"You fly in?" he asked.
"Yup," I answered. "With my partner, here, Rick. In our Piper Twin Comanche."
Dave's eyes lit up. "One of my favorite airplanes," he said with a big grin. "I used to fly one a lot. It's such a fast, efficient little thing. Loved it," he beamed, "even though I had trouble with the landings."
I about fell down on the spot. Without being asked, Dave had just admitted that he had found the airplane difficult to consistently land well. A wave of admiration for Dave's unabashed honesty swept over me. "I knew there was something about you I liked," I said.
I enjoy talking to pilots like Dave who have experience in the same make and model of airplane that I fly. It's fun to compare installed equipment, performance figures, piloting techniques, and how we use the airplanes. Usually, however, at some point in the conversation I slip in a loaded question.
"How do you do on the landings?" I ask matter-of-factly. The answer marks the person as either appealingly humble, or one who prefers to shovel bull.
The type of airplane that I fly has a well-deserved reputation for possessing cantankerous landing characteristics. Its short landing gear, laminar-flow wing, and limited stabilator travel exaggerate the influence of ground effect on landing - less induced drag, more lift, and a heavier feel to the nose. The result is a tendency to float unless airspeed is spot-on, difficulty in smoothly planting the main wheels, and even greater difficulty holding the nose wheel off momentarily after the mains touch down.
Plenty has been done over the years to try to "fix" the Twin Comanche's landing characteristics. A smaller nosewheel was approved to give pilots an inch or two more ground clearance on touchdown. Piper switched to a thicker stabilator airfoil on later models for more pitch authority on landing. Aftermarket wing root cuffs supposedly improve airflow over the stabilator at slow airspeeds for better pitch performance. And some Twin Comanche pilots resort to flying around with 100 pounds of dead weight in the baggage compartment behind the rear seats. The weight moves the center of gravity rearward, which reduces pitch control forces. That makes it easier to keep the nose off the runway after touchdown. The various tricks help, but only to a degree.
I cannot recall ever having landed the Twin Comanche with the polish that I routinely achieved in my Cessna 172 or in a variety of other singles and twins. The best I hope for is to land smoothly on the mains and watch helplessly as the nosewheel immediately plunks down. It's the same no matter who is in the left seat. Landing is the price that single and Twin Comanche fliers must pay to enjoy the airplanes' speed, style, and other advantages.
It's amusing, then, to encounter Comanche pilots who boast of superiority over the laws of aerodynamics. How else to explain their claims that they never have any trouble with landings?
Comanche landing characteristics is just one example of less-than-perfect behavior in an airplane. Every airplane is a compromise intended to achieve the designer's list of priorities, whatever they may be - speed, load - carrying capability, cabin size, range, ruggedness, ease of manufacture, and price, to name a few.
The best qualities exhibited by a particular airplane often come at the expense of other characteristics. Like the Comanche, the Mooney delivers a lot of performance for the power and fuel consumption. The tradeoff is a relatively small cabin and the same general landing characteristics as the Comanche.
In an effort to keep material and manufacturing costs low - and thus keep the retail price to the customer down - American Aviation built its two- and four-place singles with a free-swiveling nosewheel. The pilot steers using differential braking on the main wheels. Most tricycle-gear pilots grow up with steerable nosewheels, and taxiing an airplane with a castoring nosewheel and differential braking takes some practice to perfect. Most AA pilots will confess to occasionally finding that they have two left feet, or so it seems from their taxiing performance. Those who don't are not being honest with themselves.
Some among us are blessed with abundant native talent. They are natural pilots, people with a great aptitude for flying and an inherent feel for stick and rudder control. The rest of us must work harder at being good. One way we get there is by being honest about our abilities - which, in my mind, means being open to learning something new.
The opposite of honesty and humility, of admitting to our limitations, is being boastful. I don't know if boasting is a symptom of just the opposite - lacking self-confidence - or a sign of true arrogance, but it serves no useful purpose in a pilot.
Boasting is a form of denial. When I hear someone say they have no trouble routinely making two-point, tire-chirping touchdowns in a Twin Comanche, my BS meter trips on the high side. Either they cannot distinguish a great landing from an average or poor arrival, or they are being dishonest with themselves and others.
That's not only sad, it's a disservice to impressionable pilots who look to their more experienced colleagues for wisdom, guidance, and inspiration. What does it say to a pilot new to Twin Comanches, for example, when a long-time owner claims he has no idea what all the talk over landing challenges is about? "Never been a problem for me," he says, nose pointed skyward at an exaggerated angle of attack. That kind of haughty attitude only serves to undermine the tradition and honor of the mentoring concept.
Refusing to admit to fallibility isn't a trait unique to pilots, it's just more pronounced when encountered in a pilot. Good piloting is based on exercising good judgment when using good skills. To hear someone boast that they rise above the failings of mere mortal pilots calls into question their judgment, their skills, or both.
I ended my time at the aviation event on a high note. I met a second honest man. On my way out I took a last tour of the flight line and ran across Duane, an acquaintance who builds and sells a high-performance single-engine pusher kitplane. We shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, and then started talking airplanes.
He asked me what I'm flying these days, and when I answered his eyes smiled. "Oh, man, I logged several thousand hours in one years ago. I just loved it. If I were to get another twin, I'd get one of those in a heartbeat. Never could land it, though."
Mark Twombly is a writer and editor who has been flying for 35 years. He is co-owner of a Piper Twin Comanche and recently obtained his commercial multiengine rating.
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