On the Ramp Right Now!

"The Miracle at KCGI"
Fourteen Years Ago Today

Almost 2 years before Captain Chelsey "Sully" Sullenburger landed his powerless Airbus A320 in the Hudson river (dubbed "The Miracle on the Hudson") after failure of both of his engine due to bird strikes, we had our own "Ground Hog Day Miracle" at Cape Girardeau's airport.

On February 2nd, 2007, a Beechcraft Super King Air B200, cruising at twenty seven thousand feet, suffered a loss of cabin pressure, incapacitating it's crew, and entered a near-vertical dive.  

As the plane reached lower altitudes, the crew regained consciousness and pulled it from it's high-speed dive at around seven thousand feet, shedding most of it's horizontal tail surfaces, bending it's wings, and warping it's rear fuselage in the process.

With the King Air's elevators left behind to flutter down into the Missouri farm fields, the pilots' only pitch control was with engine thrust.  Using engine power as their sole method of raising and lowering the plane's nose, they made a successful, albeit very fast, landing on Runway 10 at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

The pilot later joked that he'd "ruined 4 new tires"...the King Air had landed so fast that, on runway contact, it ground flat spots in the tires of it's main landing gear.

The twisted King Air was parked and tied down on the east ramp for some time before finally being cut up, and hauled away.

During this time, the now-legendary King Air became somewhat of a tourist attraction, with pilots asking simply, "Is that it?" as they got out of their planes.  It also wasn't unusual for arriving planes to ignore my parking gestures, taxi down the ramp, circle the bent Beechcraft a couple times, and then head back out for departure.

The last we saw of "The Miracle King Air" was it's dismembered carcass being hauled away down I-55, with Lineman Mark Perry catching a few pictures of it's unceremonious departure.

It's easy for me to say, but I thought it should have been preserved, both as a testimony to it's pilots' peek into the Abyss, and the incredibly strong wings that Beechcraft builds for their airplanes.

So, Happy Groundhog Day.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWuPmGPBW8o










Somewhat difficult to see from this angle...the rear fuselage of the King Air was visibly warped from the forces it encountered during it's dive recovery.


.........................................

That truly is a miracle. Everything would have had to be just right to pull that off and being groggy from lack of oxygen and still managing to land that thing is beyond impressive.

King Air’s are what our FAA flight check crews use almost exclusively within the CONUS. They break continuously, I’ve always thought they were junk as I have waited countless hours for broken birds to arrive. After seeing that plane and hearing your story I am going to change my mind about that.

Ron

Edit: Investigation cited pilot error “poor judgement”  As the cause however, the pilots were on point in the recovery if you ask me. Just watched the video, didn’t realize you were famous.

https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20070202-0

Reminded me of "The Impossible Landing" in Sioux City profiled frequently on Smithsonian's "Air Disasters."

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=dc+10+sioux+city&docid=608008713702149656&mid=FCC05A8F92DA0B508111FCC05A8F92DA0B508111&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

My brush with obscure (REALLY obscure) aviation history.

"The Piranha"

Back in 1976, I was working for Ohio Valley Aviation in Paducah, Kentucky, when this little hotrod parked with us for a while.

With it's flashy paint scheme and fearsome toothy fish on it's cowling, I'd assumed that it was a Goodyear/Formula Racer, but it's pilot quickly informed me that it's purpose wasn't for running silly laps around some pylons.

"The Piranha" was a "COIN Fighter"!  "COIN" for Counter Insurgency.  It was designed to carry weapons into combat zones, making precise strikes and then getting the heck outta Dodge.

It's tiny size would be an asset, I was told, in that it'd be difficult to hit as it pounced upon it's prey...and maybe so...though I got the impression that a well-placed .22 might cause it's pilot a bunch of distress.

Even back then, I was developing some healthy cynicism toward "airport tales", and wrote the stories off as puffery, just admiring the little "Piranha" for it's cuteness...like a little minnow with attitude.

Well what did I know??!!  The pilot's story was true, and while the little COIN Fighter never made it into production, it WAS a real thing.  It's apparently STILL flying, though sporting a much more military paint scheme.

Also, in the background of the second photo is the only known image of my first 4-wheeled vehicle...my Ford LTD Station Wagon.  I know what you're thinking, "Man! What a Babe Magnet!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Electric_Piranha

There is an RC-model of that too, made for the Webra .12 "speedy" engine:

That’s quite a unique little airplane! The wiki page says it was somehow based on the Cosmic Wind, no wonder it looks a bit like a pylon racer

I imagine it would take some cajones to take that thing to a war zone with a 500lb bomb tied under belly Or the wing tip rocket pods, holy moly...

Ford LTD eh? I thought it was a ”WQ Family Truckster” A magnet nevertheless. The bronze-white Dodge(?) van looks exactly like the one the local paper mill used for hauling quests, customers and big shots around in the late ’70s and ’80s. American vans were not common around here at that time, so it was quite an attention catcher for us young boys

KariFS wrote:

Ford LTD eh? I thought it was a ”WQ Family Truckster” A magnet nevertheless.  

