From Hero to Slug
From Hero to Zero in 24 Hours
Above is my new CAP name plate. I’ve lost the old one. It said CAPT John “Slug” Tenney. Yeah there’s a story behind it.
Here’s how it happened:
A Hero
It’s been repainted but imagine in it a white overall with light blue and dark blue stripes
I was in one of the CAP Flying planes, N4238F (a Cherokee Warrior 151 – see above), waiting to depart from Page Field in Fort Myers (KFMY). I was heading home from a business trip. I called ground and asked for taxi. They told me to stand by, the airport was closed for an emergency inbound, maybe a downed aircraft.
Me: “I’m a CAP mission pilot, current and qualified. Can I offer assistance?”
FMY_GND: “Are you DF equipped?”
Me: “Yes I have a DF”
(OK I had an ADF receiver. I know that’s not what he meant. He meant did I have a custom designed RDF receiver – Radio Direction Finder, see picture below. It’s a device that CAP uses to find Emergency Locator Transmitters, also known as ELTs. However, I had been trained to use something called the “wing null” method with standard radios.”)
This is a current CAP Cessna 172 with the RDF unit mounted on the right behind the yoke. Best picture I could find.
This looks very much like what I had in the Cherokee, minus the fancy GPS of course.
They cleared me to taxi, an immediate departure and vectored me to join a Lee County police helicopter who was doing a random search. I coordinated with the helicopter crew and they confessed they didn’t know much about searching and were basically just flying around listening to the ELT.
I sent them off in one direction and I began the wing null method. I did a 30 degree bank turn, for 360 degrees (a full circle). I noted the headings where the signal was weakest. In fact it almost disappeared twice. As expected these two headings were 180 degrees apart.
I flew another mile and did it again. This time I got two different headings, a few degrees off from before. I was able to triangulate and determined that the ELT was off to my right, on a certain bearing.
I called the helicopter and told him I had a bearing and to follow me. Shortly, we came upon a Beech A36 Bonanza, looking completely intact but nose down in a ditch. The pilot was standing on the wing.
The helicopter crew informed me that they could take it from here, but thank you very much! “We never would have found him without you.”
Accolades
Fort Myers approach thanked me, congratulated me for the “Find”, (when a CAP pilot finds a downed aircraft, it’s called a “Find”, and I even got a ribbon for it) and passed me on to Miami Center.
“Congratulations on the find! Cleared direct to Orlando.” they said. Wow.
They handed me to Orlando Approach, “Hey 4238F great job on the find! You’re #1 for the airport, cleared direct.”
Orlando Tower said; “Hey great job! You’re #1 cleared to land runway 7”
Ground even congratulated me.
In case you’re wondering, this NEVER happens.
It felt good! For a day …
The Fall From Grace
The next day I was soloing a student, and as I used to do as a normal procedure, I got out of the plane at the runup area of runway 7 with my trusty handheld radio.
This is the new version. Mine didn’t have the fancy LCD display back in the early 90s.
Ground called me and wanted to know what I was doing there. I clicked on transmit and the radio shut off. I turned it on again, tried again and I got the same result. Uh oh, short in the transmit switch.
I decided to walk in to Executive Air Center. I walked around Golf, cut across the grass next to the pond, and was walking down Foxtrot when the ground vehicle picked me up. It was Old Harry if any of you remember him. Super nice guy.
“Hey John, tower wants to talk to you. Stand by.” He used the speaker / cell phone (very rare and expensive in those days) and I recognized a certain guys voice. Oh no. My least favorite tower controller, name withheld to protect the guilty, he could be a real jerk.
“Do you realize you just had an incursion on to an active runway?” I said, “No, I didn’t go near any of the runways.” He said, “Yes you did. When you walked across the grass you got within 100 feet of Runway 13.” OK that was ridiculous. 13 wasn’t active, and 100 feet? Seriously? I apologized and said it won’t happen again. I explained about the transmitter malfunction and he said “Yeah well that practice is stopping. No more getting out of the airplane. (Note: about a week later a memo came out saying it was “preferred” that instructors do not get out of the airplane any more, and in fact were welcome to come over to the tower, which used to be on top of the Showalter terminal.) He then dropped the hammer. “You’re a CAP pilot right? You need to discuss this with your squadron commander.”
That wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation. I was currently in a dogfight with the Lt. Col for control of the squadron and I just knew he was going to use this against me. And he did. When I called him and told him about it, he “grounded” me and told me to contact the FAA for a form 609 check ride. (I think it’s called 709 now, but basically it’s a reinstatement for remedial training. It went on my record too …
Enter the Slug
Finally, at the next meeting, the squadron commander was replaced by Lt. Zee Delic, who was an excellent guy. He asked me to recant the story of what happened. I told this story and summed up with “I went from Hero to Slug in one day.”
The squadron burst in to laughter and my nickname was born.