I had flown the Farmington Valley in Connecticut for hundreds of flights; it was my familiar territory. Today it looked like an easy, stress-free, early September flight. The wind was 180 degrees at less than six knots. Forecast winds aloft were 9 knots at 3,000 feet, 12 knots at 6,000 feet, temperature 75 and I had only two light passengers.
I had some considerations, but they easily passed the test-or so I thought. They were: Just three flights ago, I had been totally becalmed for the first time in my life, but I had been in unfamiliar, heavily wooded territory with three passengers and three tanks. I said to myself the chances of being becalmed again are about the same as lightning striking the same person twice. In fact, I think, most pilots never experience being totally becalmed.
So I looked at my other consideration: when I was a new commercial pilot, I used to fly close to capacity weight fairly often. One August afternoon with temperatures in the 90’s, I had three passengers, and the apex was reaching 300 degrees, the maximum for my Galaxy AX-7. So I dropped off one of my passengers.
After that flight I figured I could remove the fourth tank since all of my flights used between 15-22 gallons of fuel. For the next few years, I flew with three tanks without a problem. Gradually I got into the habit of taking two passengers instead of three unless they were quite light.
The flight where I had been becalmed made me change my mind. I had resolved to put back my fourth tank, but I hadn’t done it yet. That did not seem to be a problem today.
I and my two light passengers were in the air by 5:45 PM, with sunset due to overtake us at 7:25 PM, waving and thanking Don Kenney, my photographer crew chief. We floated slowly and lazily over the meadows and fields. We played around with the Farmington River, skimming within inches of the water, soaking in the ambiance of nature. On the other side of the high trees bordering the river, we saw tall grass. We decided to see just how tall. I let us sink into it, and sink, and sink, and sink until the green sawlike blades of swamp grass reached the mouth of the envelope. Though we hadn’t touched bottom yet, a fear such as the one I felt in childhood about snakes in the pond overcame me; I squeezed, and we were out of there. Could that grass have been 15-20 feet tall?
We crossed over a large construction project, the new sewage treatment plant. As we passed over town, voices, car horns and barking dogs greeted us. It was 6:30 PM when I realized we would be entering a long stretch of woods which, depending on the wind, normally could be crossed in 10 to 35 minutes.
I wanted to land. What stopped me was my conscientious attitude of not giving less than a ‘one hour flight’. For years I had been hearing about one pilot who frequently gave less than a one-hour flight. The speculation was that he was either a coward or money hungry. It gradually dawned on me that he was neither. A long time, high-hour pilot, he now has my greatest respect for using good judgement and learning from any mistakes he may have made.
I reasoned it would take us nearly till dark, but that there were so many landing spots on the other side, we’d be okay. But once over the woods we slowed down by the minute. As the sun was dropping lower it became clear to me that we were close to being becalmed, and would never make it to open land until after dark. Fear began to creep over my body. My mind began to toy with many scenarios.
I had already switched to tank #3, the last one. It was close to 7 PM. I decided that if I had to ditch into trees, I’d rather be closer to civilization and a road. I decided the only solution was climbing to wind.
We had to climb to 5,500 feet to get a northwest wind, or much of any wind for that matter. Heading east to the relatively wooded, residential hillside wasn’t my preference at that moment, but it had possibilities at least. The climb depleted our fuel substantially. Even at that altitude, we were moving too slowly for my liking. The sun was close to setting. I did not want to do my terminal (I hate that word) descent too soon, causing me to slip back down the hillside from the evening drain of air. At the base of the valley runs Route 10, big trees and powerlines.
When things looked right, I vented, waited, vented again. Then I waited for the cooling and dropping. Once the descent began, I did no more venting for fear of closing the mouth. Soon we reached terminal velocity at 1000 feet a minute. I held that until I reached 2000 feet, then began my recovery. I could have leveled off at 500 feet, but I saw a great open area directly beneath me. So I continued to descend, but at 100 feet AGL, I took a sharp left downhill. I was at fear level 9. I opened all three tanks, climbed, took a right, and in the dusk, saw my chance. I vented quick and hard. We touched down in a thicket that felt like velvet till we climbed out of the basket. It was a lot darker on the ground than it was at 5,500 feet a few minutes ago. I looked at my watch; it said 7:30 PM.
The good news was that the street was 30 feet away. The bad news did not seem so bad: a stone wall, a wire fence, and poison ivy. All three tanks registered less than 10%.
I recall my instructor mentioning that being becalmed can be as bad as, if not worse than, too much wind. It is hard to imagine what it’s really like until it happens to you.
Ed note: Before taking her next flight, she reinstalled the fourth tank.
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