Yeah, at the time, it belonged to my future mother-in-law  !!!  I was still living on my 1974 XLCH Sportster, whose rear tire can barely be seen on the right.

I really wanted a van to haul my planes, but settled for the LTD, which was...sort of...like an aircraft carrier.  For all it's problems, it did get me around, and there would be a much-more hated vehicle in my future---a horrible Green Maverick that came with my first wife!  She got this unholy, money-pit, piece of junk "cheap" from her car-dealing uncle.



I was afraid to let her drive it alone, so she drove a newer car I'd bought, while I loaded my planes into this Demonic Chariot.  Can't remember what happened to it...think her uncle "bought it back with an adjustment for mileage".  I believe that it's irrational to project human emotions on an inanimate object, but I would have loved to witness that thing being crushed in a junkyard compactor.



She was cute though...

Kim wrote:
She was cute though...

She was! And the girl is pretty too

Here’s mine:

[quote="KariFS"]

Kim wrote:
She was cute though...



Here’s mine:

Yeah Boy!

I love the AMF stripes. I have a basket case Harley SX-250 enduro. It's a TANK!!. Red, white, Black , and blue stripes and I'll probably never see it back together as it needs lots of parts. I've owned it for almost 40 years and it's survived a few moves with the hopes that someday I will see it back to it's former glory. For now, I have 3 others that keep me more than occupied.

Got a call from my little brother, wanting me to check out Whiteman AFB on Google Earth.  Seems a B-2 Spirit took a turn off the runway, and was surrounded by it's recovery crew when the photo was snapped.  According to the tab, the photo was taken in 2016.

There were also a couple Warthogs, one in invasion stripes, parked on the south ramp.

The most recent issue of Air Classics Magazine features a bittersweet article on the retirement of a Douglas DC-4, making its last flight before being put on permanent static display.  It's a bit sad to see a classic, historical airplane surrender its airworthiness, but good to know it was spared from the scrapper's torch.

WAY back in June, 2011, I was working the Line at Cape Girardeau's airport, when the Skymaster stopped for fuel.  It was on its way to Florida to do "Stand-By Service" during oil spill threats in the Gulf of Mexico.

I was VERY fortunate to have been given a tour of what the crews called their "Dawn Bomber"...named for the detergent mix they carried to coat oil slicks and break them down  I was also treated to several great stories from the crew.

A comical "conflict of cultures" occurred when the airport manager complained about the oil stains left behind by the four radial engines, while I wanted them marked as shrines!  

Anyway, we got them fueled and they were on their way.
















Detergent tanks, and pumps.  On the right are the ends of the spray booms, which were detached and carried inside during ferry flights.







"Counting Blades and Watching for Flames"
Since the pilot can't see the engines on the right wing, a crew member keeps tabs on them during start-up.





....................
"Shades of the Berlin Airlift"!
The DC-4 had me remembering the often overlooked heroes who, at great risk to themselves, helped keep German civilians alive in the days following the end of WWII.

COOL !
Nice view of the internal works. They should have dribbled a few gallons of that "Dawn" Power bomb to help disperse the oil slick on the ramp!!

Marleysky wrote:COOL !
Nice view of the internal works. They should have dribbled a few gallons of that "Dawn" Power bomb to help disperse the oil slick on the ramp!!  

YES!!!  A bit of Environmental Irony There!!!!

http://www.mh-1521.fr/index.php?part=16

Many still fly in the US.

As @OVERLORD points out, quite a few specimens still remain internationally, many in flying condition, a testament to a well designed aircraft. It is kind of a throwback to the old DeHavilland Beaver. Regarding yours, Kim, do I see a Broussard Mud Dabber in the making?

Kim wrote:

GallopingGhostler wrote:Regarding yours, Kim, do I see a Broussard Mud Dabber in the making?

It's bugging me bad George!  But I've got so many half-baked & still-born projects laying around that I'm fighting it.  
It WOULD be SO cool though!

I thought the same thing George when I saw the Dabbers picture stuck in there. I would love to see it.

Our recent holiday to New Zealand allowed me to attend a fly-in at the Mandeville aerodrome, home of the Croyden Aircraft co. museum.

Here's a few shots of what was on show.


Percival Proctor


DH.82 "Tige".


DH.83 Fox Moth.


DH.90 Dragonfly.


Another "Tige" and its Minion.


DH.89 Dragon Rapide (or Dominie to the Kiwis, having originally served in the military).


And finally, a J-1 Auster.

Do we notice a recurring theme here?

What wasn't on show was an "under restoration" DH.88 Comet Racer replica, built to spec. and to be flyable.  That'll be worth a look

Nice looking bunch of planes and a lot of moths LOL did you get to see any fling ?