Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire I just got back from flying a plane

I found out Friday that a guy that I just started working with had his pilots liscense. Today, the pilot and me, my wife and son rented a plane to go out for an hour or so to fly over Tampa and the Skyway bridge and the beaches. When we got up to about a 1000 feet he said, the controls are yours. I ended up flying the plane, a Cessna 172 for about 45 minutes. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. I took it up to 2100 feet and got to do some U turns and went down to 850 to 900 feet over the beaches. My wife took about 75 pictures, I'll see if I can post some of the better ones. We landed at another airport, and switched seats so my wife could take the controls. She had them for about 15 minutes. Very good afternoon. We live 15 minutes from the airport, so we were in the air up until 45 minutes ago.

Envious here...that's on my to do list...too cool...

That's very cool, but I wouldn't mention being under 1000 feet over the beaches if I were you. FWIW

We were really over the water most of the time, just close to the beach and he was telling me to keep it closer to a 1000 feet.

One of my colleagues at Goodyear Aerospace was a much older fellow named Jack Peace. Jack had been a member of the first group of Navy pilots, had taught Lindbergh to use each new panel instrument as his company (Fairchild, IIRC) introduced them, and had been one of the first air-mail pilots during the hairiest first days of air mail. He hadn't flown in many years when I knew him, but he took new and intense interest in flying as a result of our many chats about flying � one of the oldest living fliers and one of the newest!

One day, he came to work from our lunch break a bit late, with enthusiasm bubbling. He rushed over to my desk and told me that he'd just gone flying with one of the many multirated aviators among us, who'd let him take the controls of that company 'plane for a while.

"To give you an idea how long it's been since I flew a 'plane," he said, "today was the first time that I've flown a 'plane with a radio, flaps, or brakes."

It's a rush. Flying for a living sure beats work.

It's the landing that is a bitch...grin

Have flown Cessna 185's & 310's and jumped from 185's but have not landed one yet.

Enjoy!

Landing is easy. Hitting a runway is the hard part.

In more ways than one!

That's why landings became my specialty, so that I became the smoothest lander in our crowd. Made some older pilots' jaws drop � how sweet that was!

After two very narrow escapes in the wake turbulence of a turbojet, smooth landings were sometimes almost erotic.

When he told me to take the controls, my reaction was "I don't want to." He told me that it would be ok so I did it. When we were going to land, I said I didn't think that was something I would want to do. He said, "well your going to have to if you want to get down." I just said "no way!' and then he started laughing. It was funny how much he was messing with me, when we were getting close to the Skyway bridge, he said "fly under it." Another No way! from me. He was having a good time. I now know where my son gets his reactions from. When we were driving up to the airport, I told my son, that we were going skydiving. I asked him if he was wearing a belt, because if he wasn't his pants would fly off before the parachute opened, and he wouldn't get out of the car, until I told him we were only flying, not jumping.

When my students were thrashing around trying to get the jet on the ground without pranging it, my favorite trick was to let the jet land itself.

I'd tell them "Don't fight the 'plane. Let it do what it wants. Watch." And then I'd set the power, add a bit of trim and let the jet fly its own way perfectly around the 180* final turn. On final, I'd adjust the power and trim and the student would ogle as I held my hands in the air as the jet sank slowly down and (with the help of the ground effect cushion) settle smoothly onto the runway.

It made them shake their heads in frustration and humility - but some of them DID learn from it, and their landings got VERY smooth.

Light civilian craft are too susceptible to wind gusts and turbulence to attempt that trick; but the 'plane will almost fly itself, even to a landing, when the air is smooth.

(Note the apostrophes, Ken. As usual, your usage is punctilious.)

There is a group called the Collings Foundation that restored and flies and takes people up for rides in a B-17,B-24,B-25. My daughter-in-laws brother is one of the co-pilots on the 17. They came into Tucson for some commeration or other several months back and for advertisement and in con-junction with the celebration they flew in some ex-WASP pilots. One said she had made many hundreds of landings in a B-24 but this was the first time she was not Pilot-In-Command. It is indeed a small world. When I was stationed at Ft.Sill I had a CO who was an avid flyer and every payday I would split the time in a Navion at the Redlegs Flying Club and we would fly. He had some kind of deal where we would get twice the time for the regular hourly price. He was a Capt. I was a Spec4 who was I to complain. Really good days. I look back and realize the Navions were totally wrung out military but at that age it was the most magnificent machine in the air.

One time, my bad goof resulted in a smooth landing on a day, at a problem airport, when no one else was gluing 'em down. Our 'planes, all light, always floated aloft after the first touch-down and touched-down several times before they finally decided to quit flying and stay down. The runway was wavy � a hill-and-hollow rippler � and the wind was gusty.

