Off in the weeds

It was the second flight of the day for the conservation organization I do
volunteer flying for. The local Baton Rouge guy bird-dogging illegal Cypress
logging had me set up to take him, a reporter and a cameraman from the Fox TV
station up to video the bad guys at work.

4R is the shortest runway at BTR, but it's closest to the FBO, so I begged for
it and got it.

http://www.naco.faa.gov/d-tpp/0708/00040AD.PDF

I had given my pax - both newbies - the standard preflight about seatbelts,
headsets, sterile cockpit, etc. I remembered to tell the cameraman in the
front seat beside me to keep his feet off the pedals. Then I did the runup,
completed the pre-takeoff checklist and was cleared to go.

It's my habit to pull a little back pressure as soon as the airspeed's alive;
we were rolling and all seemed well. The airplane was loaded almost to gross,
so I let the airspeed build to 60 KIAS before I pulled back for rotation.

Well, I *tried* to pull back for rotation. The yoke wouldn't budge. At
first, I thought I had failed to set the elevator trim. 182s are a bit pitch
heavy anyway, so I pulled harder. No joy. At this point, puzzle-solving time
was over. Airspeed was passing 75, the airplane was heavy, and the end of the
runway was fast approaching.

I killed the power and jammed on the brakes. For some reason, I announced to
the tower that I was aborting, even though I had rather a lot to concentrate
on at the moment. It became one of those "time slows down" experiences: my
mental calculations told me I wasn't going to get 'er stopped before the
concrete ran out. I started planning the best route through the lights and
into the smoothest looking part of the overrun.

We finally slowed to taxi speed about 50 feet off the end and I turned around
and bumped along the grass back to the runway. The tower was asking if I
needed assistance and what I wanted to do. Oh, yeah: and "what happened?"

We had just figured that out. As we turned on to 4R for takeoff, the
cameraman had shifted his large video rig in his lap - right up against the
yoke in front of him. When I tried to pull the yoke back, there was nowhere
for it to go. The camera was taking up all the room between the right yoke
and the cameraman.

As we taxied back for another try, the three pax were joking about what had
just happened and kidding the cameraman. I don't think they realized how
close they had come to getting hurt or killed.

Oh, well; another lesson learned. "Controls free and correct?" Maybe at the
moment you check, but watch out for anything that could interfere with them
while you're not looking.

--
Dan
T-182T at BFM