Rudi's KR2 ZS-VYZ

[AndyCAP]

Wow Rudi! Thanks so much for sharing your scary event with us. This could so easily have ended in tragedy! Well done on keeping your cool and executing a perfect forced landing. Your actions were quick and decisive and that's what saved your life. Even closing the throttle saved your life. Can you imagine trying to land with the throttle partially or even fully open??

Quesrtions: did it really help to fly the BB directly after? Were you not full of adrenalin and all jittery? Did the fear/shock hit you sometime after? Was this your first forced landing? How frequently do you practice forced landings? don't mean to pry simply want to learn from your experience.

Thank the Lord you are ok and can share your experience with us! Hope your KR is in the sky again soon!

[Rudix]

Wow Rudi! Thanks so much for sharing your scary event with us. This could so easily have ended in tragedy! Well done on keeping your cool and executing a perfect forced landing. Your actions were quick and decisive and that's what saved your life. Even closing the throttle saved your life. Can you imagine trying to land with the throttle partially or even fully open??

Quesrtions: did it really help to fly the BB directly after? Were you not full of adrenalin and all jittery? Did the fear/shock hit you sometime after? Was this your first forced landing? How frequently do you practice forced landings? don't mean to pry simply want to learn from your experience.

Thank the Lord you are ok and can share your experience with us! Hope your KR is in the sky again soon!

Hi AndyCAP!

I think I was lucky in many ways as well, IF it happened lower, IF I did not read up on similar situations (Canopy opening in flight) a few days before, IF I did not understand why the plane dived (blanketing of the tail), IF I had shorter arms, it could have ended differently.....

I would not have been able to land the plane at even partial throttle, and if I did it would have been a lot faster, not good.....

I am not sure if it was the best thing to fly the BB directly after but I felt the need to, I wanted to fly again since in the air is the one place I am at peace with myself. Flew to Kittyhawk, had breakfast and flew back. I was fine but maybe slightly tense, after the flight(s) I really felt great! I had a flash of fear as the canopy opened, mainly because a few days before I read about a similar situation that ended in tears. Then there was no time for it. Afterwards I did think about it a lot, what could I have done better? Did I make mistakes? Yes, I could have handled it better but I can see that only in hindsight. Once on the ground I felt excited/pumped up and much later that evening I felt really tired but fortunately the fear never came back

I had a quick count, I have had around 6 emergencies before this, 5 ended in emergency landings (one was fuel miss-management that I could sort out in the air.) 4 were engine failures and one was a burst fuel pipe in the cockpit. On 4 occasions I managed to land the plane back on the runway and once in a farmers field. This was the first time there was damage to the plane.

I practice emergencies all the time, even on long cross country flight I will pull the throttle without thinking about it and then see what I can do, some of my pax do not always appreciate that

Fly safe, and practice those emergency landings,
Rudi

[Oupa-G]

Rudi youre a DUDE

Cheers Oupa-G

[Rudix]

Rudi youre a DUDE

Cheers Oupa-G

[Scotsman]

Good stuff Rudi, glad to see that you are in one piece...looks like one of this situations that if you tried to save the aircraft (stretch the glide or release the canopy for the throttle to try and land on the runway) you probably wouldn't be writing these posts. Good airmanship and hope the ac mends quickly!

[johnsa]

Good you are still alive and have a nice story to share during the Braai