{"id":1724,"date":"2013-04-19T07:17:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T14:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=1724"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:58","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:58","slug":"the-roller-on-the-runway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/the-roller-on-the-runway\/","title":{"rendered":"#60 The Roller on the Runway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lots of people call them \u201cSteamrollers\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s pretty ridiculous.\u00a0 There haven\u2019t been steamrollers in use for decades.\u00a0 Still, the moniker has often lingered.\u00a0 This one certainly\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0a \u201csteamroller\u201d.\u00a0 But it sure was a roller.\u00a0 And it sat right in the middle of the lovely little dirt runway.\u00a0 Why it was there was a question that would bug me for a couple of days.\"Roller\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You see, I had a student with whom I wanted to do some quality instruction.\u00a0 She was an interesting person who\u2019d found me on the internet.\u00a0 Her 182 was undergoing an engine overhaul.\u00a0 She was accustomed to staying current by flying about once a week, so she decided to get some tailwheel time with me in the Super Cub.<\/p>\n

That morning before I even crawled out of bed I sent an email to the family that owned the nearby dirt strip.\u00a0 I\u00a0didn’t\u00a0know them well.\u00a0 I\u2019d given some dual to the son and found out that his dad had taught him to fly.\u00a0 He\u2019d done a good job.\u00a0 Both father and son were very skookum aviators and I liked them both.\u00a0 I\u2019d received permission from them to land on their strip from time to time, but I\u00a0didn’t\u00a0like to overdo it.\u00a0 I emailed to let them know I was planning on coming over in an airplane that they\u00a0didn’t\u00a0recognize as mine.\u00a0 I just wanted to give them a heads up. And I told them that I hoped it was okay.\u00a0 They\u00a0didn’t\u00a0have a lot of time to answer and by the time I left for the airport to meet my student, I\u00a0hadn’t\u00a0heard back from them.<\/p>\n

I told my student that I had a special treat for her and we launched for the private strip.\u00a0 My plan was to give her a simulated engine failure well above the strip so that she could practice a circling overhead approach.\u00a0 This is one of my favorite maneuvers and really helps someone develop their accuracy and to develop a technique that could really save their bacon in the event of an engine failure.<\/p>\n

Once she had the field in site, I failed the engine and she bee-lined for her circling point above the approach end of the runway.\u00a0 Then I saw the roller.\u00a0 It was chugging down the runway and wasn\u2019t quite halfway down the strip.\u00a0 I just figured that it would probably exit at some point and saw no need to break off our practice.<\/p>\n

But as our circles brought us lower, I could see the roller come to a stop.\u00a0 As we got down to the last circle or so, I changed the game plan and we simply did a low approach.\u00a0 As we swooped past the roller I could see that there was no longer anyone in it.<\/p>\n

I was puzzled, but we did a couple more approaches and headed for home.<\/p>\n

Later that day I was on the phone with my pal, Bert.\u00a0 I recounted what had happened with my email and the roller on the runway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d, Bert surmised.\u00a0 \u201cI can see two scenarios to explain it.\u00a0 In the first one, someone at the strip read the email and said, \u2018Brian\u2019s coming to use the strip.\u00a0 Let\u2019s get the roller out there and make it nice and smooth for him\u2019.\u00a0 Then, the roller broke down and they had to abandon it on the runway\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeh,\u201d I said, \u201cbut what\u2019s the other scenario?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in the second scenario, they get your email and someone says, \u2018that jerk is coming to use our strip.\u00a0 Let\u2019s put the roller out there so he can\u2019t land!\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

After my conversation with Bert, I was feeling just a bit low.\u00a0 Was it possible that the roller was a symbol of someone\u2019s low regard for me and that I wasn\u2019t as tight with those nice folks as I thought I was?\u00a0 I have to admit that I was a bit concerned.<\/p>\n

Two days later I got an email from the son: \u201c<\/i>Sorry I don’t check my e mail very often\u2026.\u00a0 The roller was broken down on the runway so that might be the next maneuver you will have to\u00a0incorporate in your tailwheel class… \u201clanding around a roller\u201d.\u00a0Have fun flying!\u00a0\u201c<\/i><\/p>\n

I breathed a sigh of relief.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t the pariah I feared I\u2019d become.\u00a0 And I now had a new maneuver in my bag o\u2019 tricks:\u00a0 \u201cLanding Around a Roller\u201d!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I told my student that I had a special treat for her and we launched for the private strip.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}