aviator79's build

[aviator79]

Many of you know I had a little mishap in my plane. As a lot of people on this forum know, when you build a plane, you get emotionally invested. It remains a little bit hard for me talk about for a couple reasons. 1) I'm a CFI, and I preach safety and good Aeronautical Decision Making. While in the moment I thought I was doing the safe thing, The evidence suggests I made a poor decision, and it hurts the ego. 2) In bending up my plane a bit, I feel like I hurt my best friend, and it still hurts to think about.

The airplane is within a few weeks of being ready to fly. I'm hoping to get a flight in by the end of October. But just like with the build, I'm not trying to hold a date. I do one task at a time until I run out of tasks. Now that I can see some light at the end of the tunnel, I feel obligated to tell the story because I know some are interested, and I may keep others from making a similar mistake. I'll probably use a couple posts to get it all out there. Let's start on May 14th.


It should be pretty obvious what happened here. I landed on soft mud, the mains sunk in, and I went over the top. The damage isn't too bad. A broken windshield, a trashed prop, and a gearbox in need of inspection. By the time it was off that lakebed, there would be some more though.

Before work, I decided to head down and check out a public dirt strip I hadn't been to - Estancia, NM E92. Departing Estancia, I see a huge, beautiful, miles-long lakebed only a couple miles away. I figured it was worth checking out. It had been weeks since NM had seen any significant rainfall. I did two low passes looking for wet spots, puddles, property fences, or other signs that it wasn't safe before deciding to attempt the landing. The initial touchdown was smooth, but as the weight transitioned from the wings to the mains, they sunk in and over I went. It was actually a pretty tame event. I was hanging in my harness, but not a scratch or a bruise to speak of. Now I had to figure out how I was going to get out of there, and how I was going to get my plane out of there. Fortunately, I had cell service, and I did make it home that day. The plane however, stayed out there for two agonizing weeks. That's another story.

How was I deceived into thinking this was dry, and more importantly, what were the leading indicators that could have warned me off, and what should I have done when I decided this looked like a good place to land? Here's what that lakebed looks like:



It turns out that the lakebed is never actually dry. The geology is such that it is kept wet from underneath. A salt crust forms on top of the lakebed which becomes bone-dry, hiding thick, gooey, foul-smelling mud underneath. I know this now, after talking to the very kind ranchers nearby that helped me out. It turns out, I'm not the first airplane to do this. The ranchers shared a story of a glider that got stuck out there, and a helicopter that got stuck out there while filming a movie. Also, a high speed police chase once ended with the suspect and two cop cars stuck in the mud out there. I mention all this just to make myself feel better. I'm not the only one that's been lured by this lakebed's siren song.



I've since talked to some pilots out of Moriarty, NM that know this lakebed well. That's where the stuck glider came from. So what should I have done differently? The biggest thing is when I saw that lakebed, I should have made a mental note, and then asked around the local pilot community. I would have quickly learned that it's a bad idea. The second thing is that you'll notice that the lakebed is pristine. That's not a good thing. A dry lakebed miles long and at least a mile wide on mostly BLM land should have four-wheeler tracks running all over it. Every weekend people should be out there doing donuts and tearing it up. The lack of any evidence that it gets used should have been a clue to do some homework first. So now I have a rule about landing off-airport. I won't land anywhere I haven't seen someone else land first. And if I'm honest, I'm gun-shy about landing off-airport at all for awhile.

Getting the airplane out is a story unto itself. I'll cover it another post. Then maybe another one about getting her fixed up. I'm not quite there yet, but this story will have a happy ending.