Thank God, His Head Wasn't In The Hat

While admiring a series of vintage Fairchild trainers (see "Fair Fairchilds") with PT-19 owner LCDR Joe Miller, USN (ret)., Richard Evans, a friend of Joe's, came up to us with a hair-raising prop strike story.

Evans, very, very experienced in propping airplanes, swung the prop of his Fairchild PT-19 and stepped back clear. The wind caught his custom-made PT-19 hat and it went into the prop "with a loud pop."

When he recovered the hat, it was in the condition you see here: shredded. Note the slash that runs horizontally across the front of the hat.

Evans told us that he had had a lot of pins from various fly-ins on the hat; after the propeller chowed on the hat, he couldn't find them. Even the little button on the crown of the hat was long gone.

It's a good job that his head wasn't in the hat as the propeller assaulted it; as you can see, that'd certainly leave a mark. I guess it's also a good thing that he was at Lakeland, too -- there's probably somebody in the small army of hat, badge, and t-shirt vendors here that can make him a new hat.

And let this be a warning to the rest of us, to be careful out there.

FMI: www.weedeater.com (OK, that's just a joke....)