Fly the airplane...successful nosedragger deadstick landing

[C5Engineer 1170]

Friday I moved my Avid out to another airport and a new hangar. I was admiring a nice RV-6A on the ramp near the hangar row as I drove out. The wife and I went to town for lunch and then headed home. Just outside the airport alongside the hwy I noticed a plane that looked strangly out of place in a field. It was the same RV. I guess he had left and was out flying and started having fuel issues. Rather than stretch his glide after it quit he set it down in a nice field less than a mile from the runway. Zero damage..quick recovery on the back of a flat bed back to the airport and all is well. I'm sure he was tempted to try and stretch his flight over to pavement but if would have tried he most likely would of ended up in a retirement subdivision. Good on him for taking the field and flying it all the way to the ground. 

 

 

[Jbird 15]

Joey is this rio vista ?

[dholly 718]

Got a chuckle when I saw "nosedragger" in the title, like a trigear couldn't ever survive an off field landing unscathed. Ha!

[EDMO 1078]

Members of our EAA Chapter and I helped pull a nosedragger Vans RV-6A on its wheels out of a muddy field in Illinois some years ago - Air Force officer and family got caught in snow storm and collected ice, and had to put it down right in the middle of a plowed field - the field was so muddy and rough that we had to build a large skid platform to put the plane on and pulled the skid out with a large tractor. We blocked the 2-lane highway and he flew away.

Good pilot - poor judgement?

EDMO

Edited 3 Mar 2015 by Ed In Missouri

[C5Engineer 1170]

J bird yes it was. He set it down on the other side of Hwy 12 across from Trilogy. Doug a Cessna or Tripacer is one thing but I am sure have you have seen the nose gear of an RV with a 5.00 tire on it. Pretty flimsy looking and everything around is recently plowed or soft from last weeks rain. He did great landing where he did and not putting it on its back or tearing that castering stick off the front.

[EDMO 1078]

Maybe they both went to the same school that I did, and made a taildragger out of it until it stopped!

I could see the Air Force Pilot doing that, because his engine was still running - Donno about the other one tho.

EDMO