Strange Tail Wheel Endorsement Day

So after an intense week of training at Amelia Reid Aviation, almost 35 landings and approximately 10 hours of flying, I got my tailwheel endorsement! I can now fly any tail wheel airplane I am checked out for. Right now, I am checked out for the Bellanca Citabria.

But as usual, the day had to include strange events. In March 2007, when I was doing my first solo, I had this guy trying to land on the same runway as mine, from the OPPOSITE end! ATC noticed and immediately asked him to change course.

The open Oil compartment
Right after we took for for the first time, I noticed that the oil compartment on the nose of the airplane was OPEN! and it was flapping in and out like a butterfly’s wing. We landed, taxied out and closed it and took off again. This time, everything looked fine till I was on final just about to land and there was another airplane taking off.

Airport closed while we were in the air
About 1 mile from the airport, we see the airplane that was taking off started to roll and then just turned left and kept going over from the right runway to the grass and continued on to the left runway before it stopped. I was about to make a radio call and Tower controller called us to do a go-around. And as soon as we turned right to downwind, ATC calls to say that he is closing down the airport immediately till the accident could be assessed.

Hello! We were still in the air and asked if we could at least land? He said NOPE! Find an alternative. Even my instructor had never anything like that.

We had enough fuel so we departed south to the practice area, did some slow flight and stall maneuvers and then did a few takeoffs and landings at South County Airport. On the way back, checked Reid Hillview ATIS and the left runway had been closed but the right runway was still operational, so we landed.

Jeremy Zawodny
While I was taxiing back to parking, I see this familiar face and it was the famous Jeremy Zawodny. I waved at him, he waved back reluctantly as he did now know me. I spoke with him a little bit after shutting down the airplane and he was about to take off too.

And that was my tail wheel endorsement day.