| March 3 - 8, 2005 from New Jersey to California
Rime on the horizontal stablizer, just 1/16" thick of ice could change the aerodynamics of the flight surfaces and cause loss of lift, with subsequent crash.
Having lunch at the local airport, waiting for the freezing rain to pass. We wiped at least a hundred lbs of ice from the surface of the airplane. The freezing rain came right after we landed, we were blessed. | | 3000 miles Winter Crossing the U.S.
FBO at Quanah Airport, Texas We come down from the sky like an Angel, penetrate a little tiny hole in the clouds (mercy from God ?), then fly 50 feet over the ground and landed at Quanah Airport. The ceiling at the time was 300 feet. The biggest lesson I have learned --- Never fly on top of the clouds. What about if we couldn't find a hole to slip and spiral down when running out of fuel or develop an engine problem. I guess the only way to come down from the sky is --- put the airplane into a stall and spins it down, once the airplane pops out of the clouds, immediately apply "opposite rudder-unstall" (pretty crazy huh!!), but with 300 feet of ceiling, God bless YALL ! Remember, J3-Cub doesn't have a attitude indicator, couldn't make a wing level descent at the slowest airspeed. Besides, the radio towers are every where in Texas. I have also heard another methode to penetrate the clouds if lost the engine --- Put the airplane into a slip, with full right rudder and left aileron (or opposite) and maintain at the same airspeed, slips the airplane all the way down through the clouds (is that crazy or not?). I guess when dealing with an emergency, there is no such thing call "crazy". Then the question arises, how the heck in the world would you put yourself in that situation!?# There is an old aviation axiom: "There are those that have and there are those that are going to." May we all live old and bold. Return | | Total Distance: 2907 miles. Total Fuel used: 213.3 gal. Total Flight time: 40 hours. | |