Great story!
Almost the same thing
happened to me as PPC in a P-2 Neptune patrol plane when we flew into a typhoon
(complying with the Skipper’s request that we not RON in Okinawa due to the
typhoon and his assessment that the typhoon was turning north into China – he
was anxious to get the parts we were carrying back from Japan to get three
grounded airplanes flying).
We were en route from Japan
to NAS Sangley Point in the P.I., with a fuel stop at NAS Naha, Okinawa.
We lost all our navigation
equipment in multiple lightning strikes, and could not make contact with
Philippine ATC when we should have been over the northern Philippine coast –
finally raised a Philippine AF ADIZ radar site, he picked us up 100 miles out
to sea, got vectored in to landfall in northern Luzon, handed off to ATC and
flew to Sangley for a PAR approach with no fuel on the gauges.
Our approach was exactly like
the one described below, except that we were able to taxi in to the seaplane
ramp after landing. There was about six inches of standing water on the runway
when we touched down. All we saw was runway lights on both sides as we landed.
Thank God for those U.S. Navy
precision approach radar controllers.
____________________________________________________
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 7:37 AM
Subject: Fwd: A Hairy Flying Tale
Thought I was going to face conditions like this on a flight
into Lisbon one night after being released IFR when I shouldn't have been.
That brand new 757's auto flight equipment was awesome. Didn't see a
thing until the nose wheel touched down directly on the centerline; then I could
see one or two centerline lights flashing under the nose. Stopped it on the
runway and waited for the Follow Me truck.
Begin forwarded message:
Subject:
A Hairy Flying Tale
A good read, but you guys know if
it can be a true story?
Zero/Zero by
Charles Svoboda
It happened sometime in
1965, in Germany . I was a copilot, so I knew, everything there was to know
about flying, and I was frustrated by pilots like my aircraft commander. He was
one of those by-the-numbers types, no class, no imagination, no
"feel" for flying. You have to be able to feel an airplane. So what
if your altitude is a little off, or if the glideslope indicator is off a hair?
If it feels okay then it is okay. That's what I believed.
Every time he let me make
an approach, even in VFR conditions, he demanded perfection. Not the slightest
deviation was permitted. "If you can't do it when there is no pressure,
you surely can't do it when the pucker factor increases," he would say.
When he shot an approach, it was as if all the instruments were frozen -
perfection, but no class.
Then came that routine
flight from the Azores to Germany . The weather was okay; we had 45,000 pounds
of fuel and enough cargo to bring the weight of our C-124 Globemaster up to
180,000 pounds, 5,000 pounds below the max allowable. It would be an easy,
routine flight all the way.
Halfway to the European
mainland, the weather started getting bad. I kept getting updates by high
frequency radio. Our destination, a fighter base, went zero/zero. Our two
alternates followed shortly thereafter. All of France was down. We held for two
hours, and the weather got worse. Somewhere I heard a fighter pilot declare an
emergency because of minimum fuel. He shot two approaches and saw nothing. On
the third try, he flamed out and had to eject.
Flight
Engineer Panel C-124
We made a precision radar approach; there was nothing but fuzzy fog at minimums. The sun was setting. Now I started to sweat a little. I turned on the instrument lights. When I looked out to where the wings should be, I couldn't even see the navigation lights 85 feet from my eyes. I could barely make out a dull glow from the exhaust stacks of the closest engine, and then only on climb power.
When we reduced power to
maximum endurance, that friendly glow faded. The pilot asked the engineer where
we stood on fuel. The reply was, "I don't know--- we're so low that the
book says the gauges are unreliable below this point. The navigator became a
little frantic. We didn't carry parachutes on regular MAC flights, so we
couldn't follow the fighter pilot's example. We would land or crash with the
airplane.
The pilot then asked me
which of the two nearby fighter bases had the widest runway. I looked it up and
we declared an emergency as we headed for that field.
The pilot then began his
briefing. "This will be for real. No missed approach. We'll make an ILS
and get precision radar to keep us honest. Copilot, we'll use half flaps.
That'll put the approach speed a little higher, but the pitch angle will be
almost level, requiring less attitude change in the flare."
Why hadn't I thought of
that? Where was my "feel" and "class" now? The briefing
continued, "I'll lock on the gauges. You get ready to take over and
complete the landing if you see the runway - that way there will be less room
for trouble with me trying to transition from instruments to visual with only a
second or two before touchdown."
Hey, he's even going to
take advantage of his copilot, I thought. He's not so stupid, after all.
