New Pilot

Learning through observation

A pilot with whom I sometimes fly suffers from a malady common to part-time aviators: His skill level exceeds his confidence. The skill is there because he is a dutiful student of the flying art. The lack of confidence is there because his flights are rare and sporadic — neither of which is conducive to comfort.

A recent flight brought him closer to a higher opinion of his piloting. He rode as a passenger (and, therefore, observer) with another pilot on a business trip. No nagging instructors; just two guys, an airplane, a sectional chart, and a destination — the way flying's supposed to be. So imagine the fellow's shock on discovering that the more senior pilot was "all over the place," both vertically and horizontally, and seemed not the least bit concerned about the slovenly technique he was demonstrating to his now-aghast companion.

This is why, I said to him, I like to get student pilots up in the air with newly certificated private pilots, or certificated pilots of approximately equal experience in the air together, as a learning experience different from the usual training runs. Call it perspective for the pilot who has experienced only the training environment, where everyone (including the instructor) is on his best behavior. This is one reason why at many flight schools backseats are made available to students to observe someone else receiving dual instruction, but that is not the same as observing when the flight is to be "informal." A common complaint student pilots and new pilots share is that they often know how only two people fly: themselves and their CFI. They say that it would be helpful to know how other people fly.

Bringing someone along to occupy a backseat on a training flight has always struck me as a good idea (although not on all kinds of training missions), but anecdotes such as that told by the pilot mentioned above helped me to appreciate the value of having pilots of similar experience fly together when the goal was not training, but simply flying. I remembered that when I was a student pilot, a young woman a few weeks ahead of me in the flight school's program earned her certificate and immediately placed me on her "people to take for a ride" list. The day came, and I was impressed and encouraged by her smooth flying, easy confidence on the radio, and the sureness and accuracy with which she circumnavigated the boundary of Boston's outer airspace (back in the perished days before GPS, when visual checkpoints and VOR cross-radials were the way not to stray).

The educational essence of such flights is not always so reassuring. A private pilot who had acquired some bad habits early in his flying, and labored mightily to break them but was having trouble understanding just what coordination really meant (in the seat of the pants, not the brain, where it all seemed to make sense), called me up. In a triumphant voice he declared that finally he understood what mean old Dan had been hollerin' about all this time. The revelation occurred not in a dual session, but as a passenger, invited along by another pilot on a pleasure outing. The pilot who invited him had flown "with his feet in his pockets," as the old-timers say of the uncoordinated. For once, having nothing to do but sit and watch (and suffer an hour of sideslipping turns and unnecessary aileron wiggling), the difference between smooth technique and a near brush with airsickness hit home. We were both delighted, especially at his having escaped (by a few minutes) any ill effects of the opportunity.

This brought up a secondary question: Would it have been appropriate to comment to the other pilot on his observations? I think so, but you decide for yourself. As a guest in the cockpit, bearing neither the expense nor the responsibility for the flight, it would perhaps seem a bit rude. So would a bout of airsickness, I suppose, but at least that would be involuntary and could be blamed on "bumps." Safety wasn't an immediate concern, although a pilot who cannot sense when his airplane isn't flying in the same direction it is pointing might occasionally make interesting touchdowns. I suggested that an alternative might be to reciprocate with an invitation to fly and see if he noticed any difference in their techniques. (It has always struck me as funny how many rough-handed pilots mistake nice technique for unusually smooth air).

The "whether to speak up" issue is important, if thorny. A member of a small flying club went flying with one of his peers and was dismayed to witness the other pilot's lack of proficiency. The shortcoming made itself most apparent in flat, fast, skippy, directionally unstable landings. The remedy for the pilot, who flew rarely and practiced procedures even more seldom, was obvious: Invest a few bucks in a traffic pattern workout. But here again the other pilot kept silent out of a sense that it was not his place to criticize. Meanwhile, each time the unproficient member booked time in the airplane, his former passenger uttered a silent prayer and hoped for the best.

