On the christmas eve of '95 occured the most exciting event ever in my "life".. I was on my second solo cross country, from Austin to Brownwood to Temple and back to Austin.. I left Austin at 11:20, reached Brownwood at 12:41.. Stopped there for about 20 mins, had some food,.... Took off for Temple at 13:00 was there at 13:59.. Did a touch and go at Temple and was heading back to Austin.. I had completed about 2 hrs 45 min at this point and was to be back in Austin in another 15 mins.. Exactly the estimated time before I departed Austin.. But this is when things got "interesting".. I was about 20 nm from Austin, at Round Rock.. I called Austin Approach to tell them I am landing at Robert Muller for Austin Aero.. They gave the sqwack number, and told me to land on 13L.. So, far so good.. Now, my propeller rotation was not smooth, it was almost stopping.. So, I figured this could be the carberatur icing, which I had been reading about, so applied carb heat.. Nothin seemed to improve.. Finally prop stopped totally.. I had read that the prop continue to rotate, even if the engine is out, windmill effect.. But it did not turn at all.. I was confused about the freq to transmit "Mayday", so I just barged into the Approach freq and told them I am having a problem and preparing for emergency landing.. Then I started looking for a field which seemed best for doing a landing.. I found a huge land totally clear, a freshly tilled farm land.. I was at an height of about 2500 MSL when the engine died out, so had less than 3 nm gliding distance.. I circled the field once and came in real slow.. At this point I was sure I have made it.. The back wheels touched the field, I was applying all the back pressure I could to keep the front wheels up.. Then there was a major bump which caused the nose wheel to touch the ground.. The moment this happened, the plane flipped over it's nose and stopped.. I was strapped so nothin much happened to me.. The plane was upside down, I opened the door and ran to a near by house to make calls.. But before I got far, I saw cops, EMS, fire dept,... all coming in... So, I went back to the plane told them what had happened... Then I asked them to call up the owner.. Who also came there and he was the one who brought me back to the Austin.. Well, that much for a xmas eve...
I have had my share of emergency landing, wouldn't want to try one, even for practice, ever again.. ;-))..
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