|
I LEARNED ABOUT LOANING MY AIRPLANE FROM..
by Anton Ostermeier
For those of us who have loaned our precious aircraft to others
and never thought twice about it, do I have a story for you.
For years I had let others share my joy of flying by loaning my
aircraft to them, but unfortunately NEVER again! About four
years ago I remember leaving the airport and looking back at
my North American Rockwell T-28 Trojan, it's dark blue paint
glistening in the reflection of the setting sun. It was beautiful.
The airplane was a perfect example ofa flawlessly restored vintage
aircraft. Unfortunately that would be the last time I would
fly the airplane or for that matter see it in perfect condition
agan.
It all started back in January of 1994 when the owner of the
FBO where my T-28 was parked called me with an unusual
request. He wanted to borrow my T-28, but for someone else to
fly (mistake #1). As it turned out, it was for a famous, old-time
airshow pilot that wanted to fly my T-28. I was actually pleased
to think that a famous airshow pilot was going to fly my T-28
(mistake #2). I mean, who better to loan your airplane to than a
professional, experienced airshow pilot (mistake #3). What I
didn't realize was that he wanted to use my airplane in order to
demonstrate to the FAA that his flying skills were still intact.
What I also didn't realize was that the owner of the FBO was
not going to go flying with him, but instead have another pilot
fly with him, since the airshow pilot technically no longer had
a license. What started out to be a simple phone request from a
friend, somehow snow-balled into a legal fiasco.
As I mentioned earlier the aircraft was in perfect condition.
It had been completely restored two years earlier and had just
received a new engine and prop with less than 60 hours. The T28
was in the best condition it had been since leaving the factory
in 1962. Without going into too much detail, I will tell you
what happened the day of the mishap. As usual, I was hard at
work at my business, just like I always do, six days a week,
fifty- two weeks a year. I didn't really even know they were
using the airplane that day. It turned out that the pilot they found
to fly with the airshow pilot was just recently checked out himself
in the T-28 and had only 6 hours in type. This didn't really
affect the outcome of the mishap, but it does show the lack of
care and concern that was given to me and my airplane by the
owner of the FBO.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened
next. 'I didn't borrow your airplane, he did". "I wasn't flying
your airplane, he was, I don't even have a license". " There was
something wrong with you engine". "There was something
wrong with your propeller". No one was going to step up to the
plate and take responsibility. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything
in writing (mistake #4)! That was my biggest mistake.
Everyone is your buddy until something goes wrong and then
you're on your own. I tried everything to come to some sort of
settlement with the parties concerned, but I couldn't even get
them to meet me halfway. The only course of action left was to
go to court. What I learned about the Civil Court legal system
from this event is another whole article in itself. It took over 4
years to actually be heard in court, all the while the once shiny
blue T-28 sits on the ramp at the airport collecting corrosion.
I
The civil trial was tough. You have to realize that I respected
and admired the airshow pilot who borrowed my airplane, he
was a great pilot, however I stood to lose a substantial amount
of money if! didn't defend myself. We had a good jury of intelligent
men and women, however none of the jurors had ever
flown in a civilian airplane and knew very little about flying.
They knew nothing technical about aviation. All they would
know to make their decision would be what the attorneys would
teach them. Just typing that makes me cringe. No offense to
attorneys, that's what they get paid to do. To make a long story
short, the jury, in the absence of anything in writing, awarded
me $0, zero, nothing.
I have tried very hard to not use names or point fingers in
this article. The purpose of the article is to hopefully prevent
someone else into falling into the same trap and making the
same mistakes that I did. It was a hard $250,000 dollar lesson
that I learned. Hopefully you too can learn from my mistakes.
Remember, the most important thing is to GET IT IN WRITING,
because a verbal agreement or an expectation of fairness
just won't cut it.
The rest of the story is based on what was told to me by the
pilots and what I could figure out from the video tape they took
during the flight. The flight started out normally with a departure
over the coast out to the practice area. They started a series
of airshow acrobatics consisting of 16 point rolls, 8 point rolls
and 4 point slow rolls. Keep in mind that there is a 10 second
inverted flight limitation on the T-28 because of oil starvation.
On the video tape you can time the rolls that exceeded the aircraft's
limitations. The rolls were followed by a series of Cuban
8's. In the video you can distinctively hear the engine racing in
the dive portion of the maneuvers. Well you guessed it, the prop
was oil starved, resulting in a massive prop overspeed which in
turn caused an overspeed of the engine. When a radial engine
overspeeds to that degree the pistons stretch out and start hitting
the valves resulting in a seriously damaged engine. I do give
credit to the inexperienced T-28 pilot because he recognized
and notified the airshow pilot about the overspeed that he obviously
didn't hear. At that point they stopped their maneuvers
and nursed the airplane back to the airport. One good thing
about the R1820 engine is that it will give you its all before it
dies. During the descent and subsequent slowing of the aircraft,
the engine seized. It's hard to comprehend the loads created
when an 1450 hp engine suddenly stops running. The seizing of
the engine was so violent that it tweaked the entire cowl and
wing box section of the airframe. The airplane was totaled!
I guess what really disturbed me was what happened after
they got on the ground. After repeatedly watching the video, it
was very clear to me that NO ONE was even the slightest bit
concerned that they had just destroyed my airplane. They were
laughing and joking about what had just happened and were so
glad that it was on video so they could show the FAA what a
great pilot he was for bringing her back in one piece. Well it was
in one piece, none of which would ever fly again.
Now, where's the video???
_________________
Don't touch my junk!!
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
Where's Eric Downing when you need him 