On the positive side, the observers realized that they themselves possessed skills they had not previously recognized, as pilots and as critics of the flying art.

New Pilot's Journal: Flight of Firsts

BY MARK BAUR

In February 1983, I was an infantry officer at the Armor School at Fort Knox, Kentucky (yep, same place they keep the gold), about 30 miles south of Louisville. I had some extra time on my hands, and it was too cold to go skydiving, so I started flying lessons instead.

By the time my instructor signed me off for my first solo cross-country, I had been an infantryman for seven years. I already knew army radio procedures, and aviation procedures were not much different. I had been skydiving for four years and was closing in on gold wings for 1,000 jumps, many of them made from the Cessna 180 and the de Havilland Beaver used by the Greene County Sport Parachute Club near Bardstown, Kentucky.

In my previous tour, with the 101st Airborne Division, I had been in charge of a sort of air traffic control team. As a foot soldier, I routinely kept track of my position on the ground, using nothing but a map and compass. I recognized the flight computer as a circular slide rule, not all that different from the ones I had used in college. I had done some artillery fire control, so the wind side of the flight computer was easy to understand. All the knowledge stuff that regularly confounds students was easy for me. I was young, fit, smart, and self-confident. I must have seemed an ideal student to the flight instructor at the Elizabethtown, Kentucky, airport.

I convinced him that my cross-country should go from Elizabethtown to Lexington's Blue Grass Field, then to Frankfort's Capitol City Airport, and then back to E-town. I really wanted to stop at the grass strip in Bardstown where the jump club was, but I settled for just flying by. My instructor was a bit unsure about my flying into Lexington, since we hadn't flown into any controlled airports yet, but we rehearsed the radio calls a couple of times until he was satisfied. We talked about the weather — there wasn't much, just clear skies and winds from the south or southeast, probably getting stronger as the day progressed. I assured him that the wind didn't bother me, and he seemed satisfied with that.

Then he glanced at my flight planning sheet, which I had filled out for my entire trip — all three legs. That was a bit unusual, but Lexington to Frankfort was a short hop, and in both directions I would be paralleling the Blue Grass Parkway for most of the trip. There were places in the lower right-hand corner to write in the frequencies of the departure airport and the arrival airport. I put in the information for Lexington on one side and the information for Frankfort on the other, figuring that I didn't need to write in the frequency for Elizabethtown, since all we had was a unicom and I could write that at the top of the sheet in the "remarks" section. My instructor agreed that was OK but pointed out that "Lexington Approach" on the way in was "Lexington Departure" on the way out. I promised to remember, so he signed my logbook, and off I went.

I followed my course line exactly. My crab angle was perfect, and the checkpoints slid by within seconds of what I had calculated on my planning sheets. Actually, following the Blue Grass Parkway made it hard to get lost. There wasn't a good landmark for me to use as a cue to call Approach, so I made the best estimate I could and used my best professional pilot voice: "Lexington Approach, this is Tomahawk Two-Four-Eight-Four Papa, two-zero miles west, landing Blue Grass."

I was rewarded when the controller responded after a 15- or 20-second delay, "Radar contact, nineteen-and-a-half miles west of Lexington." I mentally calculated: 90 miles an hour, 1.5 miles a minute, 20 seconds for half a mile — I was exactly on.

My first inkling that things might not go exactly as planned came a few minutes later, when Approach asked me to turn a few degrees left and to expect a right downwind to Runway 22. I had never done right traffic before.

Five miles from the airport, Approach handed me off to the tower. Tower told me to descend to pattern altitude and to enter a right downwind for Runway 22. Now I was not just expecting right traffic. I was doing it. Then I looked down and saw Keeneland, the most famous of the Kentucky thoroughbred horse farms. I figured there were probably a dozen or so folks down there on speaking terms with the president, and I was buzzing them in a cheap airplane. I started having career flashes and wondered what I was going to do when I was cashiered for ticking off VIPs.

