level 250."

I waved Biff off and grabbed the mic, "Yes sir, XXX is cleared to FL 250."

I look over at him and he is glaring at me. "What do you mean cutting me off like that?" Boy he's annoyed. Well, guess what, so was I, but I keep my temperature in check. "Biff, you've flown enough on the 727 to know that all altitudes above 18 thousand/FL 180 in US airspace are called flight levels, that why we change the altitude setting to 29.92."

He continues to look at me, then with a sneer on his face he says, and I kid thee not, he really said this, "Well,,,,,I think it is rather tacky for us in a little turbo-prop to use Flight Levels, that's only for jets to use."

How does one respond to that logic? I couldn't.

To humor me (so he says) he decides to use flight levels for the rest of the day. Now this trip had five stops until we got to our last destination which was somewhere in Florida, I cannot remember where. Normally all of us switched seats every leg, so every time we landed I'd unplug my headset and put them up on the top of the right side of the instrument panel and every time I did, Biff would demure stating that I should keep flying as he thought I needed the practice. After one landing he said that it 'felt a little firm'. I told him, "Biff, we're hauling prisoners, that's what we do, I don't care what they think of my landings. If we ever carry the President of the United States, I'll make a lot smoother landings." (Unless of course we had good looking female guards on board. )

Finally on the next to last stop I flat out tell him it is his turn to get in the left seat and fly, I was tired. With great reluctance he moved over the left seat. As he is taxing out he is in high idle and is bring the engines in and out of reverse, separately, trying to steer and as a result we are all over the taxiway. Hell, I'm getting air sick on the ground. Now we're cleared for takeoff, Biff locks the brakes, shoves the throttles to the stops, I move them back to max power, as he had taken his hand off the throttles so now both of his hand are on the yoke, then he releases the brakes and off we go. And we go, and we go and we go, we're still on the runway at about 130 knots and I say, "Biff, I think its time to rotate."

And boy does he. He yanks the aircraft off the runway. However, as clever as I am, at least was back then, I was kind of expecting this and blocked the yoke to limit the rotation to about 15 degrees. Then still hanging on to the yoke for dear life he keeps climbing, as we pass through 5/6 hundred feet I ask him if he would like the landing gear retracted. He gives me a startled look, as if he didn't know that I was in the cockpit with him. Then he came back to what was going on, lowered the nose, retracted the gear and asked for climb power. Then everything was fine until we entered the clouds that were about 3,000 feet AGL.

That's when he lost control of the aircraft. All those years of aerobatics and unusual attitude practice paid off. I still to this day cannot explain how he got that Kingair nearly inverted as fast as he did. Anyway, after I handed the aircraft back to him, he turned the auto-pilot on and it stayed on until short final at our last stop. As for his landing, well we did stay on the runway, barely.

It took a while, but we, all of us other pilots, finally got him fired, but it damn near took an act of Congress to do it, literally.

Yikes!, gotta wonder about pilots like that and how they even got signed off (if he was legit)

Good read thanks for sharing it

I must say that I have never run into anyone that inept in all my years but I have seen my share of pilots who would be far better off pursuing a different career. These guys, and I always wondered why, had a tendency to be assimilated into the level 1 carriers ------ go figure.

I did have a guy ask for a glass of water as he is entering the full procedure turn on an MOT initial upgrade ride, he failed and failed on future attempts and demoted to full time F/O, he quit and I have no idea where he went but I always hoped he quit aviation as a pilot.

That’s a relief, I was worried the story would be about me.

Biff sounds like a real piece of work, kind of like a human greatest hits record of all the worst parts of three or four guys I used to be in charge of.

a guy ask for a glass of water as he is entering the full procedure turn on an MOT initial upgrade ride

Yeah, but if he had aced it ....

At 100 above, he could ask for the stewardess's phone number.

There's a thin line between a legend and a goat.

As Andrew noted, there's a fine line between heroes and goats...


HEROES AND GOATS

1 October, 1964. After returning from Europe in January, 1963, being trained as an instructor on the T-33, working as a line instructor for ten months, and being sent to coward’s cove (simulator section) for the winter, I’ve been transferred to the Flying Instructors School. The job change is a pleasant surprise as the Advanced Flying School is being moved to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and had it not been for the posting, I would have been part of the move. I had nothing against Moose Jaw, but I was beginning to enjoy Portage La Prairie.

After four months as an “instructor’s instructor”, I was feeling comfortable in the job and enjoying teaching other pilots to become instructors. According to my logbook, most of the flying was dual time with one of the instructors-to-be; so if a solo trip appeared on the schedule, it was to be savoured. When such a trip presented itself on the first day of October, it was welcomed like a lost friend.

At the time, we were tailoring our navigation towards the requirements of the CF-104 operations in Europe in the nuclear and the reconnaissance roles. Navigation was taught using “strip” maps that were created by plotting the normal nav tracks on map sheets and then cutting the maps into strips with only about three inches showing either side of track. To save on map stock, there were “canned” trips covered in plastic maptac placed in folders that could then be used by many. I elected to undertake one of these.

