Dear All Commander Owners.

How would you have handled this situation?
I arrived in Orlando Fla Friday night and checked in at the FBO, on Saturday I had to take my great nephews from the UK for a quick ride.
On landing everything was fine, a typical smooth Commander landing, on roll out I had a flat tire.
Unable to leave the runway to the right I was forced to exit on a short taxiway to the left.
Not wanting to mess up a good tire, I stopped and notified the tower that I had a flat. They were great and just closed the runway and advised me that there was no big rush.
They notified the FBO and advised me that they would be out there.

They arrived and the only one that spoke English had no idea what to do.
I requested an air tank so we could try to blow up the tire as it had not blown. After about an hour they still had no idea what to do. I suggested the air tank again and may be a tug.
I explained to them that we had a perfectly good Commander with nothing wrong but a bad inner tube. And that we were not going to do $10,000.00 worth of damage removing it. We only had to go 100 feet to get off the active runway. Three of them talking on three cell phones in Spanish.
They came back with a fuel truck that had an air compressor on it and a very old tug. The tower was pissed off with them because they would not use correct procedure. They tried to hook the tug up to the Commander but the things were too large to fit in the hole in the nose wheel.
I explained that we could use the tow bar that I had.

They were very stubborn, I demanded that I try to blow up the tire.
I blew it up and looked like it may last a while, then it went down.
I explained to them that if it would stay up for four minutes we could move the plane off the active, and then blow it up again, if the fuel truck with the air compressor just followed behind.

This we did with four Mexicans pushing the plane and myself running behind. We arrived at the closest FBO and just parked. No damage.

Monday morning I had to drive a couple of hours to pick up a new inner tube and got it installed for 69.00. A good price for 1.75 hours of labor.

Went back to the first FBO and fueled up.

Total charges were fuel and the $69.00, I was very happy with that.

What a freak situation. The tires were all checked on Thursday, and blown up to 38 pi.

Do I need to carry a spare tire and tube? Also a Jack?

I flew back to Georgia last night and all was fine.
This Morning I had to go to Tallahassee Fla.
My transponder was not working very well, they decided to punish me.
I was IFR. They made me report every intersection, every reaching altitude. It was good practice.
I left there about 4 PM and the same thing again. The transponder was working fine on the ground. In the air the same crap, good practice though.

On leaving Tallahassee they requested that I do not return until I get the transponder fixed.
I arrived back in Albany Georgia only to not get a green on the right main.

Did the usual crap, flew by the tower, I am so confident about the THUDS that I hear when the gear goes down, I was not that concerned.

A great feeling when you land and all is well.

I have the gear thing fixed, just a broken wire.

Flying a Commander makes life so interesting.

Ken Andrew.



N377SB, '77 112B Hotshot, S/N 526