Then I looked out the right window of the airplane to see whether I was flying parallel to the runway. I was parallel to the runway, but I also saw a couple of Boeing 727s parked at the terminal. I had never been to an airport where big jets landed, except as a passenger.

Things were starting to go wrong. I glanced at the airspeed indicator — 100 knots on downwind. At Elizabethtown I flew downwind at 85, maybe 90. I throttled back, but then the engine sounded funny, so I put the throttle forward again. I was too overloaded to realize that after an hour's worth of cruise noise from wind and the engine, less noise — however normal — sounds odd. It didn't matter, because the tower asked me to keep my speed up, jet traffic on long final. Now my Army training started to betray me: The tower probably thought that it was dealing with an experienced pilot (what student talks so easily and confidently on the radio?), and I was conditioned to follow the orders I heard.

So there I was — quarter-mile final, still going 100 knots. I'd never done that before. I reduced power, got the flaps out, flew down to the runway, and rounded out. There was a pretty stiff crosswind, maybe 12 or 15 knots. I'd never flown in crosswinds like that before. I floated down the runway for a long time, and I started to get anxious about the jet behind me, so I put the nose down and landed. I was going too fast, and the landing turned into porpoising down the runway. It never occurred to me to do a go-around. I had never done one before. Besides, the tower had told me to land, and I wasn't about to question their orders. After the third or fourth bounce, terrified about losing control of the airplane and mortified about what the folks in the tower must have been thinking, I figured out the timing and stuck the airplane on the runway.

My original plan had been to spend about half an hour in Lexington, but after getting fuel and paying my bill, I didn't feel like sitting around — especially at the scene of my embarrassment — so I did a cursory preflight, drained the fuel sumps, checked the oil, and then strapped in. I called ground control and got permission to taxi.

I stopped at the runway hold line and glanced over my shoulder at the tower above and behind me. I started feeling apprehensive, but I told myself that the worst was over and I would never have to go back to Lexington again. I did my runup, and when I was ready for takeoff, I looked at my list of Lexington frequencies. There, second from the top, was Arrival, but I remembered that Arrival would really be Departure. "Lexington Departure, this is Tomahawk Two-Four-Nine-Four Papa, ready for takeoff, going to Frankfort."

Departure seemed confused. "Two-Four-Nine-Four Papa, what was that?"

"Two-Four-Nine-Four Papa is ready for takeoff."

"Uhh, Two-Four-Nine-Four Papa, just give us a call when you're in the air."

That sounded like a strange takeoff clearance to me, but what did I know? I checked the final approach path to make sure that nothing was coming, taxied onto the runway, and took off. I climbed straight out, and at 1,000 feet agl I called Departure again: "Lexington Departure, Tomahawk Two-Four-Nine-Four Papa is in the air now."

Departure didn't sound confused anymore, just incredulous. "Two-Four-Nine-Four Papa, did you just take off from Blue Grass Field?"

Stupid question, I thought. Weren't you watching? "That's affirmative. You told me to call you in the air, so that's what I'm doing."

"Did you call the tower before taking off?"

The scales fell from my eyes. "No, sir."

"Going to Frankfort, you say?"

"Yes, sir."

"Roger. Proceed on course."

I landed at Frankfort and taxied up to the FBO. I noticed that the runway and taxiway had just received a new asphalt overlay, so I had to ease the aircraft over the end of the taxiway down onto the parking area. I shut down the aircraft and walked into the FBO, filed a flight plan for the leg home, and got back into the aircraft after a walkaround even more cursory than the one I had done in Lexington. I was about halfway through the before-start checklist when the FBO operator came out and asked me, "Did you just come from Lexington? The tower is on the telephone, and they'd like to talk to you." Army training pays off. I stood at ramrod attention while the tower supervisor chewed on me. He also asked me where I was from and who my instructor was. When he let me go, I climbed back into my airplane, fired it up, and taxied to the end of the runway. The adventure continued.

