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Larry Mayer and Alan Kasemodel Make the News in Billings!

sj

Staff member
Northwest Arkansas
16-planedown.jpg


http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/03/26/news/state/16-planedown.txt
 
rescue

Wonderful job Alan, Larry and Kent. Usually these stories don't turn out well.

My son will be interested in reading this, he'll be a freshman next fall at Rocky, enrolled in their aviation science 141 program.

Dan
 
Hey Alan,
I have seen you land short!!!! It would have been a better story if the supercub landed and got him!!! Only teasing nice job
John
 
The pilot was wearing "shorts and tennis shoes" and "wading through waist deep snow" according the the news account.

I can tell you one thing they're not teaching their aeronautical students... survival. What was this young pilot thinking, flying over snow country in shorts and tennis shoes. :crazyeyes:

What about survival gear, did he have any to speak of? I think they need to do some serious review of their pilot training program.

Crash
 
Great job guys I agree with crash there should be at least minimal survival gear in every plane 24/7 you can go down close in and still not be found for days, there was a guy doing touch and goes with a cub around here last year at a fairly large local airport and just disappeared still haven't found him.

Dennis
 
Crash said:
What about survival gear, did he have any to speak of? I think they need to do some serious review of their pilot training program.

Crash

He had a survival pack. The bright orange tarp is how they found him. I looked at google earth and he walked down a 1400' vertical drop in a distance of about a mile. Once he got out of the tree line they picked him up with a helicopter and flew him down to the road where the ambulance was.

Never did see the aircraft. On a night x-country at 7500' and hit a 7600' hill. Was going to go look for it after he was rescued but the mountain was obscured and starting to snow pretty good.
 
my hats off to you guys we need more people like you my dad neighbor found the kim family John rasher marc
 
marc said:
my hats off to you guys we need more people like you my dad neighbor found the kim family John rasher marc

Marc,

Capitalization and punctuation helps us older folks on the site.

John Scott
 
kase said:
Never did see the aircraft. On a night x-country at 7500' and hit a 7600' hill. Was going to go look for it after he was rescued but the mountain was obscured and starting to snow pretty good.

Wow, so he must have hit the mountain at 120 knots or so if he was at cruise speed in an Archer. It must have been a fairly rounded peak.

Here's a picture I took in January of one of their Archers. They have a excellent fleet and I'm very impressed with the school.

rmc_open_house_010.jpg
 
kase said:
Crash said:
What about survival gear, did he have any to speak of? I think they need to do some serious review of their pilot training program.

Crash

He had a survival pack. The bright orange tarp is how they found him. I looked at google earth and he walked down a 1400' vertical drop in a distance of about a mile. Once he got out of the tree line they picked him up with a helicopter and flew him down to the road where the ambulance was.

Never did see the aircraft. On a night x-country at 7500' and hit a 7600' hill. Was going to go look for it after he was rescued but the mountain was obscured and starting to snow pretty good.

Billings Gazette Quotes

"Scheffer was wearing shorts and his legs are swollen from walking through the snow and have some cuts and scratches from the brush, the doctor said".

"Scheffer was showing signs of hypothermia, including uncontrolled shivering, but was “mobile and cognitive,”

"Bush said Scheffer’s main complaint when he arrived at the hospital around 2 p.m. was pain in his hips - probably from descending about 4,500 feet down the mountain in waist-deep snow. Scheffer has some breakdown in muscle tissue, most of it probably from a bruised kidney, but it also could be a bit of frostbite."

"Scheffer was in an open area with a bright orange emergency blanket."

[End Quote]

Well call me critical but I'm still not too impressed with his "survival pack" (or dress) after only one day in the woods. The next day he would have been dead and frozen!

Have you ever slept in one of those survival blankets? I'll take my chances in a Wiggys Arctic bag all the same. Survival gear is no joking matter when you're down in the woods in the middle of winter.

Take care.

Crash
 
Not to Monday morning quarterback, but I agree with Crash. One of the very first lessons I learned from my mentors when I started to fly in the early 70's in AK was: Always dress to fly like you are going to spend the day or next few days outside. That is wisdom that has saved my butt more than once. Even if you make a pre-cautionary landing out there due to weather or whatever, you need to have with you what you need to get by. I have always lived by that sage advice, and the gear you wear or have with you varies depending on the season.

