As some of you know I have a deep love of airplanes, flying, and just about anything that can get into the air. As an adult I have analyzed, thought, meditated, and tried to figure out ‘why’ this is the case, but alas I can’t nail it down except to say… ”it’s in me”. Since I was a child, mechanical things really had my attention, and If I could figure out ‘how’ something works, then I could drive it, use it, feel safe on it, and EXPLOIT it to it’s fullest potential.
It started with bikes and lawn mowers. I was the only kid on Pennydale drive that had a Rugg (They don’t make them any more) Riding mower with painted mag type wheels, a semi truck tower exhaust, and a custom paint job! (Wish I still had a picture of that one.)
But it was always flying, hence the story, “The Day I Learned to Fly”. By the time I was in college I was working part-time for a FBO (Fixed Based Operation) at the old Greensboro Regional Airport (Now PTI, Piedmont Triad International Airport). My job was a fueler, meaning, I actually got paid money to fuel airplanes for a living! Forget the fact it is freezing cold or scorching hot… (I was outside all of the time), I got to fuel everything from small Cessnas, 152’s (2 seats), 172’s (4 seats), Beechcraft Bonanza, Barons and King-Airs, Pipers, and their lineup of aircraft. There were overnight and day-time commercial jets; DC-9’s, DC-8’s, and yes, every once in a while, a DC-3, Boeing 727, 737, and YS-11 cargo haulers… it was just a smorgasbord of airplanes sent from heaven for Jeffy! I loved it, and…
I was very immature. (For those that know me that last statement isn’t a shock.)
One of my jobs was to park aircraft that were hangered (kept in big plane garages), or kept on our flight-line (the line of airplanes tied down in front of the runway, like soldiers on parade). One of the regulars was our CEO’s personal Cessna 182RG. This is a fast, retractable gear aircraft. He had weather radar and all of the extra goodies that were big ‘back in the day’. I LOVED this plane and would hook it up to the tug and tow it down to the flight-line, weekly.
Near the end of my day I would have anywhere from 10 to 30 aircraft lined up, tied down, and parked perfectly in the front row for all to see. It was my pride and joy that people would drive up and see a arrow straight line of parked planes that was proof of my work!
One Friday night I was down to the last plane. It was the boss’s 182RG. I lovingly hooked up the tug and pulled it down to the last spot at the end of the line. I pushed it back in place with the tug, unhooked it, and tied down the wings to the ground hooks.
Here is where stupidity literally was birthed from the confines of my small mind…
I opened door and jumped into the pilot’s seat. Oh… my… word! So many gauges and gizmos I just couldn’t believe it. I didn’t have my license at the time, but knew what everything was. Artificial horizon, master power switch, radios, ADF (Auto Direction Finder), throttle, pedals, RPM gauge, Loran (type of direction finding equipment). The list goes on… and yes ‘the landing gear knob’, that pulls the wheels up into the belly of the plane.
Call it demonic possession or curiosity, but I couldn’t take my eyes off that knob. I was transfixed by it like your first love… and in truth, I knew what it did. Through the power of hydraulics, pulling this knob up would bring the main and nose gear up into the belly of the aircraft, thus decreasing drag and allowing the plane to fly faster.
“I know how this works,” I said to myself, but then the TRAP.
No, I am NOT blaming my dad, but he is a electrical engineer and my ‘need’ to know ‘how’ things works comes from him. I said to myself, “I wonder if the designers put in place a safety mechanism that would keep you from being able to retract the landing gear while on the ground?”
Makes sense to me, doesn’t it?
Now here is where my stupidity takes over, and my lack of forward thinking shows. (I will tell another story one day about me and a set of bus doors that demonstrates this problem again!)
I didn’t think about what would happen IF the designers didn’t put this feature in. I just assumed, (we all know about assuming, right?) I assumed NOTHING would happen. So I grabbed the handle, flicked it up and back down real quick, like maybe no one would notice it. (Since clearly everyone was watching every little thing I do.)
Well, nothing happened, and I decided the engineers and designer were pretty smart, ’till the front of the very expensive, owned by the CEO, highly modified Cessna 182RG nosed into the pavement with a quiet, yet life altering “THUD.”
Talk about waking up from a stupid dream… everything I just did from the moment I entered that aircraft came flooding back, and talk about the fancy equation of “assuming turning you into a ass”… it was magical… Here was the CEO’s airplane with an, “Equus africanus asinus” in the pilot’s seat. (That is a Donkey or Ass.)
Fun fact – Does anyone know what they call the ‘male’ of the Equus africanus asinus species?
JACK
So in the common man’s tongue and vernacular it would be stated, “Here was a jack-ass in the CEO’s airplane who had RETRACTED THE LANDING GEAR WHILE ON THE GROUND!”
BAD MOVE.
You know the other thing I learned? There was no hiding my work. I sorta had a little panic, had a little throw up in my mouth, got on the tug and went back up the terminal to find my supervisor. I found him and asked him to step out of the line shack to help me with a problem. To say his language was colorful doesn’t come close. It was 11 pm and there was 29 perfectly straight airplanes, and then one, at the end, with the tail sticking up for the WHOLE WORLD TO SEE. The crowd gathered, and the talk started, and the language continued, and the names started, and… and… and… and…
See, our quarterly bonus came out of an accident free workplace. I just flushed 3 months of ‘no accidents’ down the toilet. This greatly increased my popularity with my workmates on the flight-line! Thank God this was before cell phones, smart phones, and the internet. It would have been viral within seconds!
The shop guys were mad because they had to come out in the cold and get the plane off the ground and move it to the shop. The team I worked with were as hostile as bees whose hive was just knocked down. No bonus… then there was the wait for the CEO to come back at 1 am (when he finally got the word). It was an interesting interview with him. They sequestered me in a empty conference room with no heat. The only thing missing was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. When he came it, the door opened like a shotgun going off.
He was not happy.
My father has always been the authority figure in our lives. I had never heard bad language from him, so it was a little shocking to hear this current authority figure in my life, making references to my mother, my questionable heritage, and the concern he had that I actually have enough brain-matter to figure out how to breathe.
That was a tough month but I got through it.
About four years later I was making a cross state flight from Sugar Valley airport (west of Winston Salem) to South Raleigh. When I landed in Raleigh I went to the FBO office to get a coke and nabs. A nice gentlemen started up a conversation with me and we starting talking shop. Where are you from, where did you work, how did you get into flying, etc. I told him I used to work at Greensboro Regional airport at Airservices.
He said, “Oh really, I don’t know if it is true or not, but I heard tell of some jack-ass who got into the CEO’s airplane down there and retracted the landing gear while it was parked. Can you believe that?”
“Yeah…,” I said… “I can believe it…”
Be safe out there on the road this week! ”
Jeff Kennon
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