BARON ON A HIGHWAY
By Ron Fox
To say that I am a task oriented person would be an understatement.
Military flight training tends to create task orientation in its students.
Hell, just being a pilot requires this method of thought. Problem-solving
must be methodical, precisely analytical and well ordered. It must exclude
factors which tend to get in the way of obtaining the immediate desired
goal. Things like panic, physical pain, or just plain fear must be set
aside instantly so one’s entire consciousness can be devoted to first,
analyzing what went wrong with one’s plane and second, what to do about it.
Second chances, while most often present, some times are not available.
Reactions to perceived circumstances must be quick, forceful and precise.
This is what experience in the air brings to pilots. It is doubtful
that any pilot will ever be able to fly, say ten thousand hours, without
having handled numerous emergency situations of all types. Engine
overheats, oil-starvation, engine failures, engine fires, loss of
navigation instruments, degradation of flight controls, inability to
lower the landing gear; the list goes on and on. A pilot with many
years of flying under his belt has proven to be successful in this
method of thought and self-control.
Sometimes pilots with extensive experience in the air come to feel
invincible; that they have been able to handle everything, therefore
they feel that they can handle anything and become not just complacent,
but downright foolish. Such was the way I had become in my new role as
contrabandito, bushpilot extraordinaire. Just put an X on a map and tell
me when you want delivery. I’ll be there.
When Gus came into the office one morning, he was bright and cheerful,
as usual. I could tell by his particularly good mood that something was
up. When he told me the head of the Vera Cruz State Police wanted me to
land on a Mexican highway to deliver a load, I didn’t bat an eye. I just
said, “You’re kidding!”.
“Nope. Numero uno will block off fifteen miles of highway south of
Mexico City. The highway runs north and south. All you have to do is
find the red lights at the north end and the red lights at the south end
and land somewhere in the middle.”
“I never turn down asphalt, Gus. Sounds like a piece of cake. When
do I go?”
“How about tonight? I can call this guy right now and set it up”, he
drawled.
“Let’s do it”, I replied.
I was to be there at precisely 2:00 a.m. so the highway wouldn’t be
tied up too long. I wasn’t to use my landing lights until I was a
hundred feet or so above the highway. I was not to be alarmed at
the approaching police cars because they would be helping me unload
the goods.
This was going to be a small load and I would be using our Beechcraft
B-58 Baron, a small sports car of a light twin which was sleek and fast.
Landing on a highway should prove no problem. To anyone of a normal mind,
landing on a blocked highway for the police with a load of contraband
would seem like a crazy thing to do. I suppose it was pretty crazy, but
if Gus said it was OK, it was OK with me.
I followed my normal routine in preparation for a mission. I went
home, put on my bathing suit and lounged around the pool for a couple of
hours. I took a shower and went to bed about noon, reading until I became
sleepy. I slept until about six, got up and dressed in jeans, cowboy
boots, a polo shirt, and my old navy summer leather flight jacket.
While the temperature on the ground even when the sun went down was still
in the eighties, at ten thousand feet it may be well below zero. A good
jacket and boots are essential when spending hours in this sort of
environment, especially with the drafts which seem to plaque most
un-pressurized aircraft.
I stopped at the 7-Eleven on the way down Billy Mitchell Boulevard and
got my usual sandwich, chips and quart thermos of coffee. I stopped by the
weather office at the airport to look over the latest satellite photos and
surface analysis. The weather was ideal. It was clear with light winds
and no reason to expect any precipitation or fog all night.
I then proceeded to the U.S. Customs office at the International Bridge
with my cargo manifest and export declaration. I had to wait in line as
there were several pilots there ahead of me with their paperwork. The
customs agent took my paperwork, looked it over, signed them and returned
my copies. As usual, an outbound inspection was not ordered, although
they certainly could have required one if they wished. Looking over the
paperwork, I was amazed at how many car stereos they had listed. I was
carrying three hundred of them as well as a dozen nineteen inch color TV’s.