"Until we get the runway, you call off every 100 feet above touchdown;
until we get down to 100 feet, use the pressure altimeter. Then switch to the
radar altimeter for the last 100 feet, and call off every 25 feet. Keep me
honest on the airspeed, also. Engineer, when we touch down, I'll cut the
mixtures with the master control lever, and you cut all of the mags. Are there
any questions? Let's go!"
All of a sudden, this
unfeeling, by the numbers robot was making a lot of sense. Maybe he really was
a pilot and maybe I had something more to learn about flying. We made a short
procedure turn to save gas. Radar helped us to get to the outer marker. Half a
mile away, we performed the Before Landing Checklist; gear down, flaps 20
degrees. The course deviation indicator was locked in the middle, with the
glide slope indicator beginning its trip down from the top of the case.
When the GSI centered, the
pilot called for a small power reduction, lowered the nose slightly, and all of
the instruments, except the altimeter, froze.
My Lord, that man had a
feel for that airplane! He thought something, and the airplane, all 135,000
pounds of it, did what he thought. "Five hundred feet," I called out,
"400 feet ... 300 feet … 200 feet, MATS minimums … 100 feet, Air Force
minimums; I'm switching to the radar altimeter … 75 feet nothing in sight ...
50 feet, still nothing … 25 feet, airspeed 100 knots."
The nose of the aircraft
rotated just a couple of degrees, and the airspeed started down. The pilot then
casually said, "Hang on, we're landing." "Airspeed 90 knots….10
feet, here we go!" The pilot reached up and cut the mixtures with the
master control lever, without taking his eyes off the instruments. He told the
engineer to cut all the mags to reduce the chance of fire.
CONTACT! I could barely
feel it. As smooth a landing as I have ever known, and I couldn't even tell if
we were on the runway, because we could only see the occasional blur of a light
streaking by. "Copilot, verify hydraulic boost is on, I'll need it for
brakes and steering." I complied. "Hydraulic boost pump is on,
pressure is up." The brakes came on slowly---we didn't want to skid this
big beast now. I looked over at the pilot. He was still on the instruments,
steering to keep the course deviation indicator in the center, and that is
exactly where it stayed.
"Airspeed, 50
knots." We might make it yet. "Airspeed, 25 knots." We'll make
it if we don't run off a cliff. Then I heard a strange sound. I could hear the
whir of the gyros, the buzz of the inverters, and a low frequency thumping.
Nothing else. The thumping was my pulse, and I couldn't hear anyone breathing.
We had made it! We were standing still!
The aircraft commander was
still all pilot. "After-landing checklist, get all those motors, radar and
un-necessary radios off while we still have batteries. Copilot, tell them that
we have arrived, to send a follow me truck out to the runway because we can't
even see the edges." I left the VHF on and thanked GCA for the approach.
The guys in the tower
didn't believe we were there. They had walked outside and couldn't hear or see
anything. We assured them that we were there, somewhere on the localizer
centerline, with about half a mile showing on the DME. We waited about 20
minutes for the truck. Not being in our customary hurry, just getting our
breath back and letting our pulses diminish to a reasonable rate.
Then I felt it. The
cockpit shuddered as if the nose gear had run over a bump. I told the
loadmaster to go out the crew entrance to see what happened. He dropped the
door (which is immediately in front of the nose gear), and it hit something with
a loud, metallic bang. He came on the interphone and said "Sir, you'll
never believe this. The follow-me truck couldn't see us and ran smack into our
nose tire with his bumper, but he bounced off, and nothing is hurt."
The pilot then told the
tower that we were parking the bird right where it was and that we would come
in via the truck. It took a few minutes to get our clothing and to button up
the airplane. I climbed out and saw the nose tires straddling the runway
centerline. A few feet away was the truck with its embarrassed driver.
Total damage---one dent in
the hood of the follow me truck where the hatch had opened onto it. Then I
remembered the story from Fate Is the Hunter. When Gann was an airline copilot
making a simple night range approach, his captain kept lighting matches in
front of his eyes. It scarred and infuriated Gann. When they landed, the
captain said that Gann was ready to upgrade to captain. If he could handle a
night-range approach with all of that harassment, then he could handle anything.
At last I understood what
true professionalism is. Being a pilot isn't all seat-of-the-pants flying and
glory. It's self- discipline, practice, study, analysis and preparation. It's
precision. If you can't keep the gauges where you want them with everything
free and easy, how can you keep them there when everything goes wrong.
