Our Airplane Crashed

Damage from Tail-Strike

I’m STILL working on my private pilot rating . . .

I have  a couple more lessons to complete in the Cessna Pilot program, and there have been a few obstacles.  Not the least of which is this:

My favorite airplane crashed.

Don’t panic – nobody was hurt, the airplane is fixable, and I wasn’t even in it at the time. (It was my instructor, Elliot the Intrepid, with a rusty but experienced student wanting to catch up his currency.)

That said, I have nothing but respect for instructor pilots.  It’s hard enough to fly and think about everything you need to think about without adding the unknown factor of a crazy student who is going to get grumpy if you correct him too much and dead if you correct him too little.

In this case, it was a tail-strike that scraped off the tail tie-down and may have caused some structural damage.  Probably scared the daylights out of Elliot and his student.

Meanwhile, our beloved Zero-Eight Charlie is grounded in Ogden while Mike (the fabulous Leading Edge mechanic) takes him apart for a standard phase, and then returned to Million Air in Salt Lake City to have the aft bulkhead and associated components replaced.

So a good landing is one where everyone walks away.  A great landing is where everything is covered by insurance!

-Paula