My beautiful little Fisher FP101 is broken! 

Click on picture to enlarge.  More pictures below story.

 On May 2nd at 7:32 am I took off from EZI under clear skies and 3 miles visibility on runway #1 for a flight north of Kewanee and east over to my cousin Dave Jackson's farm.  There was a slight North wind blowing at no more than 5 mph and the air was smooth.  When I arrived at Dave's strip I decided to land on #09 and made one low pass over the house to let him know I was there and circled to line up for the runway.  As I descended I noticed that I was not going to land on the "numbers" but further on down the runway. Didn't feel there was any problem as I had done this many times before.  The wind was not very noticeable even though it was supposed to be a cross wind so I proceeded with the landing.  I didn't touch down until at least the first third of the runway was behind me but still I had done it many times before and knew it would slow very quickly once it was on the grass.  Trouble was, it wasn't slowing down and now there was 2/3rds of the runway behind me and I was still rolling pretty good.  I was still in the mental landing mode and made the quick decision to keep trying to stop it as the trees at the end of the runway were looming up and I didn't think I would be able to get back in the air and clear them.  When it finally dawned on me that this plane was not going to stop even though I had the brakes on and I'd better try something.  I tried to make a right turn and attempt to roll out on the north south taxiway and it did veer somewhat but not enough to complete the turn and I rolled into the saplings in spite of everything I tried.  As it was evident that I was going to hit pretty hard at the last second I threw my arms up in front of my face and yelled "NOOOOOOOO" (but it didn't do any good either) and felt the impact as I went in.  The saplings were from 3" to 4" diameter and the first one tore the left wing off completely.  That seemed to stop me and when I lowered my arms I noticed the cowling was pointing down at about a 30 degree angle and that the fuselage had separated at the top of the cabin.  This allowed the nose to bend down.  I shut off the power and, closed the main gas valve and climbed out.  Checked myself all over but could find no injury and thanked the Lord for that.  It is what sustains me even now after the fact that I was perfectly OK.  I don't remember doing it and I think it was coincidence that  the nose went perfectly between two trees and hit nothing.

 Called Dave who wasn't home and he returned to help me pick up the wreckage and move it into one his buildings.  In trying to find out why it wouldn't slow down we noticed his wind sock was switching from North to WNW and probably was the reason coupled with wet grass.  The tail wind must have been it.  Am glad that I didn't try to take back off as I am not confident even now that I would have developed enough lift to clear the trees.  It would not have been a good ride to the ground after that.

 What to do now.........

 .George Cole

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