This is a true sory, only the names have been changed to protect egos. Grammar wasn't my strong area in school so gimme a break!

This adventure started out simple enough, kind of routine. As the only Certified Flight Instructor on the field, I guess I'm considered the local expert when someone needs a Ginny Pig. Someone to work cheap and take a lot of chances. I'm guilty of some pretty dumb moves over the past 30 years of flying. This adventure would soon top all of my previous adventures, even learning to fly a Benson Gyrocopter my brother-in-law and I put together from the Benson book with a broken screw driver and hacksaw. Mr. Benson was kind enough to include "how to fly a gyro" in the book. Even the first flight of a Kitfox and flight attempts with a sick 532 Rotax motor runing on one cylinder but those are other stories

A local old timer, lets call him John R. John is a private who started flying back sometime in the 1800s or so they say. John wondered over to where I was parked on my butt. I was under a great Oak creating a strong case for malpractice on a half worn out Scott tailwheel I had just pulled from my old flybaby. "HEY"! Johnboy, a voice boomed, wanna go on a short trip? I looked up to see John R. standing over me sporting a big grin like the Alley Cat that swallowed the Canary. Whatdaya mean a short trip! I'm dirty, hungry and very busy destroying this this thing so no flying for me today. Oh! He said in a loud tone for everyone's ears, "that is a mess, by the way what is it supposed to be anyway"? Ha-Ha a good one I replied! No he said, I don't mean a trip today. I patently waited for the punch line. I could tell something was up. This guy in his late 60s usually had the energy of cold dog do-do and today he was hopping around like a 20 year old. "Hey, I bought an old 125 hp Swift, fresh out of annual, do ya wanna go fly her home for me"? What, "heck" I said, I thought you were born in a swift. Why don't you fly her home? "Oh", he said "I ain't been in one for a while". I remarked, "Well neither have I". He chuckled, "guess the two of us together might make one good pilot". He said, "oh,by the way the Swift is in Northeastern PA. about 600 miles away". I just looked at him with a, are you crazy look and thinking, "you're nuts" but I grinned, then said sure when are we going.

Now a little about the beast! The Globe Swift is a pretty little low wing, all metal 1940s technology, conventional gear (tailwheel), 2 seats sports car kinda plane with a canopy and wide retractable main gear. A very sturdy design with a strong acrobatic airframe and the original was certified with a 85 hp Continental. Most were up graded to the 145 hp 6 cylinder Continentals which are considered in some circles to be underpowered. These little planes climb well and typically cruise around 125-130 with the 145 hp motor this plane had a slightly sick (as we would find out later) 125 hp Continental. The funky prop was the only reason the motor turned up to 2500 rpms but more on that later.

The big day finally arrived, we all met at the nearby asphalt airport at 6:00 am on what was looking like a beautiful Saturday in June. A day with a nice warm gentle breeze, plenty of Sunshine on tap and adventure in the air. After two cups of good coffee and the Sun just beginning to wake up in the Eastern Sky, our taxi driver called, "all board"! The taxi service for this 5 hour trip was a well worn Cessna 172 taken from the trainer flight line. This day was promising to be a great one. Four chattering sky warriors, Crystal clear blue sky, light winds and a Thermos full of piping hot coffee. The four of us loaded up, Al our capt'n, also my old flight instructor, and in the co-pilot's seat sat a local wind-bag old airport bum along for the ride, the new Swift owner John and me hung out in the back seat. Needless to say we were just a touch heavy. The old Cessna strained and groaned but liftoff and climb-out were fairly uneventful. I'm sure at least one guy full of hot air helped the burdened Cessna lift this load. After a long climb to 6,500 feet we all settled down for the ride. Capt'n Al leveled off, trimmed the old Cessna and lit up his old crooked pipe. Big clouds of sweet smelling Borgum Rift drifted back to the back seat. John and I were sipping on a hot cups of coffee in the back seat going over Swift numbers. Heck I thought, it don't get any better than this. The view was one of those postcard perfect flying days we all hear about but rarely see east of the Mississippi. Long rivets of wispy ground fog outlined the Kentucky and Ohio River and the lay in the lower valleys as far as the eye could see. The Appalachian Mountain range off to our right side standing majestic and proud acted as a good navigation aid. After Criss crossing the many knife edged crests of the mountain range we arrived at our destination.