I referred to my personal listing of electronics and, as best as I
could figure it, I was carrying over sixteen hundred pounds of cargo. With
full fuel tanks I would be well over the allowable gross weight of the
airplane. I would have to ascertain that the load was placed correctly
in the airplane so as to keep the center of gravity within the prescribed
range. At this weight an error in loading could most definitely prove
fatal.
Again, as usual, the airport was practically deserted upon my arrival
close to 10:00 p.m. I noticed a few loading crews far down the flight
line loading their aircraft for later departures. Driving into the airport
I had heard an airplane taking off, but there were no airplanes moving
around by the time I got to mine. Walking down the rows of majestic old
birds, well past their prime, sitting in silence always gave me a thrill. The darkness hid the fading paint, the oil streaks, the dirt. It was as if these proud birds were looking down at me, knowing their time was growing short, beckoning me to choose them over all the others to soar once more into their element.
I found my Baron, sitting by itself in front of our hangar. There was
no one else around but me. I fished a flashlight out of my flight kit and
began my methodical preflight. This was one airplane certainly not passed
its prime. The paint was bright and shiny. The wheels were clean, the tires new. The skin had no wrinkles from stretched, fatigued metal like so many of the airplanes I had been flying lately. It looked out of place sitting among the derelicts surrounding it. This was no bush airplane. It’s small tires wouldn’t do well on soft ground such as dirt or grass. The tricycle landing gear, with it’s fragile looking nose gear didn’t look like it could take much punishment. It was for this reason I had not gotten to fly it much. Prepared landing surfaces were the exception in this business. The airplanes I usually flew were valued at a fraction of this fairly young airplane. An airplane worth more than the revenue of ten trips was rarely used for contraband for obvious reasons.
This baby was loaded to the gills. It’s forward nose compartment was
crammed full of stereos wrapped in brown paper. The dozen TV’s were fitted
together on the floor of the cabin with more stereos packed all around
them and up to the ceiling. One large TV was strapped into the right seat
on it’s side. The airplane was squatting on it’s haunches, it’s tires
half flat from the load. Walking around to the tail, I laid across the
horizontal stabilizer and pushed the tail towards the ground. The nose
came up off the ground. When I took most of my weight off the tail, it
came up with me, the nose lowering back onto the ground. This was the
method we used to tell if the center of gravity was between the nose
and the landing gear. If it was too far forward, a person’s weight on
the tail wouldn’t lift the nose. If it was too far aft, the tail would
stay on the ground when released. Of course, this method is not approved
by the FAA for good reason. It wouldn’t tell you just where the C.G. was
or whether it was within the proper limits for safe flight. What it would
tell you was if the C.G. was far outside the limits. The only way you
could tell if the airplane would fly was to try to make it fly. Hopefully
you would have enough runway left to stop if you decided it wouldn’t.
I could tell the airplane was really heavy when I taxied for the
runway. It was difficult to begin a turn and, once started, it was
difficult to stop the turn. Using heavy braking, I made it to the
runway. I was wondering to myself if I was too heavy to fly. Car stereos
always made me nervous because of their density. They had a lot of weight
for the small space they took up and an airplane full of them can be deadly.
I was thinking of the pilot in a Cessna 206 who had attempted a takeoff
with over three thousand pounds of them just a few months before. He had
never gotten his airplane over twenty feet in the air. Within a wingtip’s
distance to the ground, flight is supported by what is called ground effect.
This is the compression of air below the wing which is caused by the air
trapped against the ground. Without this additional support of compressed
air, the Cessna could fly no higher and the airplane went off the end of the
runway and tumbled into a fireball. I hate it when that happens.
I was thinking of fireballs as I slowly started rolling down the
runway at full power. A thousand feet down the runway I still wasn’t
going very fast, but I was accelerating. Two thousand feet down the
runway I was going about forty knots and I pulled the yoke back into my
chest to see if the nose would come up. It didn’t move much. Halfway
down the runway I looked at the airspeed and it was sixty. This time
I pulled back on the yoke and the nose came up, but not off the ground.
