The 210 was being tossed in an updraft 1,000 feet and back 1,000 feet in a violent down draft. Now I slowed the airplanes airspeed down to maneuvering speed which is the speed for penetrating rough air. I’ve been in extreme turbulence before and made it out alive hopefully I can do it again here. In this type situation how I handle it is, maneuvering speed, inside lights on to keep from being blinded. Seatbelt tight, right hand on the ceiling of the airplane to keep from getting knocked out from your head hitting the ceiling, left hand on the stick to keep the wings level, and nose attitude level, and feet on the rudders to keep a steady heading. In this type of extreme turbulence another thing that makes it very difficult is your eyeballs are bouncing up and down in their sockets so violently they are becoming distorted causing your vision to blur, making it hard to read the instrument panel, which you are flying the airplane solely by reference to the instruments. I’ve experienced this type flying before, but was going to turn out to be the longest duration I have ever had to survive it. To say the least flying through this type of weather has the pilot’s full undivided attention. Now to make matters worse I hear a loud pow, and then another pow, pow I think oh my God the engine is backfiring, she is getting ready to quit! I didn’t panic, though I would have if I thought it would help anything. Up to that point I guess you could say I had been very concerned, and now with the engine backfiring I was bordering on being scared. Yes I was scared I wasn’t even half way back. I stayed scared on this trip for so long that I just about don’t get scared anymore, it takes a lot to scare me in an airplane anymore. I thought about my wife and children they won’t ever know what happened to me. My thoughts then turned to the sea below, what were my chances of making a successful ditching at night in a driving storm? Then I thought of the ski vest and my now ½ gallon of water even if I survived the ditching how long could I last on a ½ gallon of water in shark infested seas? As tight as I was packed in the airplane and as far forward as my seat was I really doubt that I would even be able to get out of the airplane before it sank. It’s obvious that my best chance of survival is for the engine to keep running. The only thing that I see left that I can do is to try a prayer, even though I’ve never considered myself a very religious person. It’s not that I had not ever gone to church before, it’s that I’ve never really gone to church because I wanted to go, it’s always been because someone else wanted to go. Someone like my wife, my mother, and grandmother they always felt like I needed to go. My prayer went something like this. God I’m not going to lie to you because if you really have all the power they say you have you will know I’m lying anyway I don’t even know if you are really there, but if you are you can see I’m in a real jam, and I need for this continental engine to keep running. Now if you do that for me I’m not going to make you any promises that I’m not going to keep, like I want ever do this again. I know that the law and a lot of other people don’t approve of Marijuana, and I don’t really know what your feelings are about it. You do know I need the money, and I don’t bother you with a lot of request, so if you could grant this one request I would appreciate it and my whole family would appreciate it. The continental engine did not stop backfiring, but it didn’t stop running either. I guess you could say my prayer was answered. Now I’m still battling the storm, the motor is still backfiring my scared factor has gone way down, I’m now receiving the VOR at Port-A-Prince Haiti so it’s confirmed that I’m heading in the right direction. The Bermuda triangle is still on vacation. Probably between 40 to 50 miles south of Haiti I broke out of the storm system. That was a very big relief, I could now see the lights of Haiti and I was in calm enough air that I could turn the auto pilot back on. I had been hand flying the 210 for the better part of 3 hours fighting for my life against the storm. Even though the airplane is still backfiring I’m feeling 100% better about my chances. She has backfired for many miles now maybe she will just backfire right on to the house. I was still at 10,000 feet when I cleared the mountains of the peninsula of Haiti. I did notice one peculiar thing when I went over the mountains I saw what looked like camp fires all over the mountains. I thought to myself there must be people scattered all over these mountains. Years later I spoke to a Haitian I met in prison about the fires I saw, and he shook his head in agreement and said “mountain people.” Now since all the noise from the rain had stopped I could listen to the engine and try and get a read on what was happening. For some reason some of the cylinders would miss fire intermittingly, this would expel raw unburned gas out through the exhaust valves into the hot header pipes where it would then explode or “Backfire.” The ole continental IO-520 engine had a pretty good case of the hiccups. I could listen to the engine and tell when it was going to backfire sometimes it was just pow and other times it would do a double pow pow. Even though it had been backfiring a long for hours. I would have felt better if it would quit backfiring. After crossing the mountains of Haiti
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 00:20:26 +0000
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