The airport where the plane was located is up on an elevated plateau in between two of those knife edged mountain chains. These are short mountains as mountains go but a strong wind was blowing at about 45 degree angle to the very sharp mountain crests. The approach and landing was dicey, even ole wind-bag shut up after a few pretty heavy bumps and a few fairly sharp wing wags. That should have been my first big clue. We all crawled out of the spam-can with the usual groans, gripes and razzes to capt'n Al about the less than perfect touchdown. My second clue should have smacked me dead in the face, man the wind was sure kicking up. I looked at John the new owner, "hey John, what did flight service say about wind?" "Whadaya mean, what did flight service say"! Let me guess, you didn't call, Humm, NO he replied, I didn't call. Well John, it's your airplane, your trip I just came along for the scenery. I made a mental note to call from the shack before we left but that thought zinged off into the Stratosphere. Somewhere between inspections and should we could we discussions.

Beauty is very much "in the eye of the beholder". We found the correct hanger and slid the doors open for a view. There in all of her glory set a Red and White Globe Swift in stock form. "Ouch"! John said with a look of disappointment on his face. The pictures sure looked better. Well dummy, camera's always take pictures that make a 20 foot paint job look good. Humm, John are you sure an annual has been done? John replied "Well I paid for an annual". About that time an older fellow, let�s call him "Joe Bob" came slandering up and announced himself as the owner and private pilot with lots-a-swift time. "Boz what da ya think of her". John (the new owner) grunted something under his breath about damn somebody then started babbling about someone�s mother not being pure. Did you do the annual I asked? Yup, sure did. Did you fly her? Nope, sure didn't, ain't got the nerve. Humm that's a very interesting answer for a guy who just flew 5.5 hours to ferry her home. Did you do a gear retract? Yup sure did. Did it work? Yup sure did. A man with many answers I remarked to no one in particular.

After checking her over, pulling a few twigs from between the cylinders from an old bird's nest I buttoned up the cowl. On the front was a funky looking, supposedly automatic, constant speed wooden prop with heavy brass leading edge protectors riveted on. The theory of this prop, it increases pitch as air pressure increases in forward flight in effect keeping a constant RPM at all times. I remarked to Joe Bob, "Never flown behind a prop like that". John piped up, said "a prop is a prop". Joe Bob said, "that's a aeromatic prop or something like that, the smoothest prop ya'll fly behind". I said, but is it supposed to be water stained on one end? Joe Bob said that was for balance. "Yeah right" three people said at the same time in chorus. I didn't have a warm fuzzy feeling about its airworthiness. John announced the annual was logged. So we pushed her out in the Sunshine. We were burning up a lot of day light and I had no intention of flying the plane after dark. I saddled up on the Captains side and fired the old Continental 125. The motor sounded good, good oil pressure and mags dropped a lot but the motor was smooth. John crawled in and slid his side of the canopy up. John, it might be smart to let me fly her around the patch once solo, I said. it's a weight thing ya know. Naw, John said, "if she gets off the ground, lets head southwest".

The 172 departed first and waggled up to a ridge clearing altitude. Now our turn, power smoothly came up to 2500 RPMs, tracking straight so I relaxed a little back pressure and we were off and flying. The Swift felt good and the take off was fairly uneventful until I reached about 50 feet altitude. I hit the gear switch to suck up the gear. The usual whine then nothing, right main just about retracted but the left main stopped retracting half way up. These old planes have a visual indicator wire sticking up in front of the wing leading edge, akin to a radio antenna attached to the gear legs that show the wheel positions on both sides. I extended the gear back down for another retract attempt. The results were the same but with a new twist. The gear motor breaker popped! Then all of a sudden, out of no where we just started shaking and sinking, 2500 rpms, 80 indicated, descending at 400 fpm and with a stall buffet just thrown in to make everything more interesting. I couldn't drop the nose to break the stall without sinking into the trees. Lucky for me and John the runway was on a plateau almost 600 ft above the valley floor. We followed the hillside contour down in tree top effect down into a wooded bowl that resembled a funnel. Before I knew it we were below the elevation of the surrounding town and any suitable parking lots to crash on. Less than 20 feet above the lowest trees at the bottom, the old Swift decided she wanted to fly after all. She stopped shaking and started a smooth climb out at 80 indicated. We climbed in a big lazy circle staying close to 911 callers just in case. We finally climbed to pattern altitude for safety and I actually started breathing again. I intended to land and have a few choice words with Joe Bob. I looked at John, he looked at me, we both said "WHEW"! I said "John lets land", that was a close call. By this time our taxi was just a speck on the horizon heading southwest and didn't answer our hand held radio calls. John said "lets follow him, she's flying fine now".

