Why aim I describing this particular airplane? Well I was good friends with another CAP cadet, Craig Foltz. He would pick me up in his little Fiat, we'd drive up to Paine field and we'd rent this little jewel for the day. We did this nearly every week. He got the flight hours for his log book,and I got to fly around for the shear enjoyment of it. Of course I paid 1/2 the flight rental time, as I had a job while Craig, not so much.
We'd pre-flight the plane, drip a bit of fuel out each wing tank (you look for any bubbling that indicates water in the fuel, not good), check the oil, exercise all of the control surfaces, and get ready to go. We'd start it as I described above. Always giving that propeller a LOT of respect. With both of us in, me in back of course, we'd radio for taxi privileges, and taxi out near the active run way. Here, Craig would advance the throttle quite a ways and turn off first one than the other magneto (mag) to make sure the RPM's dropped. If they didn't drop, that really meant one of the two ignition circuits wasn't really doing it's job sending power to that set of spark plugs. You don't take off like that.
Ok, off we'd go. We'd fly visual flight rules (VFR), meaning we were responsible for seeing and avoiding other traffic and they in turn not plowing into us. There are areas around an airport (Sea-Tac, Boeing, and Paine) that are reserved for flights under IFR, or Instrument Flight Rules. IFR flights are constantly under the direction of the FAA 'Center' or (airport) Approach/Departure or Tower. Us, being just VFR people, stayed out of those reserved airspaces.
We went all over the area. We'd usually plan to go to another airport, do some take offs and landings, maybe stop for lunch and head back. Sometimes we start and end at Paine, and just spend time flying. I was with the daring Captain Foltz (Yes, a real Captain of United Airlines later in life), when he did the first loop of his long flying career over Elliot bay. It didn't go right. Seems Craig didn't pull tight enough back on the stick (Yes, a stick, not a wheel or yoke), and instead of positive G's for the whole loop, we went a little weightless at the top before coming down the back side.
This caused a few things to happen. 1. Loose things started bouncing around the cabin as all of a sudden the cabin was, and more importantly felt upside down. Ok I thought, we'll put the stuff back. Oh, another consequence was the engine ran out of fuel and quit. Seems the airknocker (nickname for the champ), wasn't really designed to operate in a negative or zero G environment. Remember at the beginning when I described starting the engine? Well, we couldn't step outside to do that, so Craig put the plane in a dive until we went fast enough to windmill the prop until the fuel got back to it and we had power once again.
We were over Elliot Bay on purpose for doing things like loops, as it wouldn't be ethical to do aerobatics where we could come down on someones house. Back with power, we gained the altitude we lost, and discussed what happened. Craig knew he blew it by not keeping the loop as tight as he needed to to keep force on the plane down towards the floor, so charts, binoculars and oh yes, the gas would stay where it was supposed to. So what could we do? Of course, we did the trick again, and when that worked, and the engine kept running, again and maybe once again. I can't recall how many, but more than 2. It most have been an unusual sight from West Seattle or downtown had anyone been looking.
That's enough for one blog. I may be back with other flight stories when I have the itch to roam through my memories.
Dad
I suppose I am still a bit surprised and jealous that you had so many opportunities to fly around in planes growing up. I will definitely not be bummed if you should detail more stories about your time in the sky.
ReplyDelete-Bradley