Merlin Ashtray

[Nickodell]

Funny thing, you use rudder in primary flying training, and also in light planes all the time, to coordinate turns, but airliners and large military planes virtually never touch the rudder pedals except in extraordinary situations. Some of the Victor pilots I flew with used to rib us who flew the Chippies as "stick and rudder types." I often used to wonder if one of these guys, or a 10,000-hour airliner pilot, might have lost the coordination if put into a Cessna 172.

46 years later and I can still hear the Flight Sergeant instructor yelling "Sloppy, very sloppy! Kick the ball" - i.e. apply rudder pedal on the side where the turn & bank indicator ball had moved to, to bring it back to the center and correct a skid or slip. What do they use in today's Glass Cockpits, in place of the T & B?

I regret never having taken aerobatic lessons. It's a whole different world. However, in the UK, a bank more than 60 degrees was defined as aerobatics, and illegal except in certified fully aerobatic aircraft, and then only in controlled situations, like air shows. Is the law the same in the US, Rick?

 

[skywords]

I think the Law here just stipulates where you can do such things and the type certificates and operating limitations of each aircraft have to be followed otherwise you are considered to be operating in a reckless and careless manner endangering the life and property of others. Some airworthiness certficates allow mild aerobatics such as spins lazy eights etc.. and some prohibit them entirely. I used to roll and spin my C-170A and T craft all the time. With the C-170A I got tired of buying gyros for it so I stopped doing spins and rolls. That was the nicest flying airplane I ever owned. I have a machine that kicks me in the ass every morning for selling it.

They still have a slip and skid ball in todays glass cockpits but most jet types just cross their feet after take-off.

Wheels up / Feet up / Yaw damper on /I'll have the chicken

 

[Nickodell]

Then when you have to turn the YD off, as in moderate to severe turbulence, I guess the feet have to get back on the pedals. I wonder if learning to ignore the rudder was at least partially the cause of the crash in Nov. 2001 of American Airlines 587. Seems the PIC slammed the rudder from limit to limit until it parted company with the tail.

By the way, I don't mean to imply that I always kept to the 60 deg. limit. Tried a few vertical banks and full rudder to see what it was like, sort of like a WWII Spit. doing a a peel-off to attack. And a few really steep turns to see just how much height you lose (a LOT!)

By the way, Rick; seems like I'll be hanging up the metaphorical goggles and selling my 1/3 share of the Bonanza. Came time to renew my hull and liability insurance, and as I passed 70 in April the rate has skyrocketed, the deductible too, and the liability limit has been reduced. All this despite getting a clean 3C medical. Oh hell, it was a good ride - 46 years. Maybe I'll take up ultralights. Don't need no stinkin' insurance. Or maybe I do; have to look into it. That or rent occasionally.

 

[skywords]

Nick
My heart is the reason for my lack of medical. I do miss it sometimes but the Alpines and now the MC-5A 25,000 lbs bus is a real thrill to drive. I never thought that I'd be a bus driver but the cab is almost like a cockpit and the switches, smells, noises and so forth are really quite stimulating. It is a real art to shifting the four speed straight cut gear transmission with no syncros. In first gear you run the engine up to gov cut out depress the clutch and count one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four and she goes right into second. I will never bitch about the early Alpine tranny ever again. I do a preflight check list everytime I drive it including a very lengthy air brake check from the operators manual. I keep an operations log a maintenance log and an airbrake log. When we camp I find myself wishing to get back on the road and drive. Maybe I should take a job with Greyhound. And the best part is the wife and kids just love it. And 10 mpg to boot, not bad hey. It holds 144 US gals with a 1400 mile range. Lear jet range on a Subaru budget. The old timers that have run the Detroit two stroke desiels all told me the best way to operate them is you put your thumb in the door jamb and slam the door on it hard and now your in the proper frame of mind to run that engine (take it out on the engine). Anyway it almost fills the void not flying leaves. Nick there are some screamin deals out there on buses, Theres an MC-5C with a interioir to die for installed by a yaught company 23K. Your wife would easily get on board this hobby

 

[Bill Blue]

Hey, Rick, 'yaever tried double clutch'en? My "first car" was a 49 Dodge pickup with four speed crash box. You can get that "one thousand four" down to about "one thousand one and a half".

Bill

 

[Nickodell]

Learning on a non-synchro box can come in handy in unexpected ways. I learned on a pre-war (pre-WWII, that is) Austin whose synchros had given up the ghost many years earlier. Fast forward to 1975. I was in France on company business, and our Paris office lent me a Renault something or other, whose clutch gave out when I was out in the wilds of Burgundy. By carefully matching engine speed I was able to drive it for over 100 miles back to the city and a Renault service location.

The only problem would have been if I came to a stop; shifting into neutral would have been OK to stop, but there would have been no way to get it moving again. It necessitated anticipating distant traffic light sequences and slowing appropriately, even if this resulted in Gallic oaths and fist-shaking from behind. I only had to stop twice; the first time, luckily, on a down-grade, so I could roll-start the car (more oaths and fist-shaking); the second time I roped in a couple of passers-by to help push it into motion.

