|
One of the planes I learned to fly in was a Cessna 172 with extended range tanks that made it heavy and sluggish in the summer but very predictable. It was a great plane for students and saw a lot of private pilot check rides. But with the weight of the extra fuel, it was close to its weight limit with two full grown men in it on hot days. Even though I didn't own it, I loved that little plane.
Along came an FBI agent/pilot who rented the plane, put three other 200+ lb cops in it with him and tried to take off with both wings full on a 100 degree day despite a clear density altitude warning in the weather brief. When he was still so low on takeoff that the trees across from the airport were looming large in his windscreen, he yanked back on the yoke in a useless attempt to avoid them, stalled the plane, dropped the left wing and spun nose first right into the golf course, destroying the plane and the cops inside it in a spectacular fireball that closed the airport for a couple of hours.
That little plane had survived 20 years of first solos, first landings, first solo cross countries, first instrument flights, you name it. It even survived a student getting lost over North Florida, running it out of fuel and having to make an emergency landing at the wrong airport (not me). To be done in by a hot dog imbecile who didn't understand weight limits and density altitude on a hot Florida day was an insult.
That's my old flame story. Or old fireball story.
|