I remember doing a trip in March 1977 from Essendon with Bill Brown of Brain and Brown fame. It was an IPEC freighter DC3 to Devonport and Launceston and back to Essendon in VH-EWE. At the time I was in Air Nauru but on days off in Melboune I would do some GA flying. Bill was short of a copilot for that trip so I offered to help him out.
At Essendon, Bill told me to wait for him in the cockpit while he did a walk around. Then with all doors closed Bill started the starboard engine. When that was running he went to start the port engine. As that engine fired, there was a loud metallic bang from that side. Bill looked at me in astonishment and said WTF was that? I said I didn't know but it sounded serious so I cut both mixture controls while Bill was still faffing around wondering what to do.
It turned out the safety belt buckle attached to the fold down dickey seat next to the front cargo door immediately at the back of the captains seat, had somehow been missed by Bill on his walk around. The belt and buckle was dangling outside the aircraft and had been caught by the port prop during start up. There was a short delay while Bill used a file to smooth out the chipped prop tip then off we went. I thought there would be some vibration from the chipped prop tip but it ran smoothly. The weather was crook at Devonport and Bill missed out twice on low level circuits trying to land. - We got in on the third low level circuit.
Eventually we got back to Essendon where the weather was fine apart from a gusty NW wind and a 15 knot crosswind. Bill gave me the landing from the RH seat. . Everything went OK including the crosswind touch-down on Runway 35. As expected, the DC3 tried to weathercock into wind after touchdown. I went to apply corrective rudder only to find the rudder pedals appeared to have jammed solid in the central position. I jabbed the right hand brake to stop the weathercockping and this caused the landing gear horn to sound as the microswitch momentarily actuated.
I kept jabbing the right hand brake to prevent the aircraft from going off the runway and glanced down at the rudder pedals to see what was jamming them central. That was when I saw that the autopilot on/off handle situated in the DC3 near the copilots left leg was in the On position. That explained the jammed pedals. As we came to a stop still on the runway I asked Bill had he engaged the autopilot? . Bill said he had as he thought it would help when taxiing to stop the rudder banging fully to one side in the wind.
The only problem of course was not only he omitted to tell me what he intended to do, but he engaged the autopilot as I was trying to keep straight on the centreline in a 15 knot crosswind. The autopilot locked the ailerons, elevators and rudders in the neutral position in the DC3 and was impossible to overpower. Bill was a real old fashioned gentleman and much older than me. I thought it would be boorish to castigate him for a very stupid action so I zipped my lip..
Last edited by Centaurus; 22nd Nov 2020 at 02:59.