TussockXT912-Arrow

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Mostly grass strips - I've landed on seal maybe a dozen times ever!

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  • A lighthearted tale (several tails) of moronic stupidity...

A lighthearted tale (several tails) of moronic stupidity...

Last updated by Tussock Comments (8)

There's a little grass strip amongst the tussocks in a nearby valley that I love.  It's on a river terrace above a small gorge surrounded by soft green hills, and although it's only a half hour's flight from home it has a wonderful feeling of isolation.  You can scoot in on a fine summer's day, stroll down to the river, cook up some sausages on a fire, read a book in the sun, and generally feel like you're the last person on Earth.  Here's a shameless selfie of me and Penrod (the XT912 in the background) enjoying a sunny afternoon of solitude on this strip:

WaiparastripR.JPG

So, join me on today's story on short finals.  It's winter, and cold - well below zero - and we're dropping into this strip for a final preparation before heading to great altitudes and even lower temperatures in the Alps.  We're coasting over the fence at the northern end of the strip, engine at tickover, floating now... there's the mains down... hold off the nosewheel... a bit more... and we're down, rumbling along the bumpy grass, brakes on, rolling to a stop at the end of the strip.  Taxi back, and shut down.  Nice!

 

But wait - a black shape has lumbered onto the far end of the strip, followed by another... and another... and another... ye Gods!  A regiment of cows is emerging from the gorge and invading the far end of the strip!!  Big, black, organic mobile arrestor hooks; a million supermarkets' worth of steak, mince, milk, cheese and yoghurt, randomly distributing themselves along the three hundred metres of river terrace that is supposed to be my takeoff.  And... AND... they're coming my way, an advancing front of raw beef armed with saliva-coated tongues, soft dewy eyes and cloven hoofs!  Now, the strip is wet and soft - it's winter, there's been a ton of rain and recently snow, and these cows each weigh as much as the Empire State Building.  Their hooves are puncturing the strip with craters that could gobble the front wheel of a trike.  And these look like just the sort of cows that would enjoy hopping up and down on one foot.  I'm sure if I looked into one of these cow-foot-sized depressions I'd see upside down underdressed Europeans sunbathing on a Spanish beach.  Also, It's widely known here in Kiwiland that it takes over 200 litres of water to make 1 litre of milk.  What's less widely known is that cows poo sixteen times their body weight every minute when they see a trike.  Right over my airstrip.  Crikee!!!

 

"Ah... SHOO!  Please girls, I just need this terrace for one minute!  C'mon, please, you look thirsty and there's some lovely fresh water down by the river..."  I run towards them waving my arms.  As you may know, cows startle but they're curious.  And I don't speak cow, but I'm sure that I lip-read one say to her neighbour "Say, Daisy, that bloke in the black and silver flight suit waving his arms like a demented pilot grounded by cows looks JUST LIKE the guy who was feeding out extra-delicious hay from the back of a tractor yesterday!  Let's take yet another massive dump in the middle of the airstrip and go and check him out!"  And did you know that to cow's ears, a Rotax 4-stroke aircraft engine sounds IDENTICAL to a diesel engine on a Massey Ferguson tractor pulling a trailer-load of hay!!

 

RMMMMMMMMRattlerattleSQUISH/SPLAT/SPLOP/SPLATTER... phew!!!  That was the messiest takeoff ever but we're safely airborne with no cows tangled in the wheels and heading for the Alps.  That should be where the story ends, but of course there's a little more.  I'm ignorant of this at the time, but look: we're now 8000 feet above Bealey township. Lumps of semi-frozen cowshit peeling from the spats, mudguard and undersurface of a trike are raining down on Bealey's peaceful inhabitants from a clear blue sky.  Drivers on State Highway 73 through Arthurs Pass are wondering if cows have developed the art of flight.  Swinging back over the Craigieburn Range, skiers enjoying the fresh powder and July sunshine are startled by the sound of a microlight.  Looking skywards at the small craft buzzing by a few hundred feet overhead, they are even more surprised to find that it needs some basic training.  "Mummy, that trike SHAT on me!"

Sigh...

Comments

  • Monty

    wow brian! a really wonderfull story! very, very well told. i'm envious of your literary ability .monty

  • Ken

    Brilliant indeed. Glad you made it out without making a bunch of steaks :)

  • ULtrikepilot

    Loved the story Bryan. Interestingly I have a very similar story. A few years ago l flew into an RC field not realizing that the beautiful turf strip I was about to land on was littered with fresh goose poop. Greased (pun intended) the landing with splatters flying every where including a thorough dousing of my visor. Of course volume from one goose is no where near that of a cow, but when you have hundreds perhaps thousands congregating in that area hours earlier with a density of dozens of fresh droppings per square foot there was no way to avoid it. Needless to say after getting home I spent hours cleaning off the splatters from my self and my trike. Thankfully I did not have a stiff cross wind on that landing because I have my doubts about the outcome of crabbing in on final. Thanks for sharing your story.

  • Heather

    I laughed and laughed...I'm a field biologist by trade and am often confronted with what I call must-lick-truck cows. For the happily uninitiated, if cows find a truck that obstinately does not disgorge hay, the cows encourage it by...licking. When they're done, my truck is green. It is slimy. It smells of methane gas. I am horrified to think must-lick-trike cows almost got you!

  • wefly

    Well done Tussock.. best ever trike story. Liv'in, in Central Australia your story is exact. Cow messages on the runway are for real,,, very messy, it's a part of life in trikes. Safe flights.

  • Tussock

    Wow ULtrikepilot, I think you had a rougher time than I did. I guess neither of us are the first. Isn't the cleaning up a chore? Glad you slid home without an issue otherwise.
    Heather, your truck has my sympathies. Here in NZ farm animals produce half of our carbon emissions, and there's a great deal of effort going into dietary changes to try and reduce... methane output. Must-lick-cows once got my hang glider - no damage done, but my, the slobber!! I sort-of like cows as animals, even before they're on the barbecue, but they're messy animals...
    And thanks everyone for the positive comments - all appreciated.

  • white eagle

    Ok not goose or cow poo but equally disturbing. Yesterday i went out to my barn to run my trikes up in prep for bonner fly in. In montana we have hughe rats called packrats that envade and leave millions of aerodynamic shaped poo projectiles.we have also been very dry here this summer which has left a thick layer of dust on everything. I placed my front tire against the baseboard by the door of my barn to run it up to full rpm. The rest is history.pack rat poo rain.on the up side it cleaned out the barn.

  • Tussock

    EEK!! David, I'll buy you a broom! >;-)