Maralinga is a 3,000 sq km section of desert in South Australia where the British Government tested atomic weapons in the 1950s. In the 1990s, the Australian government completed a successful decontamination of the site. Though my main work was based in Canberra, I needed to visit the Maralinga site about four times a year. I was an owner of a Cessna 172 and I used it to travel to and from the job. Canberra to Maralinga is approximately 2,000 km and I would always go via a different route to take in different scenery, and sometimes I would take my two young boys. I enjoyed my flights to Maralinga.

I was beginning to tire of CASA inventing mandatory ways for me to spend my money, such as unnecessary maintenance directives, insisting I pay for security passes when I already had higher level passes for my work, escalating tower charges, etc. I went to an air show at Narromine and met a friend who had recently built a Savannah aircraft, a two-seat, short field performer, could land in a farmer’s paddock or on clay pans in the desert. I flew back to Tumut with him and I liked the Savannah. I agonised for a week and then I ordered a kit for $60,000. There would be a three month wait.

About then I had a month of work at Maralinga. I flew there in the 172. By then the main work had finished and the site was mostly in mothballs and I was the only person on site.

I heard that there were two Western Australian men then at the Brisbane Savannah agent’s hangar finishing off a new Savannah and they would soon be flying it home to Perth. I contacted them and invited them to overnight at Maralinga and they accepted and arrived a few days later.

When I meet new people there is a silent computer in the back of my head that assesses them: are they talking sense, is their story credible? We all do that, though some may not admit to it. Mick and Jim were about my age, they were jovial, their speech was a bit rough, but they had a lifetime of experiences and they quickly fixed a generator that had been giving me trouble and I was very impressed by their knowledge and skills. I quickly dismissed my reservations and developed a confidence in their judgement.

We agreed we would fly a few circuits in the Savannah after lunch.

They were good company and we got on well—maybe too well, because when we went to the airfield to fly the circuits, there was much joking and laughing about operating the Savannah, a small aircraft, from an 8,000-ft runway that had been built for nuclear bombers. The weather was perfect, we were in high spirits, but there was no discussion about our respective licences and experience or check procedures. We were just a couple of pilot mates going for a fly—what could go wrong? With hindsight, there was a lot that could go wrong.

As we arrived at the plane Mick said, “Dave you take the left seat.” I remember thinking that he wouldn’t have offered me the left seat unless he knew what he was doing, because flying from the right requires reversing your hand reactions and although not hard, it does require practice.

As we taxied out, Mick gestured to me to also have my hands on the controls and to make some of the control inputs, which I did. We taxied to the end of the runway, checked the oil temp, and commenced our takeoff roll. At about 200 ft, Mick took his hands off the controls and gestured to me that it was all mine. On reflection, there had been no discussion about lift-off speed or rate of climb or anything like that. Our start-up and takeoff had been more like a committee environment, with both of us making control inputs at our own discretion.

In comparison to my Cessna, I found the Savannah to be very light and to fly like a feather. Small changes in the controls caused significant changes in the flight and I had difficulty holding a steady height. I was not used to the centre stick and my movements were a bit jerky. I purposely did a very long downwind to allow a long final and I overran my turn out of base. I was feeling very uncomfortable and as soon as I had it roughly aligned on the runway, I decided that the safe thing to do was to hand control to an experienced Savannah pilot. So I said, “You take it, Mick. You have control.” To avoid any misunderstanding I placed my hands in my lap.

Mick looked very surprised. He had assumed I would fly the whole circuit, but he took control. My best estimate is that we were at about 300 ft above the ground when I passed control to Mick.

I was relieved that the plane was then under the control of a pilot with Savannah experience, but I soon realised that Mick was having his own troubles as he pulled off too much throttle and then over-corrected and we climbed momentarily before he pulled off too much throttle again. He was clearly getting flustered and making mistakes and he started swearing and shouting about the jumpy throttle. I did not know whether he was shouting at himself or whether he wanted me to make throttle inputs, but I considered that the last thing we needed was two pilots making inputs so I purposely left my hands on my lap and kept quiet as we continued a crazy up and down descent.

Then in response to one of his shouts and his hand gesturing for me to rotate the left side throttle friction nut, I completely loosened the left side friction nut. Out of all that chaos and a few more over-corrections by Mick, he managed to make a smooth touchdown and I was very relieved as we ran along the runway for a few metres.

