A 185 yarn
Omkalai PNG 1970 (or How I learnt to love C185 tailplanes)
I dropped off the orli pax at Omkali cranked the 185 and spun her round for the return trip to Goroka. Trim set, flaps, controls full and free away we go down the ski jump slope that was Omakali (loved it), hint of back stick and we are airborne, up flaps and start a gentle climbing turn left for GKA.
Something wrong, ease stick forward,bugger, its jammed! Try roll right , jammed! **** me controls are stuck, wiggle rudders yep they are working, roll in down trim nose goes down so we have something
Well right or wrong I'm getting back on the ground real soon, so rudder it round back to Omkalai. Using rudder, power and trim we make a successful landing back up the slope of Omkalai. Switch off and listen to me knees knocking (As a pax I had just recently stepped out of a ball of 206 wreckage in that very parking bay)
What had happened?
The ginger-beers had put the duals in a couple of days before. I didn't like it and asked for them to be removed. Only being a dopey pilot I was duly ignored (Not by the ginger beers but by I suspect Rocky the alky base bag snatcher)
The bolt holding the pax side pole was too long. Inserted upwards it rubbed on a vac pipe leading to the vac guage. After a couple of days rubbing it finally broke through the pipe and popped inside effectively jamming the stick in a dirty big thick rubber pipe.
If I had of stuffed up and burnt no bugger would have been any the wiser.