When I released the yoke, the nose fell back down….so far, so good,
but I didn’t like feeling this heavy. Four thousand feet down the
runway I was doing almost eighty knots and this time the nose came
off the ground. With a normally loaded airplane I should have been
able to fly by seventy knots, but I lowered the nose again. I had two
thousand feet of runway left to decide to go or try to stop. I figured
if the nose came up as fast as it did and was as responsive as it was, I
would go for it. In just a couple of more seconds I wouldn’t be able to
stop. In five more seconds, the runway was almost gone so I pulled the nose
high up off the ground. The airplane came off the ground in a wallow,
it’s stall lights blinking at me and the stall horn blaring. I quickly
pulled up the gear. With no runway under me anymore, landing gear
wouldn’t help me now anyway. The wheels, struts and gear doors were only
adding drag. The plane staggered off the ground and began a slow climb.
The stall light became intermittent and I knew it would continue to fly,
but I wasn’t real comfortable. I was glad the engines were in good shape
and that they were giving me a lot of power. I managed a three hundred
foot per minute climb and turned south for the gulf. I knew the longer
I flew, the lighter I would get and I took comfort that I had almost four
hours of flying before I reached my destination. I settled down for the
long haul, reaching my cruising altitude almost a half hour after I took
off.
The precise location of my destination was never really determined.
I was to fly to the east of Mexico City, heading south, looking for red
blinking lights on the highway about fifty miles south of Mexico City.
From ten thousand feet, I knew I would be able to easily see at least
sixty to eighty miles in front of me. I figured I would just fly to the
south of Mexico City and if I didn’t see the lights, I would turn around
and head back home.
Coming over the southern edge of the Jalapa mountains, there they
were. A large group of blinking red lights from police cars. Further
down the highway was a second large group of blinking red lights, just
as advertised. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to land on a
highway. I hoped it was straight without potholes. One day my can-do
attitude would eat my lunch, I mused, still awed by my current mission.
I descended to a low altitude, lined up with the two sets of lights.
I had no radio communication with the police on the ground, but my low
pass over the northern set of
lights would alert them to my arrival. At about a hundred feet, I no
longer could see the southern set of lights, so I figured they wouldn’t
be able to see me. I turned on my landing lights. The sight I beheld
made my breath catch in my throat. The highway was straight, but it sure
was narrow! It was a two lane with a single row of centerline stripes
and they were zipping by in a blur. I was doing a hundred knots, which
is about one hundred fifteen miles per hour and, the closer I got to the
road, the faster I perceived to be going.
I lowered my flaps half way. Normally this would slow the airplane
with a noticeable pitch-down moment, but this was ridiculous. I felt the
airplane slow somewhat, but the nose didn’t pitch down a little, it pitched
down a lot. I was holding the yoke half way back into my lap just to keep
from diving into the ground. The airplane began to wallow from side to
side and I felt like I was losing control. The stall light began to blink
and, instinctively I looked down at my airspeed. I was still going ninety
knots. I couldn’t believe I would stall going this fast, but I knew I had
to get the airplane on the ground before I ran out of elevator.
Forgetting about any more flaps, I touched down as gently as I
could and began braking gently, wary of the narrow clearance on each
side of the plane. Since I couldn’t turn around, I shut off the engines,
very much relieved. The center of gravity must have been further forward
than I thought. Burning fuel from the tanks must have brought it further
forward by the time I landed. I opened the door and lifted the large TV
next to me onto the wing and stepped out. Looking north up the road I
saw several police cars approaching with their lights still rotating,
accompanied by several other cars and a pickup truck. They roared up
to the plane and came screeching to a halt. I felt as if I had just
been had, that I would be arrested. I was almost ready to bolt from
the scene into the darkness, but I knew there would be no escape. Another
wave of relief washed over me when I heard a friendly greeting from
several of the uniformed policia. They gathered around the plane and
the pickup truck was maneuvered close to tail. I was unloaded within
ten minutes. A few handshakes and pats on the back later, I was back
in my plane, roaring down the highway taking off, still heading south
without lights. The now empty Baron accelerated quickly and leaped into
the air. As the tension drained quickly from the muscles in my body,
excitement became foremost in my mind.
As I turned northeast for the gulf, I couldn’t help smiling with a
big grin on my face. This job gets crazier every day.
Copyright 1998, BUSHPILOT, all rights reserved.