Many of you know that John Rodkey of the "fearless Aeronca Aviators" email list (fAA) flew from Santa Barbara to the Cactus Fly-in held every March in Casa Grande Arizona. He was in his Aeronca Chief, nicknamed "Tacky" that he had just finished a three year complete ground up restoration in several months ago. Weather was a bit difficult on Saturday and became worse on Sunday, with high winds and rain coming in from the West. Guess which direction John needed to fly?
He took off on Sunday and headed home. Got as far as Buckeye (aka the Western part of Phoenix) and decided to wait it out overnight. Took off on Monday heading West. He made it to the Blythe California area where the weather started getting difficult, with rain and clouds everywhere. Tried to make it to the North to get around mountains and restricted areas but could not so he circled down South intending to land at Desert Center, a "hole in the wall" airport with no services but at least a reasonable runway and place to wait out the rain.
As he was heading that direction he noticed a playa ahead, one of the many so called "dry lakes" in this area. They are dry 99% of the time. Unfortunately they are NOT dry after a heavy rain and John did not know that it had been raining for days, if not weeks in this area.
He landed and did the right thing in holding the stick full back and doing a three point stall landing. Once he touched down he realized that the "dry lake" was not very dry that day and the airplane soon sunk down into the mud to its axles on the main and the tailwheel (a small hard version) was well below the surface. It was almost to the base of the rudder in the back.
He waited the rain out then tried to get the airplane out but there was no way this was going to happen, especially with his being alone and in these conditions. Luckily for him his daughter was driving from Tucson back home, so he called her and she headed in his direction. He then began the 3-4 mile walk out to the closest road and the long drive home. No way to tie the airplane down, he turned the tail into the wind and left it there.
After he arrived home he posted his situation on the fAA email list, which goes out to people around the world. I woke up on Monday and was here at the house with an old friend of mine, Grant Mann. He is a former crop duster and “can do” type of person. We chatted with it for a bit and he then said “you want to go get the plane out don’t you?” and my reply was “remember my old Chief and what happened to it? It will take the other guys several days to get going, so lets go get it up in the air and safe in a hangar somewhere tomorrow before something happens to it.”
My first Chief after a wind storm pulled the tie down chains out and slammed the plane up and down a couple of times. It never flew again…
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