I ride a motorcycle. Everyone's almost got me.
What almost got me was a PV1 Ventura. I believe it was in 1984 or 1985, I was the attendant mechanic along with a pilot and copilot ferrying the plane from Page Airport in Yukon, OK, to New Bedford, MA, airport where I had my aircraft maintenance and repair business. About half way home, one of the old "bullet proof" fuel tanks decided to rupture and it commenced to empty itself into the fuselage from the right wing. I tried stemming the flow by stuffing the clothes from my luggage into the openings in the wing butt, but that only slowed it down.
The pilots shut down the right engine and feathered the prop just in case the fuel might be ignited from the engine exhaust. Fortunately, that particular tank only held 40 gallons and what had been sloshing around in the belly of the fuselage gradually seeped out. And yes, the fumes were heavy and made me a bit lightheaded. Fortunately, the pilots had a steady flow of "fresh air" from their vents.
So, we made an emergency landing, and during the roll-out, the co-pilot decided to raise the flaps without getting the go-ahead from the pilot. This was bad. The PV1 Ventura does not have tail wheel steering, ergo, the only steering is done with the breaks, and aided with the engines. The problem is that this airplane has a priority valve in the hydraulic system that prioritizes things like the flaps and gear retraction, shutting out the breaks. Normal procedure is to retract the flaps after parking. That was one wild ride down the runway until the flaps retracted fully and the pilot regained steering control with the breaks. Remember, we only had one engine and the rudders are quite small for that size of an airplane, so there was no goosing an engine to regain directional control using the prop blast to aid the rudders.
Yes, I prayed. It helped to keep me from panicking, then I thanked the Good Lord for sparing me and the two pilots.
Oh, I forgot to tell you: The tank ruptured while we were flying over a low cloud deck, had to scramble to locate a close enough airport with a long enough runway, and then circle down through the cloud deck. Fortunately, there was about a 1000 foot ceiling as we broke out of the clouds and the airport was only about five miles or so ahead.
A week later, after having installed a makeshift fuel tank, the remainder of the trip was uneventful.
(I think I'll thank the Lord some more.)
Woody
Picture of a PV1 Ventura.
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