Letters from our June 2018 issue

Great article in the June issue (“Proficient Pilot: Soar Points”).

It brings to mind the time I was returning from a wedding in Iowa with my power-plane instructor. As we passed Akron, Colorado, while dodging numerous thunderstorms at night, my instructor said with a slight tinge of panic, “I am flying at full power and best angle of climb and we are still sinking at 1,000 feet per minute, what more can I do?”

Having way more hours in sailplanes than powered aircraft, the answer was simple, “Drop the nose to get through the sink as fast as possible.” As usual, Barry Schiff’s article nailed it.

Clay Thomas
AOPA 3454969
Parker, Colorado

As a pilot whose original certificate was awarded in a sailplane, I fully appreciate Barry Schiff’s position that airplane pilots should first show proficiency in gliders. What is frustrating for those of us following this path to powered airplanes, however, is that while it only takes a minimum of 10 solo flights and a flight test for a power pilot to get a glider rating, a glider pilot seeking a power certificate must start from scratch. Although almost everyone else seems to understand the benefits of glider training, the FAA still refuses to acknowledge the value of a glider pilot’s experience as helping to produce safer airmen.

David Fisichella
AOPA 8979607
Falmouth, Massachusetts

I found the June 2018 issue of AOPA Pilot especially enjoyable because it brought back nostalgic memories.

I can testify to the benefits expressed in Barry Schiff’s article “Soar Points.” I soloed in gliders at the age of 14 in 1961, and received my private glider certificate on my sixteenth birthday. The stick and rudder skills I learned early on have served me well.

Ken Scott’s article “Goosed!” triggered more memories. I earned my airline transport pilot multiengine-sea rating in a Goose in 1979 in Juneau, Alaska. I flew two models, one with fixed wing floats and the other with retractable wing floats. Both had “bubbled” sliding side windows on the pilot’s side. The Goose’s flat windshield did not shed moderate rain or even light snow well, so the bubbled window came in handy while flying IFS (I follow shorelines) throughout Southeast Alaska’s archipelago.

And finally, I heartily concur with David Marco concerning the best bushplane (“Pilots: David Marco”). The de Havilland DHC–2 Mark II Beaver takes the prize in my book. I base this on accumulating more than 10,000 hours during a 15-year period when I flew most of the different types of “working” floatplanes.

My wife had the best whimsical description of the Beaver: “It is like your favorite old and reliable 1950s pickup truck—load it to the gunnels, cram in gear, and go!”

Today, I fly gliders exclusively—I have returned to my roots.

Douglas Bauer
AOPA 399695
Pahrump, Nevada

Space pioneers

Each July, Frontiers of Flight at Dallas Love Field holds the museum’s biggest event of the year, “Moon Day.” As the home of Apollo 7, and a rock from the moon, it attracts several hundred North Texans to learn more about space exploration and the science behind it. Guest providers such as the Dallas Rocket Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Society of Flight Test Engineers, and Lockheed Martin, to name just a few, hold seminars and events for kids, adults, and area science teachers.

When the poster for the event was first placed in the museum entrance, several of the docents, me included, saw that a featured guest and presenter would be “Wally” Funk, a Mercury 13 astronaut. This left a half-dozen AOPA members, pilots, and (so we thought) pretty well-informed aviation and space enthusiasts at a loss as to who the Mercury 13 were.

A quick web search turned up some cursory information on both Ms. Funk and the Mercury 13. Then, when I arrived home from my afternoon stint at the museum, I was greeted by the June 2018 AOPA Pilot. I would like to thank AOPA’s Julie Summers Walker for her most timely essay, “Pilot Briefing: The Mercury 13.” With what I learned from her, and from the Netflix movie of the same name, I can look forward to meeting a true aerospace pioneer understanding what her efforts, and those of her associates, have done to open up the field to my granddaughters.

Craig Marckwardt
AOPA 5753376
Dallas, Texas

Electric future

Thanks for writing a sensible article (“Electric Power Featured at Aero”).

Batteries have 50 times lower energy density (energy per unit weight) than liquid hydrocarbons. The fact that the electrical motor is about three times more efficient than a heat engine (optimized piston or turbine) does not make up for this massive difference in energy density. People get misled by seeing Styrofoam drones with lightweight cameras buzz around for a few minutes. It’s a different proposition moving passengers and freight considerable distances.

I used to do research in battery materials, and I don’t see a way to radically improve energy density. I can see that going to solid-state electrolytes will eliminate the fire danger, and that clever nanostructures might make it possible to have faster charging and discharging, but in both cases it won’t be easy to scale up from lab demonstrations to large-scale production.

A colleague showed me a picture of the Bye Aerospace Sun Flyer, intended as a trainer. A simple calculation, based on the material covered in my book, showed that it couldn’t do what was claimed. It looked like a Lancair, a very slippery aircraft. Is this what we need for a trainer? I’m having enough trouble finding an insurance company that will allow my son (he is licensed, but low time) to fly my Mooney.

Peter Rez
AOPA 1313913
Scottsdale, Arizona

Urban myth

A look through the historical record will perhaps show that any connection presented as fact between Orville Wright and Bob Cummings and Bob Cummings’ father, Dr. Charles Cummings, is fiction (“Test Pilot,” May 2018).

This prospect of fiction begins in 1909 with Wilbur and Orville Wright in a tent next to the Southern Pacific Railroad station in Joplin, Missouri. Orville, lying there looking like he was dying, was very ill with food poisoning (probably from the food at a local restaurant) and “barbers itch” with running sores all over his face (due to a barber’s shave in Pratt, Kansas). A local Joplin doctor—Dr. Charles Cummings—was summoned. After a couple days in the hospital, Orville was up and about. Dr. Charles Cummings was the soon-to-be father of Bob Cummings, born the following year.

Quite the story. The historical record, however, will perhaps show it to be hollow, that Wilbur and Orville Wright never did make that trip to Joplin—let alone to Pratt, Kansas, for Orville’s shave.

Thus, the various stories that have been spun—beginning with the opening story above—that involve Orville Wright, Dr. Charles Cummings, and Bob Cummings would simply be tales of popular myth.

Terry Golden
AOPA 9406307
Bloomington, Minnesota

Fuel burn basics

Ken Scott did a great job in his June 2018 article “Goosed,” except he knows nothing about Pratt & Whitney R-985s. I have been flying behind an R-985 for 20 years in my Stinson Gull Wing Reliant. He states, talking about fuel burn, “they burn about 45 gph apiece when pulled back for an easy cruise.” He should have said, “They burn about 45 gph together.” At an “easy cruise” (27 inches manifold pressure, 1,850 rpm), one will burn 22 gph. It will burn 45 gph at takeoff power, but you can hold that power for only a maximum of five minutes without doing engine damage.

Anthony Wright
AOPA 1008905
Meadow Vista, California