"Slim, we got a problem"

“Slim, we got a problem.” Not words you want to hear from the pilot of the plane you are riding in 6000 feet in the air!

It was a lovely summer day, somewhere over the wooded hills of Kentucky when my pilot friend, Jerry, (tan jacket in photo) broke the news to me over the intercom. His homebuilt RV-4 aircraft is a tandem-seat, bright yellow hotrod of a plane he fabricated and assembled himself in his garage. He even overhauled the used engine himself. We were on the way home from a day trip to Ashville, NC and I was riding back seat. That’s the good seat--all the fun and no responsibilities.

“What is our problem?” I cautiously inquired, looking out the canopy and down at the thick forest of trees that would make any attempt for an emergency landing pure suicide.

“Well, the cable came off the right rudder pedal.”

Continuing to fly straight and level would be no problem. But this meant no ground steering upon landing, no right rudder and no right brake! In other words….NOTHING WAS GOING RIGHT! It was all going south!

I was thinking, “Ya know, we’ve got enough gas to be up here for a couple more hours. It would really be good, I mean REALLY GOOD, if we can think of a way to fix our problem while we’re up here. But how?

The pilot, Jerry, was also the builder of the plane, so he knew every piece of it very well. The problem was not about the knowing. It was about not being able to reach the rudder pedal to work on it. Jerry is 6 feet 4 inches tall. In this tiny cockpit, and with the flight control stick between his knees, there was no way he could get to the cable that needed to be reattached.

“I can’t reach it. I don’t know what to do, Slim.” (I’ve had the nickname “Slim” from Jerry for thirty-some years.)

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear him say. Why didn’t he say, “I’ll have her fixed in a jiffy, Slim….don’t worry.”

What he did say was, “I can see the nut that fell off.”

“Jeepers,” I’m thinking, “That’s not much consolation when these two nuts riding in the airplane may die in just a little while. “DON’T’ JUST LOOK AT IT, GET THE NUT! PUT IT BACK ON, JERRY!”

“Hey, Slim, I’m going to try something.”

I was thinking, “Well I sure hope that “something” is more of a sure-fire fix than some kind of airborne “experiment!”

“I’m going to try to remove the control stick. Take it out. You can fly from back there until I see what I can do.”

Huh? Did I hear him right? Take the airplane apart in mid-air? Yup, I heard right.

“Take over”, he called through the intercom.

“I got it,” I confirmed, gripping my backseat control stick with a little more care than normal. And on we flew—trees still thick as ever below.

Jerry’s head almost disappeared from in front of me as he twisted the nut off the bolt holding his control stick to the control cable mechanism. The cockpit was so tight he could hardly find a space big enough to lay it while he squirmed to get his arms far enough under the dash to reach the cable.

Can a person pray anywhere? Oh yeah! Can you fly a plane, wish you were on the ground, wonder if you’re gonna die soon, and pray, all at the same time. “Roger, roger.” I mean....., “Jesus, Jesus!” And I wasn’t taking His name in vain. I was as respectful and sincere as ever---the trees……they’re still down there!

Believe it or not, in a few minutes, Jerry’s head popped up and he reported the problem fixed. One rudder cable nut had just saved two flying nuts.

Oops, almost forgot. Now we had to put the plane back together! Whew, that went OK too.

Sometimes people ask me if I am afraid to fly in a plane that was built by hand in somebody’s garage. Are you kidding? I want to say, “Oh sure, I would much rather fly on the FAA certified commercial aircraft like Aloha Airlines flight 243, where a third of the fuselage was ripped off, sucking out a flight attendant over the Pacific. Or, maybe good old Southwest Airlines, that offers a new “scenic” fare, featuring five foot skylights, offering fresh air instead of the normal stuffy economy class.

No—let me fly with the guy who built the plane in the first place. He knows how to fix it—even at 6000 feet!

NO THANKS!