Big John and Todd's True Confessions

TRUE CONFESSIONS
Cessna 310

Aircraft mishaps are complicated affairs, and seldom are the causes
as simple as they might appear. Here, two experienced pilots analyze the events that led to their gear-up landing in the hope that others will learn from their misfortune and avoid making the same mistakes.

From the left seat

By Todd H. Huvard

I have had the good fortune of quality instruction through 14 years of flying as I've added ratings and gained experience. My multiengine training with Paul Proctor of Air New Bern was rigid and thorough.

Flying with Paul in an old Apache was worse than any checkride. Over and over, he would retard the throttle of an engine just after takeoff -- drilling it into me that in a light twin, the only place to go in such a situation was back down to the runway.

I remember as if it was yesterday the time he made me do a single-engine go-around at New Bern, struggling to keep the airplane above the ragged pines of eastern North Carolina, almost begging for the return of the other fan as Paul smiled knowingly.

"Leave your gear down," he said, "until you can no longer land safely ahead on the runway." That's how he trained me. And that's what John McLain reinforced later, when I flew with him after I earned my multi rating.

I never even flew with the guy who had the greatest impact on my thinking about losing engines on takeoff in light twins. He was a wizened old pro named Ralph Tidrick, who had flown tens of thousand of hours and was one of the crustiest flight instructors I ever met. He was, back when, the resident sage at Triple W Airport, and in hours of conversation on the topic of engine failure he would continually restate his belief that the way to deal with such things was to jerk the throttles back and land straight ahead.

His advocacy of this method was proven to all of the field's hangar rats one day when a Cessna 340 lost an engine at about 50 feet, and the pilot -- one of Ralph's students, and a friend to all of us -- reacted by slamming the throttles back to the stops.

In response, the 340 -- with the landing gear tucked neatly in the wells -- slid ungracefully across the runway overrun. The plane was totaled. But the pilot and his three passengers emerged unscathed.

"Pull those damn throttles back and land," old Ralph said.

So for me, the die was cast. I was trained to leave the gear down and I had been drilled to chop the throttles and put it on the ground in a lost-engine situation.

Naturally, though, I never thought I'd lose an engine.

Continue

From the right seat

By John Shearer

This story begins with a call to Van Nuys, Calif., and the broker handling the sale of a 1959 Cessna 310, N1864H. We talked about the equipment and overall shape of the bird, and he jokingly declined when I asked him to send some photos -- for fear that I would buy the aircraft. His fears were well-founded, though, because after I received the pictures I headed across the country to buy the bird.

Those of us older than 35 can remember the Sky King television show, which featured a beautiful straight-tail, straight-tank Cessna 310. It replaced the Cessna T-50 Bobcat, or UC-78 Bamboo Bomber, in later editions of the show. Since this occurred during my formative years, the memory of this incredible design -- which looked like a fighter plane, with its tip tanks and appealing lines -- was indelibly etched on this young aviator's mind. This wonderfully modern machine inspired a lot of model building and just plain dreaming of the day that I would indeed climb aboard and zoom away, to chase villains or perform acts of heroism and kindness.

Cessna's 310 was the capstone of the company's line in the mid-50s. When I had the opportunity to visit the Cessna plant in Wichita, I saw that all the classics -- such as the 170 and 180 -- shared a common lineage with the 310, particularly in the shape of the vertical stabilizer and rudder.

And the 1959 Cessna 310C was the last of the straight tail/tank versions. The next year brought the D model with the swept tail and straight tanks; in 1962, it gave way to the canted tank versions of the G model and its successors.

So the '59 310C was the most advanced of the Sky King models. Its 260-hp, fuel-injected Continentals had an augmentor/muffler system which toned down the overwing exhaust racket of the earlier carbureted models of 1955-58. The option list included an oxygen system, propeller alcohol, deice boots and the Lear L-2 autopilot.

N1864H had come from the factory with all those options. It was first updated with a stack of Collins Microline avionics by a United Air Lines captain who wisely selected the standard analog frequency readouts over the high-maintenance LED versions.