The plane, N9793A, was purchased September 30th of 2023 and it was out of annual. We ferried it north to 6Y6 St Helen in Michigan where we have our hangars and I got to work. By the start of summer I had rewired much of the circuitry behind the panel, new wing wiring, new switches, circuit board. refurbished and built a new interior, some engine work and then my first full annual. Also had a cool new plexi made from Brian here at the association. Still cannot thank him enough.
When we, myself and my former instructor, purchased the plane...I was a second year pilot with a little over ninety hours total flight time. Nine hours in a bushed-out Super Cub and around ninety landings in that. I had decades of professional flight and racing simulation experience and the same as far as fabrication experience. Blah Blah blah.
Nine months later... Up at 6Y6 I went from the new kid on the block at age forty nine, who had flown but not worked on planes. To going through what felt like a college course on the 170 from an A&P I/A (family friend/mentor), who has thirteen of his own planes, built and restored many planes, several of them 170's and is also a 170 owner. I spent many hours on here learning from the vast database of knowledge the members provide. Our airport manager up at 6Y6 then decided to retire. So I ended up the airport manager of our fun little airport to boot. Have many changes in store for that place and it will be so much fun! It was certainly looking like it was gonna be a fun fourth of July party up at 6Y6. We have a hell of a fireworks show over the airport and we were gonna do some flying over the weekend. Explore Northern Michigan!
On the morning of July fourth, I was down south in Dowagiac C91 and was finishing up my insurance requirements and then was going to head north with the family to St Helen for the holiday weekend. My plane partner was just starting to work on his requirements and was on his way to the field. While the CFII and I were waiting for him to arrive, we went up, did ten or so landings and finished up my requirements. The weather was great, winds were calm and the plane was running like a top.
I was excited that so many of the decisions I had made in regard to what parts I replaced and the work I performed...were actually very noticeable to me. I could tell that the new yoke balls I milled out on the Bridgeport were fluid with a very tight tolerance and with little-to-no slop. Spending the crazy amount McFarlane wanted on the new universal joints was also a great choice. The rubber that covers the joint really smoothened out the forward and back travel. I could just tell the controls felt smoother than anything I had flown prior...and night and day difference from when I did the initial ground work to heat the engine before we hangered her up and started working. In the air...she was fantastically smooth!
At 10:30 A.M, on July 4th, 2024, I felt comfortable and was ready to just land the hell out of the plane after the holiday and prepare to fly it to Airventure to be on display.
I got out of the plane knowing that, as we were landing primarily on the asphalt and with the stock soft gear legs and 800 tires, this bird could get squirrely fast. But once you knew what she wanted...it got very manageable. The key is getting to that point without an error and hoping the plane would take whatever abuse an error may cause as he was training. My plane partner had done an hour or so the day before, it was a tough hour...and I knew that he was a bit nervous. So I stayed to watch his second lesson. Everything looked good for his first seven landings. He was starting to build skill and lock in the handful of action items that he needed to repeat each takeoff and landing to finalize his skillset and understand what this bird wanted. Tail came up, he followed suit with appropriate rudder and so on. Things were looking...good. Now let me say, this pilot was my former instructor for my PPL, is a CFII, MEI and a professional PC-12 and Citation pilot. He has mad piloting skills. But this bird is a tailwheel, and you have to hit your marks, especially on the asphalt, and always be ready until it is stopped. We all know this...because it is so very true. History taught us that knowledge. Not history of perfect landings...history of what I was about to witness.
Long story longer, as he came in for the eighth landing, I filmed the whole thing...he touched the mains down perfect, tail stayed up, rudder work looked good...and then he brought the tail down nice and smooth. I was thinking...just lost rudder authority...be ready on them brakes! He rolled out to about twenty five miles per hour and I thought he was good to go at that point, so I stopped filming. The second I hit the record button to stop filming I saw the tail swerve a bit to the right and then back to the left...the correction was a bit much for asphalt but wasn't horrible...then...in a split second, I watched the fruits of nine months of work and my plans of a fun weekend of flying in the new-to-me plane...disappear.
