Page 19 - mmopaMJ21

removed, all of the associated wiring and antennas were still in the plane. We took the opportunity to remove all of that to clean up the exterior as well as to gain some useful load. In the end, we only gained about 10 pounds by weighing what was removed. Frankly, that was less than we had hoped. We are going to have the plane weighed
in hopes of that getting a bit better and also to start with a fresh weight and balance sheet after new paint, panel, and interior.
We were able to eliminate a few
of the original rocker switches and consolidate the rest into a single panel, which turned out very nicely.
To keep the panel nice and clean, we moved the pilot and copilot head- phone jacks from the panel to the side wall just behind the cockpit seats, which worked out well.
Dianne: Talk about your planning and design process for paint and interior.
Dean & Tammie Jo: We started where just about every shopping experience seems to start these days, on the inter- net. We scrolled through hundreds of Malibu pictures, and we were all over the map on the paint scheme. We seri- ously considered going retro and just keeping the original design and colors. We also considered (although not very seriously) painting it to look like a Southwest jet. While we would have enjoyed it, we realized others may not share our appreciation for that design when it came time to sell.
Ultimately, we took elements from different Malibu designs, some factory and others aftermarket, and melded them into our own. That process started on a notepad with colored pencils and was eventually refined to a finished product by Jimmy Grif-
fin at Murmer Aircraft Services. The colors are Matterhorn white over Black Velvet with Light Burgundy and Medium Cashmere accent stripes. We saw a picture of a beautiful JetPROP with similar colors and realized they complimented our interior colors
very well. The lines of the Malibu are classic and elegant, and we wanted
MMOPA MAGAZINE
MAY / JUNE 2021 19
Tammie Jo Shults: Keep Calm & Keep Flying the Plane
On the morning of April 17, 2018, Tammie Jo Shults was captain for a Southwest Airlines flight from New York to Dallas. Ironically, she was not scheduled to fly that day, instead replac- ing her husband Dean for this trip. When a left engine fan blade separated during cruise flight, it exploded the inner containment shield, peeled back the engine cowl and pierced the left side of the fuselage. The violent depressurization partially pulled a belted passenger out of a failed window, resulting in her tragic death.
As every news outlet reported that day, Shults was able to successfully execute an emer- gency landing at Philadelphia International Airport. What wasn’t widely reported was how badly crippled the aircraft was, and how Shults and co-pilot Darren Ellisor struggled to regain control due to the tremendous airframe damage.
“The failure was sudden and very violent. The airplane snapped left and we were able to stop it passing 40 degrees. There was this tremendous shudder, so bad that we couldn’t read anything,” she recalled. “It wasn’t just a sudden loss of thrust on one side, it was basically a barn door in a hurricane from the engine cowling that was peeled back and remained attached. Since we were at high altitude, the airplane was squirrely with the tremendous amount of yaw that was induced.”
Habits on good days become instinct on bad days. Instincts take no time and gives you bandwidth to move on to something else that requires a little more creativity to solve.
Shults also said they also were dealing with smoke in the cockpit, severed hydraulic and fuel lines, not to mention the explosive decompression caused by the fuselage breach. It wasn’t until they were passing through 8,000 feet, did they learn about the passenger, with flight crew pleading for them to slow down so they could pull her back inside the cabin.
“As we got down lower, we were more of a glider than we knew. But when we added power, it was pushing us severely left to the point where I had less and less rudder authority. So, we had to pull our power back further. I didn’t want to change the wing too much because of the damage, so I opted for flaps 5, which is minimal drag and optimal lift,” Shults said. She added that they were still 10,000 pounds overweight and didn’t have time to pull out the single-engine before landing checklist but knew instinctually the tasks that needed to be done.
“Some advice I’d give to fellow pilots would be when you are practicing emergency proce- dures, take the time to think about why that switch is being switched. Why is it on the memory items? What’s the reason behind it?” she said. “Also, dedicate yourself to regularly practice those emergency procedures on the ground or in the air. Habits on good days become instinct on bad days. Instincts take no time and gives you bandwidth to move on to something else that requires a little more creativity to solve.”
Tammie Jo was one of the first female Navy aviators to qualify in the F/A-18 Hornet. She also flew the A-7 Corsair. Because of the combat exclusion policy in place at the time, she instructed as well as flew training missions as the aggressor pilot. She married fellow Navy aviator Dean Shults, and launched her career at Southwest Airlines.
In addition to her military background and training, she credits something not found on any checklist. “We act on what we believe. I did believe that if this was my final hour, I’d make it my best and just pay attention to what I had to do.”
You can find her book “Nerves of Steel” at major book outlets.