AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2012 - 88

P&E

TECHNIQUE

and angled 60 degrees to the runway. Wind became the final link in the chain. The landing was a combination of porpoising, bouncing, and an attempt to recover to level flight at full power. The airplane sank, left the runway, clipped a newly repaired visual approach slope indicator, and quickly found a ditch. The landing gear caught on the ditch and flipped the airplane to its nose. In slow motion, the airplane continued the somersault, landing upside down on the vertical stabilizer. Damage was repairable, and the Waco is flying today. Maybe I should have followed the advice of Ward Holbrook, up next in the confessional.
WARD HOLBROOK’S EPIC tale occurred in a Learjet 35 at Grinnell, Iowa, about 20 years ago. “We used to fly there a lot and it was always a chop-and-plop in the Lear. It’s just that one night there was much more plop than usual.” The boss, who had been riding in the back, later asked if Holbrook wanted to “go practice that some more?” Rubber marks where the main gear touched down were visible for nearly four years afterward. “However, I am very happy to report that since that evening 20 years ago, I have finally discovered the secret to making perfect landings every time,” Holbrook says. “In the beginning, I figured that it had to do with maintaining a stabilized approach and proper airspeed control; but obviously that wasn’t it. I then worked up a theory that involved planetary alignment and moon phases. I was getting closer. I finally put it all together when I figured out how to hold my mouth—you have to hold it just right—and the planets have to be in proper alignment, and the moon has to be in the proper phase, in addition to flying a nice, smooth, stabilized approach and exercising proper airspeed control. If you get a greaser other than when you’re doing all of that, you’re just lucky.” ED HOLCOMBE WAS A new private pilot in 1972 when he took his brother for a ride in a Cessna 150. He was landing at

My worst landing
Pilots tell stories they’d rather forget
B Y A LTO N K . M A R S H CONFESSIONS AREN’T ALWAYS GOOD FOR THE SOUL. In fact, most of us—myself included— involved in these landings would rather forget them, but they are shared here to help others. A special thanks to the members who stepped up after I posted a request in the “I was wondering” section of the AOPA Forum. It is only fair that I go first. TRAINING IN A WACO UPF–7 biplane at Owatonna, Minnesota, had been scheduled for the entire day, since a cold front was approaching. It would be too windy to fly the following day. That was the first link in the accident chain back in 2002. Training started in the morning using a Champion Citabria and progressed to the Waco in the afternoon. By then I had a dozen landings. The instructor asked if I was tired, and I said no, which was not true. (The accident chain now had
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two links: pressure to train all day, and fatigue.) It was the twenty-third landing of the day that got me. Landings in the Waco began on grass, where I did well. Winds that had been calm in the morning were now up to nine knots when operations were moved to the paved runway. Only the first one went well. The second was a bounce and go-around. By the time I was lined up for the third, the NTSB report (yes, there was one) said the winds had reached 14 knots, gusting to 18,

DANIEL HERTZBERG

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88 | AOPA PILOT July 2012

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2012

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