When I did my runup, the carb heat lever seemed abnormally loose — no resistance — and there was no rpm loss when carb heat was applied. I considered taking off without functioning carb heat, but instead I taxied back to the FBO. I asked the mechanic to take a look at the carb heat problem, but as he walked out to the airplane, something else caught his eye — the bent propeller tip. Yes, the last two inches or so of one blade had been bent back, obviously by a ground strike.

To this day, I don't know whether I bent the prop on that awful landing at Lexington or by taxiing too fast out of the Frankfort ramp onto the newly resurfaced taxiway. I hope that it was the latter, because otherwise I flew from Lexington to Frankfort with that bent prop — without noticing it on either preflight.

My story ends there. A phone call to Elizabethtown brought my instructor and the Elizabethtown FBO mechanic in a Cessna 172. I flew home in the backseat, took one more lesson a few days later, and then quit for several years, finally starting over at a different airport, with a different instructor, in a different airplane. I look back and wonder why I didn't just quit for good.

I'm glad that I didn't, though. And, as a flight instructor now, I remember my flight of firsts and prepare my students for their first solo trips away from their home field.

Mark Baur, AOPA 989824, of Northfield, Minnesota, has accumulated more than 3,500 hours over 16 years of flying.

Practice Area: Wild Rides

BY WILLIAM K. KERSHNER

From 1960 to late 1963 I demonstrated airplanes for Piper Aircraft, primarily in the Aztec. Here are some suggestions for survival when demonstrating airplanes:

Do not overestimate the skill of the pilot who is getting the demonstration. He or she may not be current in the type of airplane you are demonstrating. I flew primarily with military personnel who had all sorts of decorations from World War II and Korea. A few of them made me wonder how they got their Air Force or Navy wings, much less various decorations. People have a tendency to automatically assume that military pilots are super pilots. Having flown as a military pilot (for four years) following my first six years of flying as a civilian, I was sometimes appalled by the low skill level of some of the people I flew with in the military. I remember coming home to my new bride after one of my first days at the squadron and saying, "I always held military pilots in ultra-high esteem, but some of these people should not only be kept away from airplanes — they shouldn't be allowed on an airport, civilian or military."

The majority of military pilots I flew with while demonstrating airplanes for Piper were outstanding, but I learned not to assume.

Most of the time Piper was competing with Cessna and Beech and others for military contracts concerning support-type airplanes like the Aztec, and I flew at places like Fort Rucker, Alabama, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

My primary job, though, was to fly to Washington National Airport and meet Army, Air Force, and Navy officers so that they could fly the Aztec to see why our airplane was vastly superior to others.

I'd be in the right seat and we would fly out to do the airwork. Then we'd shoot landings at Frederick, Maryland, or Dulles in northern Virginia and fly back to National, where I'd drop them (after landing, of course).

Dulles had very little traffic at that time, so a call for clearance to shoot touch and goes was received with great enthusiasm. ("Yes! Certainly you may shoot touch and goes. Stop by for coffee and tell us what is happening around the country. We heard that President Lincoln has been shot; is this true?")

Things at Dulles have changed a little since then.

One of my gimmicks (at Frederick, Fort Rucker, and other larger airports) was to take off using only the left engine, with the right engine at zero thrust to show how well the Aztec handled. It always took a fair amount of runway to pull this off. The run was started by slowly opening the left throttle and using plenty of left nosewheel steering. As the airspeed increased, the rudder also helped. The airplane was banked into the good engine as it lifted off, and then the right engine was brought into climb power to save time in getting to altitude.

Someone once said that it would be more dramatic if the right prop was feathered on the takeoff, but I figured that I might need that engine sometime.