Low-level navigation was conducted at two hundred feet above ground at a speed of three hundred knots (if I remember right… it may have been three hundred and sixty). This translated into five or six miles per minute making maintenance of time along track and over target relatively easy. To maintain time, corrections were made by increasing or decreasing speed by 30 knots for ten times the seconds early or late. Sounds complicated, but in practice it was quite easy and often resulted in times-over-target of plus or minus five seconds.

Aircraft 283 has been assigned when I report to Servicing; I sign for the aircraft and proceed to the flight line. The ramp, which used to see eighty Silver Stars take to the skies three times a day, was now home to the twin engine C-45 School, a handful of T-33s and a couple of DHC-2 Chipmunks.

My aircraft was in the front row and already connected to a power cart. I exchanged pleasantries with technician (commenting how warm it was for the first day of October), placed my parachute and helmet on the wing and went about completing the external pre-flight checks. Nothing was amiss so ‘chute and helmet were placed in their appropriate places and I clambered up the ladder into the cockpit. Pre-start checks complete, the starter switch was activated followed by the opening of the low-pressure fuel cock at the prescribed engine RPM. The god-awful engine rumbling caused by fluttering auxiliary engine intake plenum doors atop the fuselage eased to a high-pitched whine as the Nene 10 reached idle: the starter was disengaged and the power cart waved away. Unlike the CF-5 and the CF-104, the technician did not stay to assist in the pre-taxi tests. After disconnecting and coiling up the power cord, he inquired as to my status with a “thumbs up” which resulted in my return “thumbs up”, indicating everything was A-OK.

Taxi and take-off checks revealed nothing amiss and with a nod from the tower, I lined up on the active runway. Power was increased to 65 percent and the TOE (take-off and Emergency) switch was selected. As expected, the fuel pump went to full stroke and boosted the RPM to in excess of eighty percent. Temps and pressures were “in the green”: we were good for go.

Brake were released and engine RPM increased to maximum. In those days, acceleration checks and the like were still in the future and experience was the only guide to a properly performing engine. However, a good push in the pants seemed a good omen and a sustained tug on the stick at around ninety knots saw the nose wheel lift shortly thereafter. Main wheel lift off around 105 knots was followed by retraction of the gear and flaps and a turn to pickup the initial point of the nav trip. Even at this early stage, the large canopy was turning the cockpit into a green house, so the temperature was lowered and maximum air demanded for cooling.

The nav trip was a resounding success; the cloudless, windless Manitoba skies allowed easy maintenance of timing and track that resulted in a perfect time over target. (This is my story and I’ll tell it the way I want…) As the trip progressed, the cockpit temperature continued to climb resulting in going back to the temperature control again and again in an effort to cool off. Finally, after being selected full cold for several minutes with no alleviation in high cockpit temperature, the air conditioning was turned off and all the outside vents were opened. The rest of the nav trip was accomplished in relative comfort.

After delivering my pretend weapons on time and on target (see bracketed sentence above), I headed for home for the usual half-dozen touch-and-goes that normally followed any training sortie. After completing the three-mile run-in from initial, the sixty-degree bank, two “g” pitchout was accompanied by the reduction of power to 65 percent and the extension of speed brakes. Rolling out downwind abeam the button at one hundred and ninety-five knots, the landing gear was selected down with three green lights and a “shake test” of the gear handle giving assurance that it was locked into position and not “floating” and unsafe. As the button of the runway moved to the forty-five degree position aft of the wing, half flap was selected as the aircraft was banked back towards the runway, maintaining a minimum of 140 knots in the turn. Rolling out on final, full flap was selected and the speed slowly bled back to cross the end of the runway at the target airspeed: power was reduced to idle and the aircraft allowed to slowly settle so that the vertical sink rate zeroed just as the wheels touched the asphalt. (See the bracketed…well, you know) I can’t believe they pay me to do this.

At touch down, the speed brakes were retracted, the flaps re-selected to “half” and the power advance to full. As the airspeed never fell below eighty knots, nose wheel rotation and lift off occurred shortly after the power application. Airborne again, the gear and the flaps are selected up. At one hundred and ninety-five knots, a steep climbing turn is entered to commence the right hand closed pattern. This is too easy.

As the nose passes through about forty-five degrees up with a bank angle of sixty degrees, my morning calm is shattered by an extremely loud explosion underneath me that knocks my heels off the rudder pedals. What the…?

I am immediately transported back in time to my engine failure in Germany some nineteen months before when my aircraft and I alit in different fields separated by time and space. My thought is that this can’t be happening; lightning can’t strike the same person twice. I immediately reduce the throttle to idle, thinking that I’ve had a compressor stall; this action is followed shortly thereafter by a thought process of: “Now, let me see: I’m forty-five degrees nose up with sixty degrees of bank and I’ve just pulled off any power which might be remaining and the speed is starting to fall. ” Even without the benefit of higher education, I knew that this was not good.

