Posted on 07/10/2017 11:28:47 AM PDT by Sean_Anthony
After my explanation, restrained silence gave way to guffaws
My Piper Cub airplane was due for an airworthiness inspection at a large airport, but since the little airplane had no radio equipment, I called the control tower and requested permission to fly in from a nearby crop duster’s strip.
The controller assigned an arrival time and said that he would blink a green light if I was clear to land. What should have been a routine procedure turned out to be one of the most bizarre incidents in my flying career.
I don’t see anything remarkable about it.
I’ve done the “land by light signals” myself; it was no big deal.
The story itself was pretty funny.
During my tenure as a Marine Aviator, I have only seen an ALDIS lamp once. It was in a display case at the base of the tower.
It’s ridiculous not to borrow or purchase an inexpensive VHF handheld transceiver and eliminate the problem.
Read the article, the point wasn’t the use of a light.
My Brother had a Taylorcraft way back when.
He bought it and reskinned it. My Mother couldn’t believe he was actually going to fly around in that thing. LOL
If nothing else it will serve as example of what not to do for other pilots.
[I have only seen an ALDIS lamp once]
They’re great for giving signals to baseball players!
https://youtu.be/x-S-eeInJVk?t=3m21s
Idiot makes bad decision survives anyway
I fly a 1945 Piper L-4 (Army version of a J3 Cub). I can just imagine this happening as I fly with the doors open most of the time, and yes, you do solo it from the rear seat where there’s lots of air swirling around.
One year 4 of us were flying our Nieuport replicas from Kansas City to Columbia MO for an airshow and had arranged before-hand for a green light from the tower. We arrived and circled West of the field as agreed for a long time, wagging our wings and getting closer and closer to get his attention. Finally I had to relieve myself SO BAD that I decided to go ahead and land and take the violation (when your desperate your desperate). Turns out the tower was giving us a green light all along, but was shinning it through a green window shade so it was not getting through. He as wondering why we weren’t landing and had been keeping other traffic away all that time. The tower guys came down to greet us and we all had a laugh. Our VW engines did not have ignition & plug shielding so a handheld radio produced nothing but static. Fun times.
;)
If it was that funny then why didn’t he post it?
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