I am an old pilot who remembers the word from the 1950s. Usage such as "strangle your parrot" was common. This was especially when working with ground control intercept (GCI) sites. Where did the term "parrot" come from? I have thought it was an acronym. The word radar started that way.
C. Maynard
Miami, Florida
According to our Pilot Information Center specialists, the term parrot was coined by the British during World War II in reference to the radar transceiver that could respond to radar interrogation with a specific code. British and American aircraft could be identified by their unique codes, while enemy aircraft had no such codes, thus allowing their detection. The ground-based radar station would instruct the pilot to "squawk your parrot" to a specific code.--Ed.
I enjoyed Jeff Pardo's article on ATC transponders ("What's All the Squawking About?") in the August 2006 issue. Let me point out one small technical error. The P2 pulse must be stronger, not weaker, than the P1 and P3 pulses to prevent the transponder from replying to radar interrogations. The P1 and P3 pulses are strongest in the direction the radar antenna is pointing, while the P2 pulse is stronger everywhere else. This combination keeps to a minimum the erroneous target displays that Pardo mentions. Thanks for a great article!
Dave Setser
Arlington, Massachusetts
'Truck' on the runway
I just received my August 2006 AOPA Flight Training and had to laugh when I got to the end of Mike Collins' column ("Preflight: Go-arounds"). I have a very thorough CFI named Ichikawa-san who is great at our preflight briefings (among all the other things). We go over all the items we will cover from the syllabus for that day's flight and then take off and have fun.
Recently, coming back to Yokota Air Force Base (I am a student at its flying club), on final approach and dropping to about 100 feet AGL, Ichikawa-san says, "There's a truck on the runway!" And I say, "Really? Where?" As I look over, he is staring at me with "that look" and I respond, "Oh." And, of course, I execute the go-around. The number of times I get "that look" is decreasing with each lesson.
Sean Maury
Yokota Air Base, Japan
Weathervaning--but on the ground
Congratulations on providing an excellent source of continuing pilot education in AOPA Flight Training. I am an avid reader and learn a lot from your contributors.
I am occasionally puzzled by some of the material, such as Mark Twombly's column "Continuing Ed: Coordinated Flight" in your July 2006 publication. In this article, Mr. Twombly states that on a crosswind approach "the airplane will naturally weathervane into the crosswind." He goes on to relate that "if the wind is blowing right to left, for example, the nose of the airplane will tend to swing to the right, into the wind." I'm wondering whether this is good insight for student pilots.
My experience has been that while on the ground a strong crosswind can impose a net force on the airframe causing it to "weathervane" into the wind because the rear fuselage and vertical tail surface(s) behind the main gear usually present the largest lateral surface impacted by the crosswind. If there is more crosswind resistance behind the main gear than in front, the crosswind will tend to push the tail downwind and pivot the airframe about the gear thus tending to weathervane the nose into the crosswind (the resultant movement reduced somewhat by tricycle gear versus pivoting rear-wheel taildraggers). While airborne, there is no 'pivot point' analogous to having landing gear on the ground, and thus there is no 'weathervane' effect pivoting the nose into the wind. At least not that I've ever been able to detect.
I suppose if there were a tremendous crosswind gust, the inertia of the airframe might serve as a relative 'pivot point' about its center of mass and result in a net weathervane movement of the nose into the wind. I've been flying for over 35 years and have flown more than a dozen different single- and twin-engine aircraft and have yet to experience this phenomenon.
Chuck Clark
Wellesley, Massachusetts
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