Then suddenly the engine was at full power and the plane was climbing steeply. At about 40 ft, the engine suddenly went to idle revs and we nosed over and dived towards the runway at about 45 degrees. It all happened so very quickly. The nose wheel came up through the cabin floor and we skidded along the runway on the bottom of the fuselage with a collapsed left wing and the propeller making a sickening noise as it smashed itself to pieces on the runway.

Small, slow airplanes are still plenty fast enough to be dangerous.

The Savannah was badly damaged but not a write-off. Like most small planes, it was uninsured. After some discussion we decided I would fly Mick to Kalgoorlie in my 172 (about 1000 km west of Maralinga) and Dick would catch the train to Perth and bring back his truck to take the damaged Savannah home to Perth. As we flew to Kalgoorlie, Mick did not seem to want to talk about the accident but I was able to learn later from Jim that although Mick was licensed and had flown the Savannah from Brisbane, he did not have much flying experience prior to that.

Three days later Mick arrived back with his truck and we loaded the plane. We agreed that I would contribute to the repair costs and they departed.

It was not until about a year later, when I was assembling the throttle controls on my Savannah, that I realised what was a major factor in the accident. The Savannah has two push rod throttles, one on each side of the instrument panel but linked together forward of the panel. Each throttle has a hand operated friction nut and the flying pilot has his friction nut set at firm and the other side friction nut set at loose. If the friction nuts are set in reverse, it causes the throttle to operate in jumpy increments.

The Savannah has a Rotax engine with a safety spring on the carburetor so that if the throttle linkage breaks, the carburetor goes to full open throttle. This enables the pilot to fly on to an airfield and then turn off the fuel or the ignition and glide down and do a safe landing.

When Mick and I entered the Savannah, there would have been normal firm friction on the left throttle nut and nil friction on the right throttle nut. When Mick took control, he was operating the right throttle and it responded in jumpy increments, causing him to continually overcorrect the throttle. After he had me loosen the left friction nut, his control improved and out of all that chaos he managed a good smooth touchdown.

It is easy to now identify the many mistakes that we all made:

• When Mick said, “Dave, you take the left seat,” I wrongly assumed that Mick would not have said that unless he had significant right seat control experience. I should have questioned that. I now think he had so little general flying experience that he did not appreciate that flying the Savannah from the right side would be different.
• Because Mick knew that I had ordered a Savannah kit, he wrongly assumed I had significant Savannah flight experience and would fly all of the circuit. I only had two hours as a Savannah passenger.
• Mick was surprised and unprepared when I passed control back to him and he found himself, at short notice, having to use his left hand on the control stick and his right hand on a jumpy throttle, something he was not ready for and it flustered him.
• When Mick eventually achieved a smooth touchdown, he felt so relieved that he let go of all of the controls. That is poor technique; a pilot should always maintain control, in the air and on the ground.
• Neither Mick nor I were aware that if both of the throttle friction nuts are loose and the throttle is released, the carburetor immediately goes to full power, which it did.
• The Savannah has a high lift wing and as soon as the engine went to full revs, the Savannah leapt into the air and began an uncontrolled steep climb. At that stage Mick or I could have pushed the stick forward and initiated a go around and sorted things out. Neither of us had the presence of mind to do that. Mick reacted by pulling off the throttle and we plummeted to the ground.

The way I see it there were two main factors in this accident.

1. Every pilot, from their first lesson onwards, gets it drummed into their heads that they must do their daily checks, which include, among other things, knowing how the controls work and the ability and experience of your fellow pilot. We failed badly on that fundamental check.
2. There was also a human factor. It was a remote site and I had not seen another person for over a week, so I was looking forward to their visit. When we all got on so well, it induced an almost festive feeling in the air, like being on holiday. I do not offer it as an excuse but that good feeling in the air partly explains how a normally boring, cautious pilot like myself dropped my caution and neglected the fundamental checks. It may explain it—but nothing excuses—the negligence of the mistakes that we made that day.

Editor’s Note: This article is from our series called “I Can’t Believe I Did That,” where pilots ‘fess up about mistakes they’ve made but lived to tell about. If you have a story to tell, email us at: [email protected].

This summer I used the pause between the second and third waves of Covid to do some international flying. My plan was to fly from my native Slovakia via Czechia to Peenemünde (the test facility for V-1 and V-2 rockets in WWII) in northern Germany. This got cancelled due to a stormy front coming from the North Sea, heading east. So I opted for plan B while on the same historical epoch and took off to visit Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s lair – Hitler’s eastern front headquarters between 1941-1944) in northeastern Poland.