 

[skywords]

Bill
Shifting a vintage bus is nothing like anything you've ever driven before. There is no rushing the meshing of the gears, it just does'nt happen. Double clutching is part of the process. An interesting article written by R.J. Long a seasoned bus driver that drove these buses in their hayday discribes the art.
He drove GM coaches but the drive trains are the same as the MCI coaches.

http://www.busnut.com/bbs/messages/12262/16204.html?1167073154

 

[Bill Blue]

Rick, reads a whole lot like driving a Dodge pu. Only difference seems to be the extended time for the Diesel to drop down to idle speed. That huge (188 C.I.) Plymouth six sure didn't take 4 secs to slow down. I will second the difficulty of downshifting, especially without a tach to give you a clue. Never got very good at it, especially going down into "Granny". But upshifting was a piece of cake.

Bill

 

[Nickodell]

Rick: Of course, occasionally one has to "bend" the rules:

Did you ever fly a sailplane?

 

[skywords]

Great Pictures! Is that you Nick? I love the yaw string on the canopy. Yes I have flown sailplanes here in AZ but I loved the slope soaring I did in CA at Vacaville. You could fly a 100 mile round trip along Blue Ridge all the way to Lake Berryessa and back. The old Schweizter 1-26 was my favorite, nimble aerobatic the perfect slope glider. It would actually out perform the slippery big wing glass ships from Germany in light small thermals. They could not turn as tight and would fall out of them while you would climb in the ol junky 1-26. It always ****ed em off their 150k ship beaten by a 10k beer can.

 

[Nickodell]

Rick: if I told you I'd have to kill you.

My very first stick & rudder of all was in a clunky 2-seat Slingsby Sedberg open-cockpit trainer at the RAFGSA (RAF Gliding & Soaring Assoc.) HQ at RAF Bicester, rather like taking your first driver's lesson in a bus.

After solo my main time was in the Gruenwald, a high-performance sailplane with no vices. My biggest problem was unlearning the Sedberg's lift spoilers and learning how to use - and remembering to use - the air brakes on landing the Gruenwald. If you forgot, you'd float for half a mile or more in ground effect, and p*ss off the driver of the tractor who had to bring you back all the way to the takeoff point. One time I landed long in any case, and on a windless day, and had to goose it over the boundary fence and land in the field on the other side. That earned me my first logbook Red Endorsement and mandatory four more hours dual. (The second was for getting lost in the Chippie and landing off base).

That was a fun time. You did everything - hitching on the air-tow or winch- tow line and checking "all clear above and behind" for another pilot, and waving the "takeoff" signal to the tug pilot or winch operator. Or holding a wing and running until the glider/sailplane was moving fast enough for the ailerons to take effect. Also driving the tractor to recover the tow line dropped by the Chippie; and to recover idiots who landed long and ended up at the end of the field. After all this, if the weather held you finally got your turn in the c*ckpit.

After getting your glider license, the next stage was powered aircraft, i.e the Chipmunk.

All this, and getting paid for it too! Sometimes you just don't appreciate it when you're having the best of times. It seems it'll go on for ever. Then you're back in civvie street. And married. With a family. And a mortgage.

 

[skywords]

So many pilots fly their entire lives and never know what it is like to fly in silence without power. The pilot that trains in a glider is a better pilot for it.

 

[Alpine Bob]

How about the pilot that trains at 'HHR' Hawthorn Airport, right next to LAX in the LA Basin, share the sky with 747s and the like, the Pacific on the west, mountains on the east & north, and desert over the mountains, what else is there, but silence,and I had that when the engine quit, but was able to glide into Riverside Airport. Belive me, when you declare an emergency the FAA is right there when you land.

 

[skywords]

How about the pilot that trains at 'HHR' Hawthorn Airport, right next to LAX in the LA Basin, share the sky with 747s and the like, the Pacific on the west, mountains on the east & north, and desert over the mountains, what else is there, but silence,and I had that when the engine quit, but was able to glide into Riverside Airport. Belive me, when you declare an emergency the FAA is right there when you land.

Your a better man than I Bob. I hate flying around that kind of traffic. Congrats on your sucessfull dead stick I am a stick and rudder grass strip kind of pilot that will avoid ATC at all costs. My flying technique is over under or around if they ask my intentions I turn the radio OFF. I used to fly in those areas all the time but oneday I had a controller put a 727 too close to me and when I made an evasive maneuver to avoid I got the phone number. Now the click method of navigation. I was flying oneday with a old salty pilot that was reading what was obviously a very out of date chart when I asked him about it he said "the mountains haven't moved". Todays flying is well past the point of enjoyable and I don't miss it.

 

[Nickodell]

Rick: way back you asked if I had any pics of my RAF days. I explained that almost all of them were destroyed when our basement, where they were stored, flooded [moral: always keep negatives]. This was 35 years ago, long before such things could be easily copied to a DVD. Anyhow, raking through some old stuff I fould this one from the gliding days, too. It was in the flood but is just about viewable. The Sedberg is in the foreground, with Your Humble Author just back from first solo. The Gruenwald, which I flew later in the day, is in the background.

 

[skywords]

212 looks like a nice ship with a generously under cambered wing. I bet it would float for days. Open cockpit to boot NICE Those are memories that can't be erased.

 

[Nickodell]

It would, until you pulled the lift spoilers, then it came down OK. As I recall, instruments were ASI, altimeter and a rise/sink indicator (which was a bit of a joke; as a basic trainer it was a glider with fat, low aspect ratio wings, not a sailplane. Unless you were dumb enough to place it into a thermal, you got winched up, did a couple of circuits, and came down). Oh, I forgot the fourth instrument, the string skid/slip indicator. Actually, we used a piece of wool.