Yeah, it may be a western thing, but I doubt it. These people are
everwywhere. When I went to Johnson Creek a couple years ago there was
a 182 that was parked waiting for a new engine. After startup something
broke. All the oil leaked out on the ground where he was parked, he saw
this later. He took off with no oil. After getting about 200 feet in
the air he notices no oil pressure so returns and lands. After landing
and parking the prop spins down like a turbo prop. Takes forever to
stop. Finds out the crankshaft had snapped in two. If you've ever been
to Johnson Creek you know what a bad deal this could have been.

John Galban wrote:

Newps wrote in message news:vaWSa.115114$H17.35404@sccrnsc02...

Last month a buddy taxiied his J-5 into a hole, a seriously big hole.
One prop tip was bent about 30 degrees back from straight, the other
just had the paint scraped. So we found a wheel chock and a mallet.
With a couple guys holding onto the prop, another holding the chock
against the back of the prop the other guy whacked on the prop until it
was more or less straight. Then he flew home. I wouldn't call this
uncommon.


That must be a Montana thing. I met a guy at the Spotted Bear
backcountry strip who was lucky enough to have had just enough
altitude to glide there. His crank had snapped over the adjacent
Wilderness Area. Turns out he'd taxied into a snowbank a few months
prior. When I talked to him, he still hadn't made the connection
between his prop strike and the broken crank on his Champ.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)