Monday, October 8, 2007

Bozo the towpilot

Have you ever had one of those days? The first flight on Sunday was delayed a bit because the towpilot was late to arrive. When he finally showed up, he was in a hurry to launch PM, who had been waiting patiently at the south end of the runway. Cockpit checks completed, rope stretched out, rudder waggled, off they go. But wait! There's a golf cart crossing the runway up ahead, with 3J in tow. Maybe the towpilot should have looked down the runway before adding power, you think? Chop the power, release the glider - everyone rolls to a stop, avoiding a near miss (or worse) but adding further delay.

To add insult to injury, when the same glider was on final approach, the towplane started to taxi down the runway in the opposite direction until the towpilot woke up, saw the glider, and veered out of the way. Same bozo in the towplane.

Steve handled both incidents with aplomb. Sorry, Steve.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

So, will the real Bozo Pilot, please, stand up?

[You had to be there to know that it was Rick, and he is bozo-ing himself (excessively harshly, IMHO)...]

PMSC Member said...

I think the "Bozo's were the ones crossing the runway. if there is a towplane and glider about to launch the rule ought to be "Stop" . maybe a little runway lessons ought to be taught

Anonymous said...

Yeah, there were mistakes made at both ends of the runway, but the fact remains that I never looked until after we were rolling.