While instructing in a J-3 many years ago, I made a perfect landing. It was particularly memorable because it evolved from a really bad approach, which I also made. My student and I were at two thousand feet, practicing stalls. All was going well except for my student’s annoying habit of pulling the throttle back too abruptly, which on one occasion inspired the engine to protest with what appeared to be a gentle cough. On a summer’s day with the clamshell door wide open, communication was difficult at best. I leaned forward toward my student in the front seat and, very loudly, asked her to stop pulling the throttle back so abruptly.
She turned around in her seat, obviously confused.
Again, still loudly, I asked her to be gentle with the throttle.
“Why?” she asked over the roar of the engine and wind entering the cockpit.
“Because you might kill the engine!” I hoped my simple yet alarming answer would reach her through the roar of the wind and engine.
“I don’t understand!” Her confusion continued.
“Don’t do this!” With her hand on the knob, I jerked the throttle back to the stop with an excess of instructive energy and held it until both the roar of the wind and engine lessened, and she could at least hear me. I don’t know why, maybe because my explanation took a bit too long, but even as I spoke, the wooden propeller suddenly slowed and came to a stop, surprisingly proving my point.
My student was immediately alarmed and informed me in a really loud and worried voice that the propeller had stopped! I kept my cool and told her to hang on as I dropped the nose and accelerated to a speed I was sure would cause the propeller to windmill, but nothing happened. I stuck the nose down even further, and yet the prop was absolutely still, as if frozen in place. Finally, becoming a bit worried, I stood the J-3 on its nose and began kicking the rudder back and forth, trying to get the propeller to windmill, but nothing I did helped; it was hung up on a compression stroke. I couldn’t believe my bad luck because the ground was rapidly approaching , and I needed to move forward to Plan B! In the meantime, my student, calm and apparently resolved to her fate, turned around in her seat and told me to forget it, that the engine wasn’t going to start and that I should pick a field and land. It was too late, there was little or no altitude left to pick a proper field.
Not to far away was a field of mature oats, which I believed the Cub had little chance of reaching, but I was desperate because we were now beneath the tops of the nearest trees and there was what appeared to be a gravel road ahead of us. I told my student to hold tightly at the very same moment she yelled that there were powerlines straight ahead. I didn’t see the powerlines, but I saw the farm fence directly ahead and aimed the gear at the top strand of wire, in the process slipping deftly beneath the powerlines and dropping into the oats, our flying energy exhausted.
A few moments later, my student and I crawled from the J-3 and stared at each other, smiling, maybe even laughing, but certainly shaken, maybe even stirred. I was a bit upset with myself for trying to restart the Cub when I should have just picked a field and landed. Indeed, it was probably the worst approach I had ever made, but it was a perfect landing!