I took this wise advice to heart, along with many others that I received from my mentors who were long time Alaska bush pilots. I remember going for flight lessons in the winter of 74' at AeroTech in a C-150 dressed in arctic gear including Bunny Boots, wool bibs, long underwear and an expedition parka. The Flight Instructor was dressed in wing-tips, tie, and slacks. He (Ron Haney who became the founder of the UAA Aviation program) said "you can't fly in all of that stuff", and I said, I am going to have to, as this is the logical approach and based on the wisdom of pilots I respect, and have lived through the years of flying in Alaska. I asked him: If we go down west of Pt McKenzie, who is going to have the best sense of survival, you or me?. So I learned to fly in Bunny Boots, and we put the parka in the back of the 150.

I do not understand the current younger generation. During the winter I see kids in my neighborhood standing waiting for a school bus at 0F or below, in shorts with no coat shivering their a$$ off. I shake my head and think, what kinda intelligence have we spawned?

Off the soapbox.
 
good job guys :cheers

But
Billings Gazette said:
Scheffer, a freshman, is an experienced pilot, said Dan Hargrove, director of the Rocky aviation program, ------- He has 150 hours of flight time.
:crazyeyes:
 
Scooter7779h said:
Not to Monday morning quarterback, but I agree with Crash. One of the very first lessons I learned from my mentors when I started to fly in the early 70's in AK was: Always dress to fly like you are going to spend the day or next few days outside. That is wisdom that has saved my butt more than once. Even if you make a pre-cautionary landing out there due to weather or whatever, you need to have with you what you need to get by. I have always lived by that sage advice, and the gear you wear or have with you varies depending on the season.

I took this wise advice to heart, along with many others that I received from my mentors who were long time Alaska bush pilots. I remember going for flight lessons in the winter of 74' at AeroTech in a C-150 dressed in arctic gear including Bunny Boots, wool bibs, long underwear and an expedition parka. The Flight Instructor was dressed in wing-tips, tie, and slacks. He (Ron Haney who became the founder of the UAA Aviation program) said "you can't fly in all of that stuff", and I said, I am going to have to, as this is the logical approach and based on the wisdom of pilots I respect, and have lived through the years of flying in Alaska. I asked him: If we go down west of Pt McKenzie, who is going to have the best sense of survival, you or me?. So I learned to fly in Bunny Boots, and we put the parka in the back of the 150.

I do not understand the current younger generation. During the winter I see kids in my neighborhood standing waiting for a school bus at 0F or below, in shorts with no coat shivering their a$$ off. I shake my head and think, what kinda intelligence have we spawned?

Off the soapbox.

Scooter- Look up natural selection. May be our only hope.
 
I'm impressed with you guys. It must be really great to not make mistakes. I made a pretty serious mistake as a 100 hour pilot. I'm glad to have lived through it and to this day benefit from the lessons it taught me. I wish I had had your foresight to keep me from screwing up, but I was not so lucky.

My days of being young and invincible occurred long before I started flying. I probably would have been a statistic of natural selection if I had started sooner. With age comes some wisdom, but we often forget that we were once much the same as this young man - in our own ways.

sj
 
Steve: I don't think Scooter nor I claimed to be perfect, sorry you took it that way.

My point is about the lack of common sense for ANYONE to jump in a plane and head cross country over wilderness mountains in March with four foot of snow on the ground and only have on shorts and tennis shoes. Kind of a "Darwin Award" thing in my mind.

I have to admit though that my teenage boys are no different. They run around here (Alaska) all winter in T shirts. I have to constantly remind them to take along a coat when we jump in the truck to go someplace. Even when it's -20 below F and colder.

I hope this Kid and flight school or even some of the instructors reading these posts will take their students aside and talk about "what if the plane goes down".

It's a good thing he survived, we can all learn from his mistakes.

Also hats off to Larry and Alan for their contribution in finding him.

Take care.

Crash

P.S. FYI.... IAF hires professional survival instructors to train their pilots on winter survival. At the bottom of this web page is a list of what we are expected to carry and books to read.

http://www.iditarodairforce.com/safety survival.htm
 
I thought all you guys from Alaska were perfect. At least that is what I heard when I was up there. :lol:

I was reminded when flying in Montana recently that even down here you do not have to go very far to be in the middle of nowhere. Even here in the relatively flat Midwest a little preparation would make a bad situation a lot more comfortable. It's not a formal part of the flight training curriculum, but it is an important one and I'd like to see more emphasis on it as well.

