Ran out to the rifle and pistol club to test some handgun loads yesterday afternoon despite the wind, taking advantage of the 70-plus temps before we go Arctic starting on Saturday.
While I was out there, I saw a twin-engine plane come in behind me -- not unusual as the pistol and rifle ranges are perpendicular and directly adjacent to the approach of the main runway. The wind was blowing pretty hard and I heard the pilot cut his engines and then a bit of a thump and figured he had just landed a little hard in the quartering crosswind. I had my headphones on at the time, and the pistol bay is about a dozen feet below the landing elevation in the borrow pit where they took the material to build the runways. Went back to shooting, thinking there was something a little odd about it. When I closed the gate and headed out, a guy at the rifle range flagged me down. Did you hear that plane belly land, he asked? I looked behind me and there must have seven or eight emergency vehicles, an ambulance and a fire truck clustered around the aircraft, sitting just off the strip on the grass. Whoever the pilot was knew what to do to improve his chances. I'm sure the belly of the Piper Aztec is damaged and of course both props are bent.
And that was the missing piece of what seemed odd about the whole thing: When I glimpsed him coming in on his approach, he had no landing gear down! He came to rest just off the tarmac on the grass, about 500 yards from where I had been shooting.
While I was out there, I saw a twin-engine plane come in behind me -- not unusual as the pistol and rifle ranges are perpendicular and directly adjacent to the approach of the main runway. The wind was blowing pretty hard and I heard the pilot cut his engines and then a bit of a thump and figured he had just landed a little hard in the quartering crosswind. I had my headphones on at the time, and the pistol bay is about a dozen feet below the landing elevation in the borrow pit where they took the material to build the runways. Went back to shooting, thinking there was something a little odd about it. When I closed the gate and headed out, a guy at the rifle range flagged me down. Did you hear that plane belly land, he asked? I looked behind me and there must have seven or eight emergency vehicles, an ambulance and a fire truck clustered around the aircraft, sitting just off the strip on the grass. Whoever the pilot was knew what to do to improve his chances. I'm sure the belly of the Piper Aztec is damaged and of course both props are bent.
And that was the missing piece of what seemed odd about the whole thing: When I glimpsed him coming in on his approach, he had no landing gear down! He came to rest just off the tarmac on the grass, about 500 yards from where I had been shooting.
