My checkout in the Piper Twin Comanche was done by my buddy Doug, a CFII and — even better — the owner of the airplane. I've flown with Doug enough times for him to realize that I'm not the quickest study. Not that I'm a slow learner; I'd characterize myself as, well, a deliberate learner, someone who is "careful in considering, judging, or deciding; not rash or hasty," according to my dictionary. So, Doug, you may have thought that I just wasn't getting it, but the truth is that I was taking the time to carefully consider things. You know, avoiding haste.
What I wasn't getting — uh, I mean, what I was considering with utmost care — was how to land the dang airplane correctly. I just couldn't do it.
Even though the Twin Comanche is approaching its fortieth birthday, it still looks contemporary. Its compact, rakish profile turned heads way back in 1963 when the airplane debuted, and it still looks great today.
Now, Doug's Twinco isn't quite up to the $450,000 standard set by the Bailey Bullet, the F. Lee Bailey-owned and -modified Twin Comanche described recently by Tom Horne (" The Ultimate Twin Comanche," May Pilot). For example, the seats in the Bailey Bullet cabin are swaddled in genuine Lexus leather, according to Horne.
I can report that my buddy Doug doesn't drive a Lexus. He has a couple of Honda Accords in his garage (not so coincidentally, his wife, Betty, ordered the new one not long after Doug got his airplane), and comfortably worn cloth-covered seats in his airplane. Doug would rather spend his airplane money on upgrading the panel — which he has done: a new IFR-approach-approved GPS, new autopilot, new HSI, new intercom system.
Horne described some of the Twin Comanche's quirks — the Byzantine fuel drainage system for the four independent tanks, and a below-the-trapdoor circuit breaker panel, among others. One of those "others" is the airplane's curmudgeonly landing behavior. I would compare it to my nine-year-old when he wakes up tired: testy. Must be handled with deft skill born of instinct, experience, and training.
I attribute this (the airplane's behavior, not my son's) to the short landing gear and the clean, laminar-flow, low-mounted wing. The combination of strong ground effect (short gear) and sharp stall characteristics (laminar-flow airfoil) means that the pilot has to work hard to find the sweet spot. That's what I call the moment, post-flare, when the power is at idle, the airplane is decelerating, and you're gingerly raising the nose while feeling for the runway. The senses are on full alert to identify the decisive moment — the precise point at which the airplane will quit flying. When you sense the moment is imminent, that's when you work the yoke to gently plant the mains. Try it too early and you're likely to force the nosewheel onto the runway before the mains. Wait too long and suddenly the wing will stall. The airplane drops to the runway with a confidence-shattering thud.
I suspect that the Twin Comanche's stabilator and pitch trim mechanism — an old-style window crank mounted on the cabin roof — participate in this conspiracy to debunk the notion that there is indeed such a thing as pilot in command. I recall that the early 1970s-vintage Piper Seneca that I flew for a time was difficult to land on the main wheels and with the wings level. The ailerons and stabilator seemed to give up the fight at about the same time, which happened to be just before you were ready for the airplane to land.
Under Doug's tutelage, I learned that precise speed control — not too fast, not too slow — is a big factor in making keeper landings in a Twin Comanche. Nothing new here; Mooneys taught me the true meaning of speed control on final.
Second and third on the must-do list are flaps and pitch trim. Use half-flaps, Doug advised, and crank in lots of nose-up trim on short final. This discourages a level or even nose-down attitude on touchdown.
Doug's techniques sounded reasonable from a technical standpoint, but in my deliberate hands they for sure didn't guarantee soft, main-wheels-first arrivals every time. I adhered to the half-flaps advice on my first five solo landings. The sixth was the only one to occur in front of a crowd. ATC delivered me to the airport's door high and fast (See, it's their fault!), so I threw Doug's instructions to the wind and selected full, no-holds-barred flaps.
I may have forgotten to spin in a generous amount of nose-up trim. How else to explain the fact that the nosewheel arrived at our destination long before the rest of the airplane? It was an awful landing. Just terrible. I mentally slapped myself around as I taxied in, and made a promise to lobby for federal legislation that would standardize small-aircraft landing characteristics to conform to a Beech A36 or F33A Bonaza. No matter how hard I try to screw up the approach, those airplanes make me look good.
I recovered from that episode, and went on to make a total of 20 landings at 15 different airports before returning Doug's airplane to him. He witnessed the last landing — in a stubborn Midwestern crosswind, I might add.
"The third touchdown looked pretty good," he drawled.
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