This boasts an old Nazi-built airfield, nearby bunker ruin complex surrounded by pine forests, a museum of the famous Polish 303rd squadron of RAF, and some wonderful lakes to top it off. It seemed like a great destination to spend a long weekend. As for my return route, I planned to fly along the eastern border of Poland back to Slovakia, stay overnight at the lovely airport in Svidnik (LZSK) just across the border, and the next day fly back home to LZDV.

I reserved with my charterer a WT9 Dynamic, a beautiful and fast ultralight with a Rotax engine. However, since my destination got changed already, why not the plane too? A day before my planned takeoff, I learned the Dynamic was still somewhere in Croatia, so I opted for the trustworthy Cessna 150 Reims Rocket.

My route led through Warsaw Babice, an airfield familiar from my previous trip. The weather and service had been great, avgas and credit card payment was no problem, so it was a welcome stop after a 3.5 hour flight. Then I continued to Olsztyn, another 1.5 hour flight over flat but increasingly picturesque Polish countryside with plenty of lakes and forests.

My landing at the airport was smooth, a gentleman at the airport was quick to organize a hangar, bicycle, and transport of my suitcase to a nearby beautifully restored B&B. I even managed to visit the museum the same evening, riding on the paved road from airfield. I could not escape thinking how many forced laborers built the road with cobbled stones, probably commandeered from towns around the place.

The next morning all was great except the weather forecast: the aforementioned front was coming from Germany, with the outlook for several days of non-VFR weather. So I made a decision to fly back home before noon, shortening the trip considerably. I had to promise to Stanislaw to return next year and let him show me the former Me-109 stands where fighters had been on standby to protect their Führer.

I took off before noon, as planned, and headed south. Soon the sky grew dimmer, and clouds started turning from cumulus to a thick carpet around 3000 ft AGL. Rain patches started to appear and two hours into my 3.5 hour planned trip I had to dodge them. The Flight Information Service (FIS) was very helpful and kept briefing me on the weather along my route (I filed a flight plan – not mandatory for flights within the EU, but strongly recommended). Then about one hour from my destination a solid wall of rain appeared in front of me.

After some discussion with FIS, I took her recommendation to divert east and land at a Stalowa Wola, a well-known airfield with a great tradition of gliding sports. The last 15 minutes of my flight I was flying in pouring rain and headwinds up to 30 knots. When I finally found the airfield, it was empty (who would be sitting around the radio when no sane person would be flying in such a weather, right?) and managed decent landing in a headwind of 15 knots. I taxied to the apron and stayed in the aeroplane until the storm passed.

Then I dared to venture out and look for some humans. It turned out there was a group of teenagers staying in the airport building, having just completed their first solo of glider training, and they were looking forward to the next day. They gave me the phone number for the chairman of the aeroclub. Dariusz did not answer the phone nor responded to my text but sent a very nice colleague, who showed me to a spacious room where I could stay for the night and get a shower. My plane was hangared with the help of a crowd of fresh glider pilots. With a short taxi trip to a nearby town, a huge pizza and a beer, life started to improve.

The next day Dariusz came to organize a car and a driver for me to the nearest gas station to refill my Cessna. To my request that he should pull out his terminal so I could pay the fees, he just responded, “The gentleman should consider himself our guest.”

Not a great view for a VFR flight.

So the following day I took off for my original destination (LZSK). Having landed there some 40 minutes later (and being received by a friendly gentleman who turned out to be the one-person staff of the airfield, chairman of the local aeroclub, and a very accomplished pilot), I was readily informed of another front building up on my route. Even coming there I had to dodge some low clouds, this time in the mountains of Eastern Slovakia—not fun. I decided to wait things out, only witnessing two thunderstorms between noon and 5pm, with another coming later in the evening. So I tied down my plane and prepared for staying the night—again in the clubhouse at the airfield, with a shower and two large dogs guarding my plane and myself for the night. We refueled the plane for the next day and hoped for a good weather.

The next morning, Monday, things were looking mixed. At any point somewhere along the 300nm route to my home base, there was some thunderstorm. But this time I was determined to get home. I had spent too much time waiting for the weather. And anyway, it kept changing so there was hope the storms would clear before I got to them with my slow 150. We said goodbye to the friendly flying colleague and I took off southwest, but the storms decided to wait me out rather than dissipate. I know the area well, having grown up in the East and travelled around, but you will agree things look very different from 3000 ft AGL than they look from a car on the road.

