FLYING THE RIGHT-HAND SEAT OF A SINGLE ENGINE AIRPLANE AT 85
Copyright Vladimir Kagan, September 9, 2012
What do you do on a sunny day in Nantucket to celebrate your 85th birthday? Well George W. H. Bush jumped out of an airplane and parachuted safely to the ground. I am not quite that brave. But I did ride shotgun in the co-pilot’s seat of a Beechcraft Bonanza and flew it over Nantucket at 1,000 feet. What an exhilarating experience.
My daughter jessica and I about to board our friend Rob's plane for a buzz around Nantucket
Rob Havens, our house guest about to take us for ride in his Bonanza
Your VFR rated Private Pilot in the co-pilot's seat ready to taxi down the rundway
Views of Nantucket Harbor and the nearby Island of Tuckernuck and the tiny seal Island where normally thousand of seals bask in the sunlight... but there were none to photograph... probably out to lunch!
Your co-pilot talking on the squawk-box and taking a photo of the final approach to Nantucket Airport
Yup, I actually do have a pilot’s license and in my more daring days flew to Nantucket from such exotic places as Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where I was designing furniture for Selig Furniture Company. You might well ask, “Who is Selig?” They existed and closed long before most of you were born. (The most memorable design I did for them was the Snail Table; still collectible and showing up regularly in classy auction-house catalogues)*…. I was even more daring than that and flew gliders. On fall weekends while Erica and the children had a picnic, they could watch me shoot landings as I was taking gliding lessons at Wurtsboro airport in the Catskills. Gliding is a white-knuckle sport; there is no engine and therefore no second chance at a missed landing.
Flying in my days was often referred to as “flying by the seat of your pants” and that was quite true because if you lost altitude quickly you experience partial weightlessness and very light in the “toosh” while a rapid pull-up sank you deep into the seat. (This was graphically brought home during flying lessons while flying under the hood.) I achieved a Private Single Engine license VFR (Visual Flight Rules) It allows you take on none-paying passengers and to fly as long as you can see the ground. IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) is a much more sophisticated rating… you can fly above the clouds and still know where you are. For us simple pilots IFR stood for “I Fly Roads” a desperate means of finding your way back to an airport when the weather deteriorated.
The cockpit dashboard was a simple thing with few instruments: A push-me-pull-you knob that is the throttle and controls the RPMs (Revolution Per Minute) of your engine, a red button that controls the mixture of air to fuel (nothing quite like it in a modern car but not unlike the spark control in my Model T)… A dashboard-mounted magnetic compass told you where you are heading. A black ball floating in a curved glass tube is the turn coordinator… There was a miniature airplane in a round dial that showed your attitude vis-à-vis the ground. It had a horizontal line for the horizon and as you banked (turned) the horizon line twisted left and right… the little plane remained constant. Reading that took a lot of practice and faith. If everything lined up, you were flying straight and level… when the horizon line dropped below your plane you were actually climbing – above the horizon you were descending, when it twisted left or right it indicated your turns. If the little plane did a combination of these things, …. you are turning and climbing or descending… (look-out it could give you vertigo) ….For up and down, there was an altimeter that read your feet above sea level… not the ground, so if you were flying over mountains, you had to take that into your calculations… Oh yes, and if you forgot to set your altimeter to the ground elevation of the airport from which you were taking off… forget what you are reading on the altimeter. There were two fuel gauges; one for each fuel tank… you had the option draw from either tank or both. There was one more important instrument: the Airspeed indicator. That was very, very important cause if you don’t keep up your airspeed… you stall… you never want to do that in an airplane. You made certain that the intake hole of your Pitot tube was open… that’s the little “L” shaped gadget mounted into the frond end of the wing, usually out of reach on a high winged plane…In the air, it drives your airspeed indicator… Additionally, there were a few important ground checks you had to follow… check your fuel for water condensation… there are usually three check point located at the lowest section of the aircraft. Water in the fuel of an airplane is fatal. You checked your oil level and made certain that your tanks were filled up. (Searching for cheaper fuel at another airport could be terminal) That’s a lot of stuff to monitor plus keeping your eye open for other air traffic and following a flight chart on your lap (they were much like road maps except you’re looking for rivers, lakes, towns, cities and most significantly airstrip of any size for an unexpected emergency landing.) The VHR radio was your best companion… it kept you in touch with the guys on the ground, who in turn told you what’s happening around you… and if you got into a panic, they will try to talk you home. There are only two words that can describe flying: “Stay Cool”… way before it ever became the buzzword of the hip.
There are progressive categories of pilot’s licenses: private single engine, (VFR Visual Flight Rules) private twin engine, instrument rated (IFR Instrument Flight Rules) and then you go on to the exotic categories of commercial, multi-engine, turbo, jet, etc. If you can’t at least get to an IFR rating you had better not fly to Nantucket (I did and I was lucky and am living to brag about it).
Erica and I, circa 1960 with my chartered Cessena 150 or was it a Piper Tri-Pacer???
I flew Erica and the kids to Provincetown and Martha’s Vineyard for desert, I took my mother flying over the Catskills to see her house in Woodstock, taking off and landing at Kingston airport; one of the hairiest little fields located right under the Kingston – Reinbeck Bridge. My most audacious in the air experience was flying the whole family from Williamsburg, Virginia to Washington National Airport. An impudent undertaking that only a seasoned pilot should ever attempt. But I was young, foolish and lucky. I chartered a plane with a pilot who was to return the plane to Williamsburg. I blithely assumed that my co-pilot would be an experienced pilot. I was wrong, he was a kid who had never been to D.C and was building time. It was the blind leading the blind! We survived. The sobering experience cured my reckless illusions.
The Bonanza I was flying on my birthday is a machine of a different breed. The instrument panel is loaded with exotic aviation gadgets way beyond my kin: transponders to tell the ground who and where you are, electronic compasses. GPS, numerous radios you had to monitor and change constantly, instruments that told you if you are straying from your course… the radio conversation is staccato and confusing instructions keep coming at you… you must listen for your tail number cause nobody on the ground know your name.
the instrument panels of a modern single engine aircraft
Thank you…. NO…. I do not want to own a modern airplane! - but it sure was exhilarating!
History
Some 1950's Snail Tables found on Google Search
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