I was reading “Down and Out” by Budd Davisson (Flight Training, October 2014). I’m still making friends with and transitioning into my Acrosport biplane. I just started doing power-off landings. It’s a real boost to the ego when you get them figured out. Keeping the pattern short and tight pretty much guarantees that I need to slip to landing, even in a biplane that glides like a rock. It starts to become a real blast! It’s especially so when you plant one on the numbers right in front of another pilot shooting landings, holding short for takeoff.
I read the whole article without looking to see who wrote it. It sounded quite familiar until it dawned on me that it was indeed written by Davisson. Sometimes the obvious eludes me. I went through his Pitts S2-A transition training this spring for my Acrosport.
Dan Williams
Liverpool, New York
Success stories
I can’t be the only geezer writing in to confess I did not earn a private certificate until age 60 or more; 61, for me. Thanks to the I know you can do it attitude ofmy instructor, Sherman Smith of Sherman’s Flight Training in Wimauma, Florida, I joined the club (he’s 20 years my senior, to boot). No, I am not one of those gifted souls who can make any endeavor look simple. I needed 30 hours before I soloed, and 86 hours when I passed the checkride (first attempt). I am now pursuing an instrument rating, at the same leisurely pace: 101 hours under the hood, and still at it. I will get there.
I know I can.
Charles E. Lehnert
Riverview, Florida
Jill Tallman’s article “The Last Page” (Flight Training, September 2014) really helped me get over failing my checkride. After a two-and-one-half hour oral, we went flying, and I passed everything but my emergency power-off landing. I wasn’t able to reschedule right away because the examiner went on vacation for three weeks, so we rescheduled for when he got back. Then another delay because he was ill on the reschedule date. Finally, I passed my private pilot checkride two days later, and the examiner was very happy with my emergency power-off landing.
Last Sunday I flew my husband to our favorite airport restaurant for breakfast. He is also a pilot and was impressed with my landings (he only touched a few things). I am really happy beyond words. Thanks again for the article. It helped to know I wasn’t the only one who failed their first checkride attempt. P.S. I’m 67 years old. You’re never too old to fly.
Joan D. Cooper
Hemet, California
How it works
I just finished reading my October issue of Flight Training and I must take issue with the “How It Works” article on noise cancelling headsets.
In the article, it states that the headset “senses the sound, processes it, and cancels it” with an opposite frequency. While the concept is correct, the described method is not. An analog signal (in this case at an audible frequency) has an amplitude, and a phase. To cancel the signal, the headset must sample it to determine its frequency, amplitude, and phase. It then transmits a signal of the same frequency, equal amplitude, but opposite phase, thus cancelling the sound before it reaches the ear. Changing the frequency of the input signal would simply distort it, not cancel it.
Norbert Padilla
Albuquerque, New Mexico
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