I scan the instrument panel for any answers it could give me…the temps and pressures are in the green for the engine condition I’ve selected: idle. Hmmmmm. I gingerly start feeding in throttle making sure that I don’t over temp the engine in my haste to get some thrust back into my life. (The T-33 had no sophisticated fuel control unit; the throttle basically controlled a spigot between the fuel tank and the engine. Attempting to feed fuel to an engine turning at a speed too low to accept it could lead to over temping at the least or turbine blade melting at the worst). There is no protest from the engine as I feed in fuel; I keep the nose coming down and start rolling off bank as I reach circuit altitude and reduce power to sixty-five percent to maintain one hundred and ninety-five knots. In the process, I’ve shared my predicament with the tower and declared an emergency. As he advises me of the wind and altimeter, the “B” Stand (his assistant) hits the crash alarm bell that alerts everyone on the base with any interest in an aircraft emergency that something untoward was occurring and to get ready. Interested parties included the Base Commander, the Fire Hall, the Hospital, and the like.

Now, it should be noted that the first of October, 1964 was a Thursday, and it was on Thursday mornings at 1000 hours that the Base Commander held his weekly flight safety meetings. All important section heads were in attendance: the Base Commander, the Flight Safety Officer, the Officer Commanding my unit, the Base Technical Services Officer, the Base Technical Services Warrant Officer, the Base Medical Officer plus anyone else with a stake in flight safety. When the crash alarm went off in the Headquarters, the Base Commander looked at his Flight Safety Committee and intoned: “To the Flight Line”.

So it is, that as I’m nursing my supposedly crippled ship to a safe landing, the senior hierarchy of Base Portage is streaking for the flight line. Of course, all of this is unbeknownst to me as I drop the gear abeam the button of the runway and then commence the turn towards final. Everything appears to be normal; no lights, no abnormal temperatures or pressures. With a final check to make sure the gear is down, I ease off the power and settle onto the runway. On the roll-out, I advise the tower that I will pull off the runway at the end and shut down to await a tow back to the hangar.

As I pull off the runway, I can see a cortege of cars coming down the taxiway. Stopping well off to the side of the run-up area, I open the canopy, turn-off all non-essential items, and stop-cock the engine. I kill the battery switch and undo the seat harness. I want to be on the ground when the audience arrives; but I sit there for a second or two: the adrenalin is still pumping and I need to relax.

Lap strap and shoulder harness unbuckled, I stand up in the cockpit but a slight tug at my left side reminds me too late that my zero altitude parachute lanyard is still attached to the aircraft. This lanyard is connected below five thousand feet and, overriding the normal opening system, ensures that the ‘chute starts deploy as soon as the ejection seat starts up the rails. It is to be disconnected before standing up to leave the cockpit; if you don’t, the pins in the backpack are pulled, and the pilot chute pops out, propelled by a spring. Unfortunately, right behind the pilot chute is a half-a-pound or so of chaff, the “cut-to-the-right-length-to-be-seen-by-radar” tin foil that shows up as a large “bloom” on radar showing the ejection point.

I immediately sit down to trap the pilot chute and the chaff, but tin foil swirling around me is a good indication that I have failed. I disconnect the parachute and hoist myself onto the edge of the cockpit and then slide to the ground just as the Base Commander’s flotilla arrives. I immediately become the center of attention as the Base Commander asks: “What happened”?

I relate my story about the closed pattern, the big explosion under my feet, the heroic climb into downwind, and the subsequent smooth landing. As I’m relating my tale, the tech warrant officer peers down the intake, up the tail pipe, and then jumps up on the wing to look into the plenum chamber. He reports back to the Commander that he can see nothing amiss. He then asks me if I had noticed anything different during my nav trip. I explain that the only thing out of the ordinary was that I couldn’t cool the cockpit sufficiently, so I turned off the air conditioning and relied on ambient air from the cockpit vents. With that, the Warrant Officer dove under the nose of the aircraft and disappeared into the wheel well. The sound of snaps being undone is heard followed by an exclamation of cognition. He reappears from under the nose and informs the Base Commander that the pilot has managed to blow a five-inch air conditioning hose off its mounting, an outcome that is a certainty if you fly around with the air conditioning turned off.

With that, the Base Commander and his entourage turn, re-board their vehicles and head back to their flight safety meeting. I’m left alone with my thoughts and a half pound of chaff still eddying around the aircraft and drifting slowly across the airfield: I’ve gone from a hero to a goat in less than two minutes. The tow-tug arrives and I’m left to “ride the brakes” as the aircraft is pulled back to the flight line.

Fame is such a fickle mistress...

Oh man what a great read !

You’re one heck of a story writer, appreciate you sharing.