As the tail went to the left, the left main axle broke, the main wheel flew out of sight and the plane skidded to the right. As the steel dagger that is now the gear leg scraped across the pavement, it finally found the dirt on the side of the runway. As the gear leg skewered itself into the ground, the plane abruptly spun around facing the opposite direction and immediately stopped and tipped over on the left wing. The pilot side door shooting out past the wingtip. A split second later a loud boom reached me and I thought...wow...that was violent...and hoped no one was hurt. And then of course...I thought there went Airventure! I hopped in the truck and raced down the runway to make sure they were okay. Thankfully...no one was hurt.
After all the time spent working on this plane. The decisions I made on what upgrades I did...what I was gonna do after Airventure...and then after that. I wish I knew then...what I learned watching this happen and walking up to the now totaled plane.
The left gear leg had folded under the plane and ripped the bottom of the fuselage open like a sardine can. As it folded, it tore the pilot side door post in half at yoke height. The gear leg ended up completely flipped over, with the attachment point in the gearbox area lifting up and just under his knee...this could have been a major injury. When the plane stopped and tipped over the left wing had struck the ground and forced the top side of the now torn in half door post, over and into the yoke. Had his hand not fell off the yoke from the impact, he would have lost it. The top of the door post then flexed back about four inches to the left of the yoke in its final resting place. The left wing was buckled about half way down. I thought...there went all the work I had just done fishing new wires through the wings! The left side of the rear stabilizer hit the ground and the prop blade was sticking in the ground about a foot. The gear leg was pointing at the right side tire just under the co-pilot door.
I had just remade the backing for the front interior panels out of 1/16" Kydex and then wrapped in UltraLeather. What a good choice and will do it again! It stopped some of the aluminum from protruding through the weak backing that was there prior. The Kydex was marred beyond belief...but not punctured and it certainly saved him from injury. Kydex panels will be on all six panels in my new 170.
Four days earlier I sat in the hangar finishing up the annual with a few squawks I was going to address after Airventure and few upgrades I wanted to do. The first of which was hollow steel axles. Imagine that...the first upgrade I wanted to do, one that I had almost done a few days earlier, was now the one thing that could have possibly stopped damage...or limited it to a bent axle and maybe a little wingtip damage. All things we could have repaired quickly.
Sure one could say, well if he didn't overcorrect or had this happened or if he was a better pilot, you would not need that axle. Sure...but in reality and like in a race car, doing things to allow less attrition to any part of the racecar and allow more room for error for the driver is the basis of modern automotive engineering. Same thing in planes...same reason Cessna would make changes to airframes over the years to make them safer. They also make changes to appease the marketing and legal departments and make them worse. But in this case...nine hundred bucks could have stopped the total loss of a precious-to-me aircraft.
And there was a CFII on board? Yes there was. The CFII, who is a thirty thousand hour pilot, twelve thousand hour tailwheel pilot...great friend and did I mention an amazing pilot...would have saved it had the axle not broke. The initial overcorrection back to the right by the pilot was a quick knee jerk reaction and when the CFII jumped in I could tell he had grabbed the plane so to speak...probably via the use of a lot of brake as the rudder and tailwheel were not too effective at that speed...and then the axle broke. Nine hundred dollars in parts could have allowed him to most likely roll it off the runway into the field and turn it around. Something he has had to do before in his Super Cub when students had brain farts. Probably why it has 32" ABW. I know just those tires alone have saved his plane as it has gone off the end of the grass strip a few times.
Parts...mods...upgrades...a part could have changed the outcome for the better! Maybe a bent axle, maybe a bent wingtip, maybe nothing. But I know this CFII...I know his history of bush flying...and I know he would have minimalized the damage from the mistake. If the plane just had a tiny wider margin for error...margins that were pre-defined by the choices I made up to this point. Choices I made...about parts!
