The "smoke in the plane" thread reminded me of Doug Steen's story. Some of y'all know Doug from the Gatherings and SNF/OSH. He flies the Cirrus and a Tailwind now, but earlier it was a V-tail Bonanza and a Luscombe.
He was flying from somewhere like VA down to Deland FL in his Dragonfly (or Quickie, or whatever) at high altitude. Along the way, he developed an exhaust leak, that eventually knocked him unconscious. His plane ran fine and straight without him, until it ran out of fuel somewhere over central Florida. While he was still unconscious, the plane hit the ground at a survivable angle, but injured his legs substantially, which to this day gives him a slight limp. The funny thing is that if he'd had more fuel, the plane would have flown longer, and he probably would have died of CO poisoning. As it was, when the engine quit and the plane crashed, he eventually woke up, and survived it all. He's the only guy I know whose life was saved by a plane crash... -- Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com http://www.n56ml.com