What a mistake not landing, I thought to myself. But our taxi service the 172 was disappearing fast so I gave in and pointed the nose towards the Southwest. I sucked up the gear again and the same thing. One side half way up, the other side 3/4 up. Airspeed 95, full power 2500 rpms. The air smoothed out and the old swift settled down. Just as I started to relax a little, "PING"! The rpms dropped to 2100 rpms instantly. Airspeed dropped to 70 and that damn stall buffet started again. Dropping the nose 10 degrees helped keep the stall buffet at bay. Looking out and down, "trees, nothing but trees" as far as the eye could see! Humm, "well" I said looking at John, "strike 2"! Lucky for us our taxi service had Northstar Loran with database for navigation and noticed we weren't right behind so they started looking for us. Capt'n Al went into a holding pattern 20 miles from where we took off. We could see him clearly 6 miles or so ahead. I could just barely hear his reply to my distress call. "According to the Loran, I have a runway just off my right side he said". We headed in that general direction still loosing altitude slowly. One of those razor sharp ridge lines was between us and the runway and rising slightly above the horizon. I started looking for a decent place to put her down on this side of the ridge line but only thick trees everywhere. There was a runway on the other side of the ridge line, a runway I hadn't seen yet. At the last spark of hope I felt turbulence and we began a slight climb. Humm I looked at John and he had a surprised look that I'm sure mirrored my look. John I said, we are on the leeward side of these mountain and we should be in a sink, not a climb! My next glance at the altimeter surprised me; we had slowly gained almost 400 feet. We cleared the ridge line with 200 feet to spare and wa-hoo there in the distance was a beautiful 2500 foot asphalt runway nestled in a valley about two miles away, 3000 feet below our altitude in the middle of nowhere surrounded by forest. Our luck was holding, the runway alignment was near perfect and we had wind on the nose. I told John, I can't believe our luck so far. He shrugged a little and smiled for the first time in a long while. I told John, "You land her, I've about had it". "Hell no"! He said in a shaky voice, she's in tune with you now. I said well if the gear don't lock down we are gonna slide on her belly. There ain't no going around! I started to worry a little that we wasn't gonna make it after all. About that time the wind picked up, blowing up the mountain side carried us along for about a half mile holding altitude. We had enough altitude, it looked like we might make it after all. I lined her up about 20 feet above the ground then I dropped the flaps and gear, wa-la an instant green light. Well things were finally starting to look up after all. I held her off as long as possible and made the best 3 point landing I had made all year. As if taking her last breath the motor almost died during the roll out and turn-around. A mag check on the ramp identified one really dead mag and a massive rpm drop on the good one.

After a half hour ramp inspection and discussion John and I climbed in the 172 for the ride home. John mentioned taking a usable set of Slick mags back up to PA, and asked if I'd fly her home. Grinning, I told John, "get rid if that funky prop, replace the magnetos and I'll fly her again, but not from up here"! The disappointment of failure was thick in the air. No one had a lot to say on the way home. I paged through the Swift's logs and found the plane has been sitting for close to 20 years, YIKES! That didn't seem to make much of an impression one way or the other with John so I dropped it.

John found someone to take the wings off the following week and trailer the plane home for a good going over. No, this story isn't over yet. We had two strikes, three strikes, you'r out! Or so they say. This ballgame went to strike four.

Three weeks after this ordeal, with the plane back together, workable slick magnetos installed and a mag check she was announced fit to fly again so Dave another local swift owner and friend flew the plane for John while I was at work. Dave flew .3 tenth of an hour and "BAMM-BANG", right on cue the prop lost half a tip. Any pilot can relate to loosing a prop tip. The dynamic forces will rip the motor clean off the airframe in two blinks of the eye, if severe enough. So I guess this was almost strike three! Lucky Dave is an excellent pilot and he was at altitude, close to the airport when the prop let loose. She shook so bad above 1500 rpms Dave couldn't read the gages or hold onto the gear switch until he pulled power back near idle. He nursed her around a short pattern to a hot 90 MPH wheel landing, using up 2400.25 feet of the 2400 foot runway but no other damage besides the prop missing some parts. Now the odd thing, the stained tip was still attached. The good looking tip was rotten and let loose, loosing many ounces on one end, so go figure. If the mag hadn't gave up the ghost on John and I, the same thing would have happened to us in a very short time over very unforgiving terrain. The death wish this plane had took John to strike out, two months later during a takeoff attempt. He survived that one too but "then that's another story".

I hope this story prevents others from repeating my near tragic adventure. I have new found respect for what old timers have said about the Appalachian Mountains. Mountains that sneak up on you. Mountains littered with steel, fabric and Aluminum dating back to the late 1920s. Just because these mountains don't reach for the sky as the 17,000 foot monsters out West do don't mean they want bite you in the butt. I also learned new found respect for the power of mountain down drafts even from small mountains and flying old planes that hadn't been off the ground in 20 years.

This page is still a work in progress!