Having put my wife through grad school selling rides in our PT17 Stearman, I can relate to this one.

Just remember, stay out of pastures...

Why was he landing in the pasture off the end of the paved strip? Did he have an engine failure after takeoff?

I couldn't believe how that little Tiggermoth rolled the cow!

That coulda been a whole lot worse.

The old flight instructor I had at a rural strip whould regularly fly to his house for lunch. He would take off, just clear the fenced road that crossed at the end of the runway, chop the throttle, and set down in his pasture on the other side. Total flight time, about 30 seconds. One fine day, he forgot that he had turned his cows loose into that pasture and ended up centerpunching Bossy with the J-3.

Killed the cow, broke an arm and a leg, and walked around on crutches for a couple of months. He was also sporting the damndest black eye I've ever seen. Couldn't see out of his right eye for two weeks. Took us about a month to put the J-3 back together. This at a speed of maybe 40 mph.

I think the guys in that DH were extraordinarilly lucky.

RG

They were VERY lucky.

quote:

Originally posted by RG Rhodes:
That coulda been a whole lot worse.

The old flight instructor I had at a rural strip whould regularly fly to his house for lunch. He would take off, just clear the fenced road that crossed at the end of the runway, chop the throttle, and set down in his pasture on the other side. Total flight time, about 30 seconds. One fine day, he forgot that he had turned his cows loose into that pasture and ended up centerpunching Bossy with the J-3.

Killed the cow, broke an arm and a leg, and walked around on crutches for a couple of months. He was also sporting the damndest black eye I've ever seen. Couldn't see out of his right eye for two weeks. Took us about a month to put the J-3 back together. This at a speed of maybe 40 mph.

I think the guys in that DH were extraordinarilly lucky.

RG

On top of everything else, it sounds like he hadn't buckled up. You solo a cub from the back seat, so what could he get a black eye from? It would have to be from the front of the airplane, so how'd he get up there? Guess he kept flying a little longer than the airplane did!

Looks to me like the Moth pilot did a good job, I suspect he was hoping he'd clear the cow as it looked to me like the leading edge of the wing must have either cleared the cow or just grazed its head. I didn't see the fabric wrinkle or flex but you do see the aileron jump up for a moment. One of those split second decisions when you have an engine problem, do you land straight ahead no matter what is there or do you try to miss it and risk killing yourself even more? I think I read the cow was uninjured, but as was mentioned it sure got knocked arse over teakettle there!

Not to worry; it's only the new Extreme Cow Tipping reality show.