Bruce,

The town of Burns Lake, where I described the hell diving doctor, is also 
known as the geographic centre of BC (take a look at a map to see how really 
big BC is and how far from bureaucracy one can really get), and the dirt 
strip airport at the time, early 1970's, was serviced by a tiny regional 
airline flying a DC3.   Burns Lake gets about 12' of snowfall a winter.   On 
afternoon, the incoming DC3 passenger plane couldn't find a grip on the 
slick snowpacked runway and plowed into a snow bank at the end of the 
runway, nose down/tail up.   It made for great pictures in the local paper 
as any available men in town joined the volunteer fire department trying to 
pull it back down to level with a big rope looped around the tail.   Burns 
Lake is also a logging town, and the kind of people who hang out at the fire 
department are generally typical Canadian loggers who don't mess around with 
little stuff.   It worked, and after becoming a snowplow at 2:30 pm, 
returning to looking like an aircraft at 3:30 pm, turned around with the 
help of ropes tied to pick-up trucks by 4 pm, it then took off again at 4:15 
pm to complete its commercial hop and jump journey of the day.   Any 
passengers who chose not to continue in the plane were given bus tickets.

Ah for the good old days!

cp in real bc



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Marcham" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [BP] Smoke Time


cp:

The general rules here in the States for planes are they have to stay 500 
feet from any structure and 1000 feet above populated areas (I've never seen 
the definition for "populated areas").  The one exception to this is when 
they are coming in for a landing or taking off.

I think aerobatic activities have more stringent avoidance or clearance 
requirements.  Generally airshow aerobatics are done at an offset from the 
crowd, never directly above them.

We had a local pilot who was up with his teenage son in their Citabria, a 
relatively tame aerobatic plane.  As he performed a snap roll the controls 
jammed and he couldn't control the plane.  They both had to bail out and pop 
their parachutes (all occupants of a plane are required to wear parachutes 
if you're going to fly outside of the "normal" flight aspects of pitch and 
roll--the one exception to this that I know of is when we practice stalls 
which are often caused by excessive "pitch up" and require or result in a 
steep pitch down to recover).  I don't know where the plane crashed but it 
fortunately didn't cause a problem to people on the ground, probably because 
he was flying over farm fields or one the local lakes.  His son bailed at 
4000 feet and the pilot left at 2000 feet.  Evidently this took place 
somewhere between Auburn and Skaneateles which are southwest of Syracuse.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20001207X04578&ntsbno=NYC95LA226&akey=1

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=NYC95LA226&rpt=fi

As I understand it that type of plane had a problem with the control cables 
coming off a certain pulley and getting jammed.  A fix for the problem was 
identified and they are now all required to have that fix.

Bruce


>
On Behalf Of Cuyler Page
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2007 5:16 PM
Subject: Re: [BP] Smoke Time


 On occasion we get a bunch of Grumman Cats out for
> a lark, and there is at least one stunt pilot who likes to practice out
> over the beach on days when there are not likely to be many ppl there.
>
> ][<


I once sat on a fire lookout atop a steep mountain beside a little northern
BC town where the lone local doctor owned a stunt plane.   Some summer
evenings, he would put on a show over town and relieve the stress of his
work all at the same time, often diving straight down toward the middle of
town and then looping and rolling back up all over the place.   The people
below enjoyed his eccentricity, perhaps not realizing that from my point of
view a few thousand feet away, and at his elevation, the actions looked more
like militaristic vengeance and imaginary self destruction.

cp in bc

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