From +14C to -42C to +13C in January. That’s a 56C temperature swing. Woo-wee! It’s way more fun than any midway ride! Unfortunately this weather pattern can cause some problems.

On January 28, I jumped in the 195 and joined Adrian in his North Star (a Super Cub clone) and we headed out for a flight. Two hours later we returned to CGB2 and I was the first to land in the light crosswind. I thought I nailed the landing but I was in for a big surprise!

As I slowed down to less than 10 mph and the rudder lost effectiveness, the crosswind pushed the tail left.

I applied left rudder and brake however; the tail continued its swing to port. The swing continued and the plane slid into the snow bank along the side of the runway. I was simply an observer as I watched the left wheel sliding sideways kicking up snow, slush and mud as I waited and hoped that the gear wouldn’t fold. It all happened in slow motion. There was no contact with the ground and no damage, so I taxied back to the hangar and shut down.

It took a while for me to settle down and figure out what happened. I settled on this explanation. While we were out flying, more snow along the east side of the runway had melted and drained across the runway. The ground was still frozen except for the top inch, or so, that the warm weather and sun had softened. With the water not soaking in, there was an extremely greasy layer of mud and water on the runway.

As I slowed down and the tail started to swing, I applied the brakes. However, the right wheel was on the drier portion of the runway.

The right wheel slowed properly on the drier surface while the left wheel started to slide with completely ineffective braking. When that happened the momentum of the tail exacerbated the swing and all I could do was hold on!

Luckily the speed was very low and there was no damage. I was so lucky that all I ended up with was a really dirty airplane that took me over six hours to clean.

Adrian landed right behind me and as soon as he touched his brakes they locked up, too. He managed to keep his plane straight. His aircraft is much lighter and has a much shorter tail so it wasn’t affected as much by the crosswind.

Lesson learned: Be very careful with muddy sloppy grass runways!