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ACRO E-mail Archive Thread: [IAC] Near Death Experience

Thread: [IAC] Near Death Experience

Message: [IAC] Near Death Experience

Follow-Up To: ACRO Email list (for List Members only)

From: Hubie Tolson <tolson at coastalnet.com>

Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 19:21:05 UTC

Message:

  Since we're discussing safety issues, I thought I share with the list, a
situation which still makes me tremble with fright. Hopefully those who
read this will not make the same mistakes. Please use care about sharing
this with the feds, I'm certainly not proud of it.
--------------------------------

This happened  two Saturdays ago, in front of my wife and children, and
has changed me forever.

I went flying for the first time in a while and decided in advance that
it would not be an overly aggressive flight since it had been such a
long time. I was flying a machine that I had never flown before.

Everything was going fine until the airplane starts bouncing out of
control. The stick was jerked from my hand, the instruments a blur of
vibration. The world began to spin so fast that I couldn't determine the
recovery technique - I tried everything that came to mind and nothing
made the slightest difference in what the plane was doing.

I tried with all my might to get it to quit whatever it was doing, but I
was paralyzed with fear. I thought to myself that this was surely the
end.

Just when things could not possibly get worse, smoke filled the cockpit
and the oil pressure guage freezes at zero. All temps are in the red,
but the thing keeps going round and round.

I was thinking about jumping, but people are everywhere - surely someone
will be injured or killed if I do. Then I remember -  no chute! No
damned chute! Jumping is out of the question.

The nose oscillated up and down, and the rate of rotation increased. It
was hopeless, and I let go of the controls and stared death in the face.
I could see the faces of those around me as the end came.




Just as I had given up hope and lost consciousness the Wal Mart  manager
came and unplugged it and saved my life.

Happy Holidays!

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