A Pair of Jokers

September 28, 2023

"A pilot may earn his full pay for a year in less than two minutes. At the time of incident he would gladly return the entire amount for the privilege of being elsewhere”.
Ernest K. Gann

By my recollection, the following event would have taken place in the fall of 1986. Of course if it happened today, with the advent of smartphones in every pocket,  there would have been plenty of photos and perhaps even a video or two. Sadly, as the other principal participants are no longer with us, all I have to rely on is my memory. Yet I am confident I will never forget this event.

It all began when my Sunday afternoon was interupted by a phone call. It was Art, calling me from the Lacombe airport. John, a local pilot, up for a Sunday afternoon flight,  had radioed in that he was having trouble with his landing gear and needed assistance. He was not getting the expected green light indicating that the landing gear was safely extended on his Cessna Cardinal RG. The two main wheels were down, however the nose gear was stuck in the up position!

As I was the only aircraft mechanic on the field, Art thought I might have some advice. The ink was hardly dry on my newly earned Aircraft Maintenance Engineer’s license yet somehow I was the one being looked at for advice. A smarter man than me would have declined this opportunity to participate in a disaster. But, I wasn’t that smart…

I did have two immediate thoughts… 1. Thank goodness I had never worked on that particular plane, so I was safe from financial liability as my name would not appear in the log books in the event of a post accident investigation.. 2. I had no sweet clue as to what to do. My limited experience with Cessna retractable landing gear (on another model), didn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

I had to  stall for time while I thought of something better. I suggested John try a few steep turns to see if the G loading would help to unstick the nose gear. No dice… My next suggestion was something I was familiar with as a relatively new pilot. Why not try a good, firm bounce on the runway on the two main wheels. Still no joy…

It was then that it became clear that poor John was going to have to land the little plane sans nose wheel! This was going to get interesting. He asked me to call the local fire department to be on standby. Perhaps if we were at a bigger airport, they may have foamed the runway but this was a small town field. The police showed up along with the firetrucks and an ambulance as well. Soon all the roads adjacent to the airport were closed by the police and local traffic was brought to a halt. In the space of a few minutes, it seemed that half the town turned up to watch the fun.

Meanwhile, John and I were talking back and forth on the radio. Even though the chips were down, we realized that there were still a couple of cards to play, even if they were only jokers. The first bit of good luck was that there was a nice smooth grass runway beside the paved one. The grass would help to absorb some of the impact when the airplane touched the ground, therefore lessening the potential damage to plane and pilot. Second, there was a stiff south wind blowing straight down that grass runway. A nice headwind would help to slow the ground speed of the plane as it landed, so that was a plus as well.

Then we came up with one more idea. It was a bit of a long shot. If the engine was turning when the plane touched down, the propeller would strike the ground. I had seen a number of props that had done this and it wasn’t pretty. The damage to propeller and engine alone could run into tens of thousands of dollars. And this of course was ignoring the fact that in the ensuing crash, the John could be seriously or even fatally injured.

With these thoughts running in my mind I suggested that John do something no sane pilot ever wants to do. The last part of an airplane's arrival to a runway is called final approach. If John could get lined up with the runway and then stop the engine just short of touching down, he might be able to land with the two blades of the propeller parallel to the ground, therefore avoiding any contact between the propeller and the ground and avoiding some of the costly damage.

For some reason John agreed that it was a good idea. His first try however didn’t go well. He got everything lined up, flaps down, and killed the engine on short final. However, that steady south wind turned into a curse and it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to glide to the runway. I was relieved to hear the engine roar to life as John restarted it and went around for another try.

This time, everything worked perfectly. John got the engine stopped on short final, prop in the right position. He touched down lightly and held the nose off the ground until the plane slowed to what seemed to be a walking pace. The nose gently dropped to the ground bringing the calamity to an underwhelming end. I’m sure that there were a few of the many spectators who went home, disappointed. However, I and especially John were mighty relieved!

John calmly got out. The police, however, went into high gear and immediately staked off the area around the plane as though it were a major crime scene. (The officer in charge was apoplectic when I came screaming down the runway on my mo-ped with my five year old son riding shotgun! He finally calmed down when I explained that I was the mechanic who was assisting John. It took a few more minutes and a phone call to Transport Canada before they would allow us to access the plane.

With a couple of sturdy fellows pushing down on the tail, the nose came up and we were able to reach up and with a little tug free the nose wheel. It was trapped in its wheel well due to a broken bolt that allowed the shock absorber to over extend and jam the wheel. As to other damage, luckily there wasn’t much. In fact, all there was was a soup bowl sized dent on the bottom of the cowling that would be easily repaired.

A few days later, a government accident inspector showed up and after a cursory inspection, gave his opinion. “Looks like that broken bolt probably came off of a farm implement” he announced! But beyond that, no harm so no foul. He did advise us that it was fortunate that the plane didn’t tip completely forward and flip upside down. There definitely would have been more than a soup bowl dent to pound out then!

Furthermore we were fortunate in another couple of ways. The stiff wind straight down the runway was perfect. Had it been a cross wind, things would have been much harder for John to negotiate. Also, as anyone who has operated a fuel injected aircraft engine knows, they are sometimes are cranky to restart when hot. In this case it wasn’t a problem.  And finally, thank goodness John kept his cool. A panicked pilot in this situation could easily have tried to stretch the glide on the first attempt with a subsequent stall and spin and most likely a fatality. 

So sometimes things work out for the best. Still, it’s a pity that smart phones weren’t around back then!