In my opinion, there is no better work that can be done on a plane than the work done by the owner. The most important time spent as an owner that doesn't wrench on the plane themself, is the time spent to at least understand the reason behind available upgrades, the pros and cons and so on. If you are being sold on options, or any upgrades, or being told something you should buy or do. Is it worth your money and why? You won't know if you don't know. Why do people out there run large tires, what do those tires stress on the axle assembly or the gearbox? Discussions commonly found here on these forums. I am so glad I spent the time learning from my A&P I/A, as well as the countless hours I spent on here reading the debates between members on mods or the vast amount of knowledge that exists within the walls of the C170A. It sure helped me out.
Some may say..."its your first plane dude...you are a bit cocky for a greenhorn pilot. You spew this as if you have some experience!" Sure that is fair. I don't have a ton of experience making decisions as an airplane mechanic. And I don't have as much experience as most do flying planes either. Well...real ones at least. I do have eighteen hundred hours of simulation training, most in naval carrier operations with naval pilots and airbosses. Have built many of my own cars, houses, buildings, CNC machines and have been fabricating for decades. But true...I currently only have a little over five hundred hours of mechanic work performed and logged as an apprentice...so not too much.
So why the long winded story? Well one...I lost the plane and it was heartbreaking. But mainly...so others can also learn from what I went through. I lost five hundred hours of time, thousands and thousands of dollars and as a result I lost most of the flying season this summer. I know many great pilots that don't know much if anything about the mechanical aspects of the planes they fly. I knew...literally knew that those axles were weak links. I felt that I would be fine...I already felt comfortable in tailwheels. From doing some high speed taxiing on the grass after we ferried it up...getting the engine warmed up to drain oil and so on...I could instantly tell that the gear was springy as heck, that it tracked to the undulation of the ground on the runway. The wings would dip and flex the already flexed at stance gear...and I could tell the camber change was wanting to alter how the plane was tracking. This simply put...adds more risk and opportunity for error. Far smaller margin of error than the Super Cub…and certainly smaller than the 170 I am redoing now...that has stronger gear legs. Immediately noticed how tame the 170 with the stronger gear handles. Immense difference.
What I learned was that these planes are mechanically simple, which is awesome. There is an amazing association right here that has a database of knowledge that can take someone like me and truly guide them through learning about, maintaining and upgrading the 170. So many of the discussions and debates I read here…and truly enjoy reading...have many good points. "Add the P-Ponk...well why would you need that? If it is gonna tear out it is gonna be far worse to the gearbox than without it. It may be catastrophic!." True...it may also be without it. But what if it widened the margin of error for when that rare occurrence does bite you? I would go with P-Ponk...every time. Don't need steel axles...just don't land it too hard. I suppose. In my case I would still have a plane...I can almost guarantee that. So all in all...I understand pure restoration and I understand purist thinking. There is a place for the stock pure planes as there are cars that are restored to stock and there are the same model of that car that is far more versatile and has modern upgrades. I mean wouldn't we be a bit off the beaten path if we truly believed that no knowledge was gained in regards to engineering beyond that which they had in 1948? I think it would be hard to challenge that.
T3 Tailwheel...why in the hell would anyone do that...is it needed? It's about the twisting forces not the up and down, so a leaf spring setup is just as good. Softens the bumps when taxiing...well go slower. It ruins the look of the plane! yeah yeah and yeah. It also lowers attrition from taxiing on the tailwheel assembly and anything else that feels less impact as a result of any and all operations that add load to said tailwheel. It is more complex...that's a con…not a pro for sure. I cannot seem to find another. All choices we make. If I spent a few more grand...I could have saved ten! An axle...the choice to not upgrade that axle at that time...knowing it had 800 tires, which were on it when purchased, and was gonna be flown by a pilot new to tailwheels...was the wrong choice. I learned that the hard way. It will influence any and all decisions I make in the future. Form always follows function...unless you are trying to win an award for best stock plane!!
On to my next mission...N4182V
In the end it made me think of N4182V, which is my new 1948 Ragwing, which is so very cool...and how I will do whatever it takes to widen the margin of error and aid in lowering attrition or to keep this plane flying long after I am gone. But I will be doing this one…solo!
