Tom C.
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2019
- Messages
- 105
- Reaction score
- 51
Flying off to Winterhaven for a bite today I started hearing a strange sound just south of Lakeland. At first it sounded like a bag of Lays being slowing crushed. Then it turned into the rat-a-tat-tat of microscopic bits of gravel falling from the sky onto the roof of my plane. Only there was nothing hitting the windshield so the gravel theory went out the door. It got more persistent and seemed to be getting louder (or we were more focused) and the wife was asking questions and my repeated "i have no idea" responses didn't seem very PIC so I made the command decision to get on the ground. I turned to lakeland, advised the tower I had an unfamiliar noise and wanted to land. He got me straight in, offered to roll the equipment(!) or at least tow us in and in a few minutes we were on the ground. As we taxied to the fbo a truck came out and inspected the runway in case we had left "pieces"! We shut down, looked all over the plane for God knows what and found nothing, until the line guy noticed a string of black caulk about 8 inches long that had come lose on the top of the windshield. I pulled if off. We were back in the air and all is well. Amazing that little strip flapping in the 120kt breeze could produce such a noise! If you ever hear that noise now you know where to start looking. About as much excitement as we've had flying in a while!
