{"id":3848,"date":"2021-05-31T22:44:15","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T14:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/countryairstrips.com.au\/?p=3848"},"modified":"2021-06-07T08:37:14","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T00:37:14","slug":"faceplant-in-tasmanian-wilderness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/countryairstrips.com.au\/faceplant-in-tasmanian-wilderness\/","title":{"rendered":"Faceplant in Tasmanian Wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Faceplant in the Tasmanian Wilderness from Ariel Aviation<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Faceplant<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s not a lot of fun standing in the middle of the Tasmanian Wilderness surrounded by pieces of smashed-up aeroplane. Either is being totally reliant on rescue and with a critically injured fellow pilot as a companion. It is not<\/a><\/strong> the wish of any sane pilot to experience a major crash<\/a><\/strong>! Any good pilot has a self-preservation instinct that will hopefully prevent such an occurrence from happening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s unfortunate that just prior to this particular crash two highly experienced pilots had lost all sense of self preservation. They had ignored sane ways to operate a perfectly good aeroplane. It’s either fate or pure luck (depending on your philosophy) that I survived this prang unharmed to tell the sad and sorry tale of how it happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four hours is a long time if you’re standing facing a corner, watching paint dry or waiting for a rescue. You have no idea when it will happen, with only the agony of injured companion as company. During the four hours I contemplated, amongst other things just how I was going to explain how this event happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motor could have quit, the wings could have fallen off, the propeller could have had a major failure, all this shit went through my mind. Nobody could have ever proved any different but in the end the true story of what happened is more beneficial even if only for a personal lesson in humility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see what actually happened is that the two above mentioned, highly experienced commercial pilots managed to stall this particular aeroplane at low level, inside the confines of a canyon over dense rainforest with zero room for recovery. The fact that this crash happened over near vertical terrain that managed to slowly arrest a metal mass that arrived in excess of 60 knots is the only reason we survived to tell the story at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flying a float plane is fun if bush flying, boats and wilderness appeal and it was to the float plane industry that I had turned to, to further my flying career. I had been given a \u201cfloat alighting gear\u201d endorsement and it had come with no difficulty, it just seemed too easy. I had passed the company requirement of 100 water landings prior to using the Sir John Falls landing area and I was being checked by the company check pilot (CP) into this rather unique and slightly tricky landing area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Landing at Sir John Falls involves a descent through a ravine, around three turns known (very originally) as turn 1, turn 2 and turn 3, past another landmark called \u201cthe tree\u201d and onto a long narrow stretch of water that is surely one of the most spectacular wilderness landings in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The landing goes a bit like this. Arrive at the ravine entrance at 1000 feet, just higher than the ravine walls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n