April 20, 2003
I had an interesting little adventure today. I learned a really good lesson: don't try and fly when the field is likely to be muddy!
As I was starting to unload my plane, a guy drove by and asked if I had a good flight. I hadn't even started the engine yet! After getting my PPC unloaded and performing a pre-flight, another fellow drove up, asked a few questions, and wanted to watch me take off. Sure, I said.
It had rained a lot the day before, so I walked around the field a bit to see if it was too muddy. It seemed alright, at least where I walked, which turned out to be the driest part. I warmed up the engine and tried to taxi over to the far side of the field in order to take off into the wind. I only got about 75 yards before the wheels and plane were so covered in mud that it wouldn't move any more, even at full throttle. The front wheel was jammed with mud between the tire and the fender.
I shut it down, packed my stuff away and drug it by hand through the mud out to the road, about 30 yards away. I scraped off as much mud as I could, then checked all my flight equipment. Everything was accounted for except my transceiver. Dang! I just bought that thing yesterday! I retraced my journey through the mud and finally found it. It must have come loose, then got drug through the mud until it became disconnected, and then I must have run over it with my back wheel. Later I was able to clean it up and it seems to work okay.
Anyway, I had at least two spectators watching the entire scenario. I'm sure they were quite impressed with my little "air show." Maybe next time I will actually make it off the ground.
I managed to get my plane loaded up and hauled it to a nearby car wash where I sprayed most of the mud off. It's still pretty splattered; I'll have to give it a good wipe down later. I haven't made a real close inspection of the prop blades yet, but at a glance they didn't look like they had gotten too messed up from flinging mud into the spinning blades. I think I got lucky there. I think I got off lucky with the whole little adventure, or rather, misadventure. Other than wearing myself out dragging my PPC through the mud by hand, I don't believe any major damage was done, and I learned a good lesson the hard way.
Too bad. The weather has been great today for flying. Hmmm, I wonder if that field is still too muddy this evening….