I Learned About Flying From That: It Couldn’t Happen to Me

Bob Tymczyszyn

Tuesday, July 02, 2013 at 10:12 PM ET

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Key Takeaways:

An experienced pilot nearly crashed his antique Buhl Bull Pup during a public landing due to over-controlling its sensitive rudder and misusing brakes, an incident he attributed to complacency.
Contributing factors included conflicting muscle memory developed from recent helicopter training and a lack of recent flight time dedicated to the Buhl.
The author emphasizes that even highly seasoned aviators are vulnerable to complacency and must prioritize dedicated, current practice in specific aircraft to prevent dangerous errors.

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My family has owned a 1931 Buhl Bull Pup single-place, open-cockpit “flying bathtub” since 1969. I was 16 when I won the youngest-pilot award at Merced’s Antique Fly-In in 1970.

I’ve been flying this little antique airplane all my life. A few weekends ago, I came as close as you can to rolling it (and myself) up into a ball right in front of about 2,000 people (and 2,000 cameras) at the FlaBob Flying Circus — as close as you can come, that is, without finally doing so. The little Buhl, thankfully, is unscathed. Not so my ego.