Posted on 04/20/2023 4:08:53 AM PDT by CFW
At 17 years old, most people are still struggling to parallel park. Yes, it takes a bit of practice. And once the car is parked, the day is packed with school activities and homework and just hanging out with friends. But at 17, Maggie Taraska had an outrageous goal in mind: Fly solo across the United States.
Both of Maggie’s parents are Air Force veterans, so the urge to be airborne is in Maggie’s genes. So she went to flight school, put in the hours with an instructor and started on her solo hours. But on her first solo takeoff, out of a small airport in Massachusetts, something didn’t sound right. The plane had lost one of the landing gear wheels.
“As soon as I took off, I heard something,” Maggie said. “I just felt something was wrong instinctively.”
The Piper Cub had plenty of gas, so her instructor had time to talk her through the maneuvers from the ground while she circled a few times to gather herself.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecentersquare.com ...
Methinks something is a tad off here.
A Piper Cub is a high wing tricycle/fixed gear airplane. You lose a wheel, you don’t get to belly-skid upon landing. You get to risk a ground loop however. Your landing speed with flaps is gonna be around 40-45 KIAS, and you might get it down to 25-30 at touchdown. So while a groundlooped landing would be REALLY EXCITING, you and the aircraft would both likely be re-usable. Maybe some new fabric, paint, wheel axle/hub AND a sign-off. Maybe...
Also a Piper Cub is REALLY slow, if forgiving and gentle to fly. A cross-country flight would take a long time. A really long time.
I think it just might have been a DIFFERENT Piper aircraft. Maybe an Archer. Dunno.
Refreshing to see a media report on a teenager who actually did something brave—and not another gender dysphoric child being billed as “heroic” by the agenda driven left.
A piper cub is not a tricycle gear airplane, it’s a tail dragger.
“Refreshing to see a media report on a teenager who actually did something brave—and not another gender dysphoric child being billed as “heroic” by the agenda driven left.”
____
It is indeed. The media highlights the criminal element, and more often than not, mocks the teens who are responsible, hard-working, and polite young men and women. There are actually more of them out there such as this young lady but they do not do the things that normally gets them on the front page of the news such as shooting up other teens attending a sweet 16 party.
I Googled it, the pictures show a young white girl (sorta pretty) and a Piper Cherokee - not a Cub.
The technical reporting of today’s media really sucks. I think maybe the journalism education is focused more on leftist politics than good reporting.
Now just why the media would give a good report for a white racist girl is just beyond me.
“Is this it?”
It is. That would have been considered a good touch-down even WITH landing gear.
That was a beautiful landing.
That is the audio. The video is some other footage sync’d up to the audio. (There is a note a few seconds in saying “not original footage”)
Careless error before coffee ;-)
I flew both the Cub and the Aeronca Champ in days past, and CLEARLY they were tail draggers. Like you, never seen a tricycle-gear Cub. TriPacer yes, Cub no. Tripacer was the first GA aircraft I ever flew in, back when my dad and I were both young(er).
I would not have wanted to land the plane with ONE tire missing.
Maybe into a 15 kt headwind so my speed over the ground would be minimal on touchdown.
A later poster named the aircraft type as a Cherokee, which makes a LOT more sense.
Enjoy your day. I am headed off for more coffee ;-)
I went off for college at 17. The girlfriend I met and dated was also 17. She was a young pilot with 110 hours solo. At spring break she ferried a new Cessna 172 Skyhawk with no instrumentation from Wichita back to her home in New Jersey. I rode along as we navigated VFR. I cold write a nice short story about that wild adventure with a beautiful young sweetheart.
....agree...! have a number of hours in a genuine WWII-era Cub and it ain’t no trike airplane....also, what kind of radios did the pilot and her instructor have...? Cubs have no electrical system and no radios, unless they had hand-held units.?? jus’ askin’........
This is an old story. A wheel fell off of a fixed gear aircraft on takeoff. She was a low time, already soloed student pilot. She landed perfectly and was not injured.
The lady was INSTANTLY dubbed “Captain Maggie”, and hundreds of people, including air force fighter pilots and airline pilots stating they’d fly with her anywhere, any time.
Seems like this happened about 5 years ago....
BTW, if you watch that video but listen to the audio, you can hear the controller state “when you touch down it’s going to pull to the right when that right wheel touches down.” (or words close to that).
Interesting difference between the video and the audio.
“The technical reporting of today’s media really sucks.”
Not to mention when you go to the article there is a picture of an airliner landing.
https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberResult
indicates that aircraft is a Grob-120A.
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