This proved to be the case on one very hot summer day at Frederick. I was in the right seat, as usual, showing an Air Force colonel just how well the Aztec could do on takeoff with one engine — even when the density altitude was having a definite effect on single-engine takeoff performance. As the takeoff progressed (or, rather, didn't progress), I suggested that it might be a good idea if I used both engines at that point rather than buy that quarry off the end of the runway. He agreed.

A winter adventure with a single-engine takeoff also occurred at Frederick when the well-deflected nosewheel hit a patch of ice during the process. The ensuing maneuver when steering was lost was notable indeed. The Navy commander in the left seat inquired as to what in the hell that maneuver was, and I told him that it was a two-dimensional Charlie pattern or a Kershnermann. (In my aerobatic instruction, I always try to name a new maneuver after the originator.)

When demonstrating VMC I would not have anybody in the rear seats because if things got out of hand, the aft CG might push the airplane more quickly into a developed spin. Spinning a twin is not a good idea.

I used a couple of other demonstrations in hopes of convincing the military that the Aztec and Aztec B (there was no Aztec A) had handling qualities superior to those of the competition. For instance, during World War II, one military rumor (like that of the "step") was that you should never make a turn into a twin's dead engine. Make a 270-degree turn into the good engine rather than a 90-degree turn into the dead engine. Just before the demonstration and at a safe (high) altitude, I would say, "I guess you know about never turning into the dead engine." Many would indicate that they had indeed heard this.

I used this idea with my demonstratee (is that a word?) in the left seat by feathering the right propeller and then banking 70 to 80 degrees into that engine and pulling the control wheel back to the stop and holding it. The airplane would set up a buffeting spiral to the right, losing altitude at a goodly rate, never failing to get the left-seater's attention.

Another demo was to pick a heading (330 degrees, for instance), put both feet on the floor, shut down and feather the right engine/propeller, and bank the airplane 15 to 20 degrees into the operating (left) engine as the other engine died. After a while I got to the point that I could hold heading while at an indicated airspeed of 65 mph (VMC was 80 mph) with feet still on the floor. I would then start up the other engine, holding heading, feet still on the floor.

I know of no airplane other than the Aztec or Aztec B in which I would even attempt this because (1) it was a most forgiving airplane and (2) I demonstrated it almost daily.

At Fort Rucker, I spent a week demonstrating the Aztec to 25 Army aviators of various ranks in an attempt to get a sale of 200 units as support airplanes.

One of the aviators, who had a decided bias for the competition, asked, "Just what will this thing do?" I feathered the right propeller and did several rolls in each direction (I had special dispensation for this) and started the engine again. I think that he still voted for the competition. Anyway, it was not one of my more intelligent moves.

I did one smart thing at Rucker. On my first day there, I took as many of the tower personnel as I could, in relays, for a ride. For the next few days I managed to get into the airport with no delays. ("I'm sorry, general, but we have an Aztec with a priority.")

My best experience was flying out of National Airport with Col. Ed Rector, U.S. Air Force, one of the original Flying Tigers. (He did extremely well.) When I was 12, the American Volunteer Group was flying in China, and they were my heroes, as testified by the many models of the P-40 I made during World War II. A P-51 and a P-40 flew into the local airport in 1943 or 1944, and I got a chance to sit in one of the cockpits. I, of course, chose the P-40, as I, in my 13-year-old wisdom, knew that the P-51 would never amount to anything. The pilot of the P-40 gently said, after I had overstayed my time, "I know what you're imagining, son, but there are a lot of other kids waiting." This was said as I shot down my sixth Zero.

I got to meet Ed Rector (again), Tex Hill, Joe Rosbert, Eric Shilling, and other Tigers at a reunion at Lyons Airpark in Rainsville, Alabama, in 1995.

But getting back to the subject of my article, demonstrating airplanes can be one of the more risky tasks of aviation. You have to let the customer fly it, and sometimes diplomacy is required to "assist" with a landing and not lose the sale — but don't let him or her put you into real jeopardy.