About 30 minutes into the flight I was approaching CTR of Kosice, an important regional airport. The tower let me in on my now-westbound route but advised me of thunderstorms along the western border of their area. And there it was. I told them I would deviate slightly southwest and continue; if things got rough I would turn back to land and wait it out.

Well, my get-there-itis was getting more severe by now—I was determined to at least try to get through the mountainous area of south central Slovakia. I was reminding myself of all the good things I read and watched in all those instructional videos: 178 seconds, conscious flight into IMC, etc. Well, soon enough I found myself flying some 500 ft. AGL ever-lower ceilings with ever-increasing hills around me. At one point I took a picture of a hillside on my 9 o’clock with the tip of it hidden in the cloud. On my 3 o’clock the view was identical (see picture above). When I was shooting that picture, I literally thought: “if this is the last photograph I take in my life then I will be remembered as an idiot.” It is a weird feeling when your navigation shows you are going to hit the terrain in less than 3 minutes (see picture below).

The track log tells the tale.

So I put down the camera and made a steep 180-degree turn to the right in order to get out of that valley. Remember you read you should fly along the side of a valley and not in the middle? That is some good advice, which I of course did not follow. Nevertheless, I managed to squeeze in a rather tight turn and head back. I called the FIS to inform them I would try a bit more south since the clouds looked thinner there. That would mean I entered Hungarian airspace and wanted to switch frequency.

The FIS suggested, however, that I should stay with them since they could hear me and “we will hand you over to Hungarians if needed.” A few minutes later I flew into another valley with a dead end under the ceiling, but this time I decided to turn back earlier and divert even more south. After that the sky started to clear, and 10 minutes later I flew into a beautiful summer day with some cumulus clouds but otherwise beautiful blue sky.

The rest of my flight was uneventful and with one stop over at LZLU (I hear that is the only airfield which has a memorial to sky divers) I landed tired but safe at my home base.

Learnings:

1. All those good airmanship practices are written in blood. Follow them and you will not have to rely on dumb luck or provoke the Good Lord to keep you alive like I did.
2. Aviator folks are one big family. When you need help, you will get it. This includes controllers.
3. When you fly longer routes, have your water bottle full. But have it with a cap you can open and close with one hand when the other one is constantly on the yoke, compensating for gusts. You want to stay hydrated but also control the airplane. At one moment I thought, having the screw-on cup and the bottle both in one hand: when I lose the cap, I will have to drink it all in an instant or I will not be able to fly. What that would do to my bladder I will not speculate. 😊

Editor’s Note: This article is from our series called “I Can’t Believe I Did That,” where pilots ‘fess up about mistakes they’ve made but lived to tell about. If you have a story to tell, email us at: [email protected].

“To err is human, but to persevere in error is only the act of a fool.” —Cicero

I had qualified as a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force in 1966, completed the flight instructor’s course a few months earlier, and just upgraded to QFI Cat B a few days ago. In other words, I could do no wrong. I was indestructible!

I was carrying out an A&E check on a Harvard IV-D which had undergone a routine servicing. I was flying solo and the plan was to do the engine and trim checks followed by a stall and spin. If all was well, I was to do a few aerobatics before heading back and declaring the aircraft serviceable.

Having checked out and written down the engine temp and pressure readings, I got down to the pleasurable part of the flight—aerobatics. Doing aerobatics on the Harvard were a real pleasure; the deep throated roar of the P&W nine-cylinder radial engine was masculine and the controls so responsive. I did a couple of loops, slow rolls, and rolls-off-the-top (Immelmann turns). This was followed by my favourite manoeuvre, stall turns.  The first stall turn was to the left and she cartwheeled so beautifully.

The second one was to the right, which in the Harvard was always a challenge as she tended to get stuck if the timing of the rudder, aileron, and throttle wasn’t perfectly coordinated. Therefore, as the big yellow beast wheeled to the right ever so daintily at the very first attempt it gave me a tremendous sense of satisfaction. As the nose snapped to the vertically down position I kicked full opposite rudder and watched as the yaw stopped precisely in line with the reference road in the center of the huge round engine cowling. The rest of the manoeuvre was a piece of cake and, as the IAS increased, I gently pulled the stick back to pull out of the dive.