I was flying "shotgun," the first time I'd sat in the starboard seat. I didn't realize how that affected my perception of how far below my butt the runway was. The pilot that day was a veteran who'd been flying since he was twelve (at his folks' flight school) and held every rating that there was. Even his landings earlier that day were dotted lines.

I flared too soon, too high, and panicked. I shoved the yoke forward just enough, as luck would have it, to slick the tires onto the runway without the slightest discernible bump and stay there with no slow-motion rabbit hop as we rolled down the runway.

No one was more surprised than I was, but I managed to convey the notion that to me, such a landing wasn't anything to comment on.

And of course I was properly thankful that it was my last set-down of the day.
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I liked the old mechanical flaps, because they'd dump quick. If I expected a problem with float, I'd pull the handle up to "full flap," then dump 'em when the wheels touched or were about to. Never flew with electric flaps but always suspected that they'd dump slower than I'd like.

My first-ever flight was in a PBY � not my only time aloft in one of those wonderful ol' birds. They were not fast. On one cross-country flight, night caught us flying over one of the Carolinas. Our altitude wasn't high, so we had � for a while � an excellent view of a night baseball game. When I told of the experience, I claimed that we'd watched more than one inning.

I saw a lot of the US pass below B-25s and C-47s � came to love 'em but never lost my love for the PBY. Never got up in a jet until my umpteenth commercial flight.

On Kodiak, I had the pleasure of flights in Grumman "Goose" serial-number one. The Navy had flown it to the end of its official service life � and turned it over to the Coast Guard, which had done the same thing before turning it over to the Fish & Wildlife Service. The F&WS had surveyed it, too, but had had to put it back into service when another F&WS Goose got damaged and wouldn't be air-worthy again that summer.

The Norduyn "Norseman," the �

(Where'd this lump in my throat come from?)

Had a college roomate who's father was a radar instructor at Jax in PBY's during WWII. Said it was slow but at least there was only one airspeed to know. It took off at 90, cruised at 90 and landed at 90.

I don't remember what its ceiling was � not high � but many of us suspected that it could fly underwater.

Barak and I got back from flying today, too. It was an absolutely gorgeous day (still is)... great flying weather.

Our only unexpected turn of events came when Barak and I both smelled AVgas in the cockpit (Barak was flying a 172 Cessna Skyhawk). So we made an unscheduled emergency landing at the nearest airport to have it checked out. It turned out to be nothing (or at least nothing serious), so we were soon up in the air again.

We just didn't want an engine fire at 6500 feet up! That's a bit too much excitement for me...

Penny

That's great... nothing like low and slow! I was handed the controls for the first time at age nine and did a credible job. Landing is definitely the trickier part (grin).

Another interesting thing about today's flight with Penny. I was flying, probably between five and six thousand feet above the ground, and Penny was dozing. (We'd just eaten at a small airport restaurant, the engine was droning, the sun was shining, very slight turbulence was gently rocking us occasionally, the cabin was warm--you'd sleep too.)

This next part all happened in about one second, maybe quicker--much shorter than it takes to tell. I glanced forward and saw a tiny black dot on the horizon against the haze. I said to myself, "Ah: traffic. Which way is it going?" Instantly, the dot expanded alarmingly fast. I say alarmingly, but I really didn't have enough time to get alarmed before--SPLAT!--it flew right through the propeller and burst against the windshield directly in front of my face.

A big fat bug, for some reason flying along at over five thousand feet above ground level.

Why? Didn't do him any good...

One of the student pilots at the University of Alaska was one of the luckiest fliers whom I've ever known. His solo cross-countries were classics. He'd take-off for Nenana (southish) and find himself at Fort Yukon (northish). That had everybody muttering, since for anybody else, even a slight navigation error in interior Alaska would result in nothing but spruces as far as the eye could see.

I don't know where he was headed the day that he landed dead-stick both at Nenana and back at Fairbanks. When he didn't come on to the terminal, a small army trooped down to the end of the runway to see whether he was all right.

Obviously befuddled, he told how the flight had been uneventful until the propeller had gone boink! (his term) and quit spinning. Fortunately, there was the Nenana strip, near and dead-ahead. On the ground, he'd checked everything that he could think of checking, and found nothing amiss. The 'plane cranked-up all right, so he took-off and continued on.

Once again, the propeller had gone boink! and quit spinning. Fortunately, there was the good ol' Fairbanks strip, near and dead-ahead. He landed � just � and was again checking to see what'd gone wrong.

"Did you have your carburetor heat on?" someone asked him.

"Carburetor heat?"

----------------------------

That was a club 'plane. He later got his own and on one of his first hops in it, landed it at Fort Yukon � a loooooong strip where Scandinavia-bound commercial over-the-pole flights refueled.

Accustomed to short strips, he landed short and was taxiing the length of the strip. Sunny winter day, warm inside the Plexiglas. He fell asleep and taxied off into the junk yard.

Flying offers unlimited opportunities to goof-up.