Well, I was
not in AEROBATIC flight when the prop left, but that is
an easy
misunderstanding as it was during airshow waiver time. We
were doing a
low level non aerobatic formation display because the weather
was too poor
for any aerobatics. From the photos you can see that
God was watching out for me.
The
photo 2 shows what is left of the propeller and it tried
to tear the engine
off the airplane - in a nano second. It was just a
big BANG with no warning and
then I could not see anything because the canopy was covered
in oil.
When
the oil thinned out a little I could see the engine sticking
up in front
of me with no prop. I just kept the airplane gliding toward
the ground
(It was falling out of the sky anyway - gravity!) and wondered
what I was
going to hit. Then out of the side of the canopy I could
just make out the
ground looking straight down. When I could make out the
runway we
were performing over I decided to try the landing gear and
it worked.
Then it was just keeping from stalling and waiting to contact
the runway.
It was a very smooth touch down and I just rolled over to
the side of the runway
and stopped and got out. I waved at the crowd to let
the airshow announcer
I was okay and waited for the crash trucks to arrive.
We
will be performing at Sun n'Fun and have a full schedule
the next month.
We have been graciously loaned a 210 Swift and hope to be
up flying quickly
in my airplane. We are looking for firewall forward right
now.
Michael
Kennedy
