That Deer Ain't Stopped Runnin' Yet

It was a beautiful evening, perfect for flying, soft, warm, and still. Just enough clouds to light up a sunset. Two couples decided that dinner out would be just the thing, and we knew a restaurant only 50 miles away that featured the best pies ever created by the hand of man. (Well, woman, actually, a teeny wizened old Polish grandma.)

It was my turn for the left seat, and my wife carefully scanned for traffic at the uncontrolled airport. One of our friends in the back seat had flown with us often, his girlfriend rarely. The sun was just touching the horizon as I turned onto final. I was concentrating on a perfect approach and touchdown, both for braggin' rights and to help bolster our relatively inexperienced passenger's confidence.

Yess! I rolled it on with style, right down the centerline. We were down to about 50 MPH and I was mentally patting myself on the back when my friend said distinctly, "Deer to the left."

He did not shout, nor did he gabble incomprehensibly. He's a man who really likes to be in control, has done a lot of autocross, likes performance cars. So it must have pretty tough to just sit there in the back seat, with nothing to do other than bring the problem to my attention; he concentrated on doing that as superbly as he could.

My head snapped left. A small herd of whitetail was bounding up to the edge of the runway, and one of them was staring right into my eyes as he bolted in front of the airplane.

I do not recall steering the airplane. I stomped the right rudder pedal to the floor, and almost before it hit the stop I hit the left. The net result is that the airplane did not appear to yaw at all; rather, it simply translated a few yards to the right. I was still inhaling to swear when there was a tik! noise and the deer appeared in the right-side windows. If they were bounding before, they were in stage-5 afterburner now, and they vanished in moments.

Shaking, I regained the centerline and took the first turnoff onto the parallel taxiway. We sat there for a few moments while the adrenaline aftershocks thundered through our systems. "Suppose we ought to see if the runway's clear?" said my wife. A slight rise prevented us from seeing the surface where the deer had crossed.

So, with all our lights blinking and shining, we taxied back down the runway, calling on the radio from time to time. As we hove over the rise, we saw a small patch of hide on the runway. Ten feet farther on, looking for all the world like someone had claimed the runway for Deer Nation, a larger patch of hide sat with the white-tufted tail sticking straight up out of it.

It wasn't big enough to be a hazard, so we taxied on by and got dinner. Departing, my wife made really really sure the area was deer-free before she hit the throttle.

Now, though, I regret not picking up the pieces. I suppose we could paint a little whitetail symbol on the side of the fuselage, but stringing the tail on the ADF antenna wire would have been so much classier!