This is when an unusual flicker of light on the right attracted my attention. For a moment I thought it was a stray reflection from a shiny patch on the starboard wing. But a glance to the right revealed that the entire upper surface of the wing was covered by a thin sheet of flame! I watched in fascination as the flame crept rearwards, gradually turning from yellow-red to blue as the speed increased. It finally extinguished itself as the speed increased.

On levelling out I could see a small quantity of 100/130 octane fuel bubbling out of the starboard tank refuelling cap.  I figured that this fuel must have caught fire as a result of flames from the huge exhaust of the engine, which terminated at the wing root on the starboard.

The correct thing at this stage would have been to quickly thank the Lord for putting out the fire and high-tail it back to base. But rookie QFIs aren’t known to be very wise. This was mistake number one; but as old Cicero pointed out, this was excusable as it is natural for men to err!

Having gained some height, I decided to “confirm the snag” by doing another stall turn. Mistake number two (keep counting).

Once again, I put her into a dive and pulled out to point the nose heaven-wards. Once again the manoeuvre was as close to perfection as I could have wished for. The slight inside aileron and right rudder were perfectly timed, as was the gentle throttling back to coax her around to the right. I had by now forgotten about the “snag” and it was a bit of a surprise to once again find the starboard wing covered with a thin layer of flames which rapidly blew towards the trailing edge before disappearing.

It may be pertinent to mention at this stage that I have always been fascinated by fire. I can watch the flames of a warmly glowing fireplace or a bonfire for hours without getting bored. I am sure many readers share this fascination. But I am not so sure how many pyromaniacs fit the latter part of Cicero’s observation about persevering in error. That day I certainly gave this wise old man a chance to be proved right as I went in for yet another stall turn! Mistake number three, to help those readers who are counting.

Fascinating, but dangerous.

This time the Lord must have been having a coffee break. I pulled the Harvard vertically up, gave just the right amount of stick, rudder, and throttle. But wouldn’t you know it, she refused to yaw and hung there in the sky with the nose pointing heaven-wards for what seemed like an eternity.

I braced myself for the inevitable hammer stall, caused by the relative airflow of the tail slide catching the elevator from the rear and reversing Bernoulli’s principle. The hammer stall of the Harvard was not unsafe, but it was not for the faint hearted either, and its viciousness was directly proportional to the length of time the aircraft stayed in the vertically up position. Considering the interminable time the aircraft remained vertically up this time, almost as if held by an invisible string, I instinctively knew this time it was going to be a whopper of a hammer stall.

I wasn’t disappointed. Suddenly the nose started pitching forward and I hung on to keep the stick in a neutral position as we (my parachute and I) were lifted out of the seat due to the negative G. In a flash the nose went down past the horizon as fast as a bullet train. Then, almost as suddenly as the hammer stall started, it was over; the nose was now pointing straight down and the speed was building up. “No sweat,” I said to myself. I must admit I was feeling quite a hot rod!

But it didn’t take me long to realise why I was feeling like a hot rod—it was due to yet another fire! This time it wasn’t a thin layer of flame; the whole starboard wing, even the root area, was ablaze and I could feel the heat on my face through the canopy. I could also see the yellow paint bubbling and turning black. Even after all these years I vividly recall the smell of petrol fumes inside the cockpit. The prolonged negative G had obviously allowed a lot of fuel to spill. The thought crossed my mind that this was the end and that soon the whole aircraft would explode.

But I wasn’t ready to give up. Though I had done some pretty stupid things that day I fortunately hadn’t taken total leave of my senses. I held the aircraft in a dive, and carried on diving till the IAS needle would go no further. The whole airframe was groaning and shuddering as it hit Vne. But I could see we were winning (the Harvard and I). I could see the yellow flames turning to blue, like the ionised flow from a blow-torch, angry and hot. But nevertheless sliding back to the trailing edge, being blown away by the speeding airflow over the wings.

At last, at long last, the flames died and I started levelling out. A glance at the altimeter showed I was down to about 1000 ft. AGL. Needless to say, this time I did the right thing and headed back to base to land. Post-flight inspection revealed nothing more than a loose refuelling cap, but because of my folly the aircraft could have been lost. Fortunately, I got away with only a blackened wing. It could have been a lot worse… and Cicero’s wise observation would have claimed another foolish victim.

Editor’s Note: This article is from our series called “I Can’t Believe I Did That,” where pilots ‘fess up about mistakes they’ve made but lived to tell about. If you have a story to tell, email us at: [email protected].