"Old Sparky" ...

[FullyFlapped]

To cut a long story short, a flying buddy refers to the Maglite torch he keeps in his aircraft as "Old Sparky". This comes, seemingly, from an occasion when a first-time PAX occupying the front RHS completely freaked out at about 100', and started hauling back on the column with sweat pouring from him, eyes in wild and staring mode, unable to speak - you get the picture, I'm sure.

My friend is a reasonably big bloke, but so was the PAX, and unable to do more than hold the stick more or less stationery, my friend thought the only thing he could do was to knock the PAX out - he had completely frozen, and the stall was looming. Fortunately, at that point, the PAX "came to", and all was ultimately well.

So now my mate keeps "Old Sparky" handy whenever he takes newcomers up - as he says, "an elbow would probably do the job, but Sparky gives me more options!".

Even if there is an element of shaggy dog about his tale - and FWIW I think not, knowing the guy - it's an interesting scenario, and it got me wondering what I'd do in similar circumstances. I 'm not exactly small and slight, but even so, incapacitating someone in that state is not necessarily the easiest thing to do - even if your life depends upon it.

Anyone come across this, or even considered it as a possibility? Even the calmest, most laid-back individuals can freak given the right (for them) psychological cues .. you never know !

FF :ok:

[eharding]

I'm sure there was a thread here a couple of years back with a similar theme, and one post recounted the tale of a chap who was on the verge of braining his mother-in-law with a fire extinguisher when she went bananas sitting in the RHS of a cherokee - same kind of clinging onto the yoke behaviour. That being said, I'm not sure that he had actually started the engine at that point, and he was just generally ill-disposed towards the mother-in-law...

[India Four Two]

I knew a Blanik instructor in Canada who had a passenger who panicked on final and pulled the stick back as the ground got closer. The aircraft stalled and crashed. The passenger was killed and the instructor was very badly injured - lucky to live. He told me that if he ever instructed again, he was going to carry a baseball bat.

[Dave Gittins]

I carry a big maglite in my car and insist my wife carries one in hers ... for defensive purposes if necessary.
I've never had the need in an aeroplane ... perhaps the solution is to make all first time passengers sit in the back until you are certain they won't throw a wobbler.

[maxdrypower]

One of the guys who taught me always carried a kubotan keyring for the very same purpose, he told me he had had to use it once in a mega knuckle rapping exercise for a student who did gymnastics on the column out of sheer terror , much the same shape as a maglite but heavier

[Dark Star]

"an elbow would probably do the job"

I was taught to ensure that you break a couple of ribs - that way the pax would definitely lose interest in messing with the controls.

[ShyTorque]

There is one contributor to the forum (he instructed me in 1973) who once had to "resolve an airborne situation" with heavy manual use of the cockpit fire extinguisher.

Some man had booked a sight-seeing flight for himself and his two children. Unknown to my instructor, this chap had just broken up with his wife and was mentally unbalanced. Once airborne he decided to take control and dive into the ground from height.

Thankfully, he didn't succeed due to very heavy bruising across the temple caused by close contact with the good old Chubb. Obviously, with two hysterical kids on board, the situation was not over until the aircraft was shut down on the ground and the keys were out. :eek:

[davidatter708]

The technique in a glider im assured is to clap the passanger round the ears cause they will bring their hands up then guess what you have control :}
dave

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

I had one a few weeks ago. Not quite the same problem, but required a bit of ingenuity to resolve. This was a Starlight Day flight (chronically / terminally sick kids plus siblings / parents etc). One of my passengers was a little girl who had to be carefully handled in to the aircraft (she had some tubes in). She didn’t say anything, but smiled happily through the start up and taxi out.

At the top of the climb out I seemed to need a lot of trim to get the nose down. Looking across, my young passenger had got a good grip on the right hand side control column and showed no inclination to let go. The solution involved slackening her seat belt shoulder strap and putting a cushion behind her so that she could still reach the stick when it was further forward.

The rest of the flight went well and she seemed to enjoy it. I learned to brief inexperienced or nervous passengers to hang on to the seatbelts, rather than the flying controls!

Safe Flying,
Richard W.

[BackPacker]

We do the same Goodwill thing at our club every year. As a rule, the kids go in the back, with two adults (usually two pilots) up front.

It's not just the grabbing of the controls, but also things like panicking, vomiting etc., which you really don't want to have to handle on your own. From experience I can tell you that even a vomiting adult in the RHS (who brought his own sickbag and otherwise behaved impeccably) is a major distraction while trying to land.

Oh, and if you have a half-decent audio selector box, make sure you know how the "pilot isolation" and "crew isolation" buttons work. Yes, we brief the kids to shhhh while taking off and landing, but most of them forget as soon as they hear their own voice over the intercom.