Profiles

		Son of a Pioneer
		the stories of G.V. (Gerry) Stauffer

Dead Foot - Dead Engine

Things may not be what they seem.

We always argued over the right thing to do when you lost an engine in a twin. I remember a day the matter was settled. That day Kelly was going up in the Anson. Bill Lavrey slipped into the seat beside him. We used to go up and do three rides at one time. Three: Kelly, Franz and I. Go up and never land the Anson, just keep going. Once you passed your ride, it was "Come out Kelly, and somebody else can sit here."

Now Franz and Kelly and Landrey always had a big fight over this. Well, not a fight, but a big disagreement over how you find a dead engine. A big difficulty. How do you find it? And of course, it was always "dead foot - dead engine". Only one way, "dead foot - dead engine". Now Franz had taught me, and of course I would never argue with him, the best way to find a dead engine.

So we're out doing this flight, and Franz was sitting in the back of the Anson, right back by the door. He's way at the back. He unzips the zipper across the top and he's looking up at those cables up there. I wonder what's going on. We're coming by the beacon by then. Now at that time you had to hit the low cone. You go over the high cone, do a procedure turn, turn inbound and hit the low cone. So just then, as we're coming up on the beacon - we can hear the radio in the cockpit because the Anson is fairly quiet running at reduced power - when Franz goes like this with the trim cables. Well! you should have seen the shit fly around in the cockpit! Lavrey yells at Franz, "Get up here and take over! It's your airplane. Come on you gotta fly it." He boosted Kelly out of the seat. Franz walks up and sits down. Opens the throttle, sets the mixture, opens the throttle.

(Landry) "That engine just failed!"

(Franz) "How did you know?"

(Landry)" Well, dead foot - dead engine."

(Franz) "You didn't try it though to see what it was, did you? You see, there's nothing wrong with it."

So Franz looked around and said go back where Kelly's sitting back there and see what's going on back there. So Landry went back and the zipper was undone. All Franz had done was outtrim the airplane. Dead foot - dead engine! They killed the good engine just because of that.

They tried and they tried and they tried everything to get Franz on to this other dead engine bit. But he'd just reach up and grab a throttle, pull it back and if that's the bad one, go depend on the other one. It works so beautifully, I don't know why anyone would argue with him.

(Ken) That was one good thing at Norcan, you know, when I went on the twin, they didn't rush. They took all their sweet time in the world. For one thing, unless you had fire and smoke and oil pouring its guts out.

(Gerry). Ken, you didn't shut it down. That was Bill Lavrey - gotta do it right now. Bang! Bang! Bang! Everything had to be feathered.

(Marjorie) Don't you remember when your dad built that porch, on that old house on Elbow Drive? He came home that day. He was so mad! He'd had a fight with Bill Lavrey. He'd had a real dowser. "I had a fight with Lavrey and I'm going to build that porch." So he picked up the lumber and built the porch in one afternoon. He was so mad! So he built it. And when he was all finished he felt better. "Well, what was the fight about?" "Oh, same old thing!" But he never did tell me.

(Gerry) Probably "dead foot - dead engine"! Lavrey said, "You only got so many seconds to act, you got to shut it right down- boom boom."

(Bonnae) Why did you have to shut it right down?

(Gerry) I don't know. We never did figure this out. The only time you'd ever be in trouble was if you were over gross, over loaded.

(Ken) If you're over gross, there's no problem, you know it's not going to do it so you just crash with the other one and go where you want.

(Gerry) Crash off the end of the runway.

(Marjorie) That's the one! That was his worst fight with Lavrey. His blood pressure always went up when he had to ride with Lavrey, because he knew he wasn't a good pilot, he knew the kind of man he was. But he had the authority to ground your dad.

(Gerry) Oh yeah, he threatened to ground everybody.

(Marjorie) Franz tried to get along with him and that sent his blood pressure even higher. But this time he drew it back and he came home and ... well that's the day he built that nice back porch. It had a railing and it was high enough for you little kids to have a play house. Even a door!

(Gerry) However, I don't know of anybody he took a license away from. I don't know of anyone who didn't pass.

(Marjorie) I think he wanted to show he was boss. To make life real miserable for you. But like you said, in the end he generally gave you your license. He didn't dare not really. He couldn't outfly any of them you know.