On 10 Aug 2006 06:46:08 -0700, "abripl"
wrote:


If he hadn't run into the snow bank is there a guarantee that the crank
was OK? Aren't there faulty cranks for other reasons and it could have
been a coincidence? Also did he have an aluminum prop?

As to the thread subject a prop strike now days is anything that
requires more than a *minor* prop dressing. So technically a prop
strike engine stretches the gauntlet from "so what" to the "don't go
near it".

We think of snow and snow banks as being soft. I live in Michigan and
we have some snowbanks that'd support a truck and are as hard as
rocks. Nor does the snow have to be packed to get that way.

After a fresh snow I've driven *through* snow banks that were higher
than the hood of my car without hardly slowing down. I've also hit
some relatively small ones (before air bags) that resulted in me
getting out to make sure the front end of the car was OK. Being much
older and hopefully smarter, I now consider what might be hiding in
those drifts.

...............................Seems his crank snapped in
flight and he was lucky enough to be within gliding distance of a
usable strip. He had taxied his plane into a snowbank a few months
earlier. It stopped the engine, but hadn't damaged the prop, so he

A sudden stoppage can be every bit as damaging as one that kills the
prop. Sometimes even worse.

assumed everything was OK. That assumption nearly killed him and his
passenger a few months later.

I've had a sudden and complete engine failure in the Deb. I was able
to put it down on the airport. I never considered that being nearly
killed even though had it quit 10 seconds later I'd have ended up in
the woods.

I might consider an engine failure followed by an uneventful forced
landing as an expensive inconvenience and ahead of time I'd have
considered it *possibly* life threatening, but if all goes well I'd
not say they were nearly killed. Certainly he put them in what might
have been a life threatening situation un-necessarily.

Most off field landings are uneventful. Exciting, but uneventful.

OTOH you never know until the dust settles.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
...
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com