The Legend of One Shot

By Steve Bill Hanshew

“One Shot” Geraughty was his name. How he got that name is our story. Sean Patrick Geraughty better be Irish, or I’ll eat my handheld Garmin and the only such pilot to make a unique mark on instrument flying history. Before young Sean was a pilot, he was an aircraft mechanic although he soon found that he was a better pilot than mechanic. His first job out of A&P school was at a little FBO working on flight school 150’s and 172’s.  

This was a strange place for Sean since he didn’t like to get dirty and had a Hughes-like phobia about hand washing. He would show up to work impeccably dressed looking more like a teller at a bank than someone tasked to bleed the brake system of a worn-out Cessna. He did things according to the book (the approved maintenance manual) and became frustrated when it didn’t turn out the way the book said. His last official act in his short stint as an aircraft mechanic was to take a freshly overhauled engine mounted to a Cherokee 140 and break it in. His boss told him to get to it and Sean dutifully pushed the Piper out onto the ramp, but prior to starting up the Cherokee, Sean took an alcohol swab and meticulously cleaned the yoke, throttle, and mixture, since God knows what germs had been left behind and what infested cretin might have left them.  

After 15 minutes of silence emanating from the ramp, Sean finally wandered into the hangar. In his whiny, nasally voice he exclaimed, “I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything but that Piper just won’t start.” The Chief Mech’ asked if the engine did anything and Sean replied, “Nothing! I turn the key and nothing happens.” The old mechanic walked out to the Piper and unlatched the top cowl, peering inside with his Maglite. He then slowly raised his head and turned to Sean with a taciturn expression that begged for speech. “Sean, old buddy, it would run a lot better if it had a starter!” Sean had forgotten to reinstall it.  

After a short counseling session Sean was encouraged to take his newly-acquired multi-engine rating and seek employment with a 135 operator across the ramp, the old mech’ commenting that he would do fine since Piper had been wise in designing the Aztec; they had installed two starters. Incredible as it was, especially to an insecure phobic like Sean, he was hired and soon proved himself a capable “cancelled check” pilot with a knack for on-time reliability. His instrument skills were legendary and it was said that he could hit MDA on a SDF approach, single-engine, in a 30-knot gale! Like a Tennessee spike pitcher struck down by a hard-shelled Baptist Preacher, in a Shady Holler’ tent meeting – Sean had found his calling. His regular run was Cincinnati-Lunken to Dekalb-Peachtree five times a week and it got so that old Sean could fly Victor 97 southbound, in the dead of night, vectored to the ILS for 20L, while eating a snack, singing songs, or dead asleep.  

Don’t get me wrong, were not talking Ernie Gann here. Sean was still a whiny nebbish who packed a personal “dust devil” in order to vacuum out the cockpit before every flight, and carried a carton of alcohol swabs that he religiously used to sterilize the entire cockpit until it smelled like the Mayo Clinic. Yet, he still garnered the respect of all charter pilots despite his plethora of bizarre quirks, even when he made baloney sandwiches using surgical gloves, carefully wrapping them in three layers of Saran wrap.   

The night of legend began like any other with a routine check run down to Peachtree from Cincy’. On this night the weather at Dekalb was going up and down the scale from a ¾ mile visibility to ¼ mile in a matter of minutes like a curtain on a bad burlesque act. One moment someone would make it in at the required 20L ¾ mile minimum, and the pilot would sing out to everyone, “It’s at mins’”, while the next three approaches went missed. The holding pattern over GORST intersection looked like amateur night at the Midwest Hayride. Into this goat rope of chaos and foul weather flew our obsessive-compulsive hero – One Sean Patrick Geraughty.   

As he had done a thousands time before Sean had already dialed in the localizer just after sucking the gear off Lunken and simply verified the setting, taking a quick glance around the panel to insure all other indications were in the norm. Four miles out, Sean let down to 2,900 ft and waited to cross the final approach fix at CHAMB. He captured the glideslope at CHAMB and dropped the gear as the old Aztec shuddered slightly feeling its legs in the breeze; power back, on glidepath, and as he glanced at the ILS face, as usual the needles were crosshaired, ala’ William Tell.  

Now it was just a matter of riding the beam down to decision height. The Metro ahead of him called “missed” and joined the parade at GORST, while Sean kept his Piper twin trimmed to “slow and hope for better”. At 250 ft and ¾ of a mile he looked up and searched for something that resembled the approach lights. The pilots ahead of him had already jacked the runway lights up to high via the mike, so he continued a quick scan for something that would allow him in. As he was about to bag it and head to GORST a glimmer of a string of lights appeared out of the mist and in a matter of milliseconds took on the definition of a runway end.  

Sean throttled back to idle, crossed the threshold and squeaked it like the pro he was. The Saratoga behind him keyed the mike with a frustrated expletive and went missed. Although this was a textbook ILS successfully completed by a professional pilot, there is absolutely nothing worthy of historic note here, with maybe one slight exception that the pilot always wore batting gloves while he flew.  

On face value, this wasn’t historic, but just another textbook ILS down to minimums with one exception, especially after the mechanic met Sean at his plane. Sean was hustling to the FBO’s restroom in order to wash is hands when he heard the mechanic yell, “Hey, Geraughty how’d you get in here?” Sean stopped, “Just lucky, I guess.” The mechanic shook his head and laughed, “Lucky, I guess, you must have had a seeing-eye dog!” Sean followed the motioning of the mechanic up to the open cockpit door. The mech’ shined his flashlight down to where he had just removed the screws to the ILS instrument face and then he slowly pulled it out from its opening in the panel. It came out easily, since all connectors had been cut and tie-wrapped. The mech’ whistled, “I don’t know how you did it, but this head has been logged out of commission since yesterday; it’s not even hooked up!” Sean’s face turned pale as he realized that the crosshairs remained frozen perfectly on target with no “inop” flags showing anywhere on the instrument face.  

Needless to say after that night, a tale was born and a fastidious attention to maintenance logbooks renewed by the man who legend would remember as “One Shot” Geraughty.