We spend a lot of time teaching how to safely emergency land, but then don't talk much about what happens afterward.

Nobody takes a coat anywhere here either. I see people (and not kids) in the grocery store parking lot when it is 15 degrees without coats. Of course, they are too cold to put their cart in the cart corral and just shove it into my car... but that is a topic for rant and rave..

sj
 
After flying with Dan Domke out of Fairbanks this past winter I put a lot more thought into what was in my plane for even short trips. There is a town every 30 miles here but that is still a long way especially when you are hurt. A lot of those thoughts went through my head several years ago when I spent part of the night stuck on a sand bar. :oops:

Congratulations Allan and Larry. Great picture too.
 
steve said:
I'm impressed with you guys. It must be really great to not make mistakes. I made a pretty serious mistake as a 100 hour pilot. I'm glad to have lived through it and to this day benefit from the lessons it taught me. I wish I had had your foresight to keep me from screwing up, but I was not so lucky.

My days of being young and invincible occurred long before I started flying. I probably would have been a statistic of natural selection if I had started sooner. With age comes some wisdom, but we often forget that we were once much the same as this young man - in our own ways.

sj

I doubt anyone was blaming him as much as they were blaming the school. They think a pilot is "experienced" at 150 hrs (most of it probably in the pattern) cause he has a couple pieces of paper. With the way the weather has been around here lately, it is easy to make the mistake he made. 50 - 60 degrees around Billings lately.

When I was working in Wyo 25 yrs ago, the survival kit in the airplanes consisted of a small tube about the size of a tennis ball container filled with "essential" stuff. Looking back, they were pretty fortunate they didn't have to use it.

Even I make that mistake. I can't count the number of times I've jumped in an airplane to test it after annual etc and wound up 5 or ten miles away with nothing but a light jacket on and nothing in the aircraft. It is even a wake up call to the rest of us that fly multiple airplanes to make up a kit that you can throw in any aircraft on the spur of the moment, even if you aren't going anywhere.

The banter on here about his mistake just helps us make sure we don't make the same mistake.

Hell, even guys that have been around here for 80 years still drive out in the middle of nowhere in nothing but cowboy boots and a light jacket and get stuck in the middle of the winter. ( by the way, I've got another certificate for Steaks at the Jersey Lilly if anyone wants to come help me use it) 8)
 
by the way, I've got another certificate for Steaks at the Jersey Lilly if anyone wants to come help me use it)

Brian, I am sure Dave could convince a couple of folks to show up. :D
 
First off, I should have congratulated Allen and Larry for their great participation. It was good that things turned out well for this pilot.

I never claimed to be perfect, I only brought up a really good lesson out of one of the circumstances in this whole thing. The fact of the matter is that none of us or perfect, or sometimes stuff does just happen. Being prepared to be properly clothed to spend a night or a few days out is the wise advice I have lived by, and wanted to pass on to the group as a related topic to this whole event.

Another key rule is "Always make round trips". But sometimes that doesn't happen, you don't make it to your destination as planned. Be prepared. Being in shorts with no coat might work if you are in a mall, not flying over mountainous terrain in the winter.
 
SteveE said:
by the way, I've got another certificate for Steaks at the Jersey Lilly if anyone wants to come help me use it)

Brian, I am sure Dave could convince a couple of folks to show up. :D

Well in that case never mind, I'll go by myself and wait for Daves "friends" :oops:
 
Let's face it we are human. We all make mistakes. That's how we are designed to learn. I agree totally to dress for conditions in winter flying it is the key for survival. But where in the planning for the x-country was the flight path laid out on a map. And was there a determination of a minimum safe altitude to navigate the terrain? Or did he let himself descend below his safe altitude? In my opinion, what saved him initially at the point of impact was the snow. It must have absorbed much of the impact. He would of in time succumbed to the weather conditions. We can all learn from this. The school is included. The airplane can be replaced. But a human being can not.
 
first off: GREAT JOB and glad the story came out to a warm blooded ending.

My only problem is after reading this (several times) why does the survival kit check list scene from Dr. Strangelove keep coming to mind here.

Sorry,

OC

Ps. Oh and Yes, I do fly prepared, even carry a PLB, water and always, OK Mostly, dress weather appropriate.
 
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