In the first part, I described how I ran away from home when I was four years old to see a biplane that landed in a neighbors field, how I got my mother's approval to join a college flying club and some of my early dual and solo experiences. I was flying a 1946 Taylorcraft BC-65 that was newly rebuilt and which the Club had purchased for $1600. It cost $4.00 per hour (wet) and the instructor cost the same. All time was by wrist watch. When the year 1959 ended I had 14:30 TT, 8:05 of which was dual.

In 1960, my training continued and the log book shows lots of take-offs and landing practice, power on and power off stalls, low altitude maneuvers like rectangular course, S turns, pylon 8s, etc. I did the first dual cross country which took 3:00 hours on March 6. The club Taylorcraft was no ball of fire on climb out but it would cruise at an honest 90 mph on 4 gph. It had a cruise propeller that gave 1900 rpm on static run-up which we checked every time right after the magneto check. I never understood why. It was just part of the run-up like checking the mags and the carb heat. The rule was to use a cruise rpm that was the same as you got on static run-up. That setting would produce 90 mph on 4 gph. I did my first cross country with a young newly certified instructor, who also owned a Taylorcraft but he had not flown the club plane. His plane must have had a climb prop because he insisted I use 2150 rpm and he was real impressed at the 104 mph we were doing. He mentioned how fast the plane was to the airport operator when we got back who immediately asked what rpm we used. The young instructor got a rather firm lecture about cruising at the rpm the engine would develop on static run-up. We used 5 gph on that trip.

It is interesting that a week after my dual cross country, I started learning how to land and takeoff in a crosswind. I had already made my long solo cross country before the log book shows any wheel landing training. As I recall, there was no requirement for instructor approval of a cross country flight once you had successfully completed the first big dual cross country. You just had to get someone to sign your log book where you landed to verify you had been there. Sometimes there was no one at the airport and several of my cross countries are attested to by my college roommates. I made many flights to my home town which was about 35 miles north and to other nearby airports. Several times my mother signed my logbook when I landed at the hometown airport. Flying around solo at $4.00 per hour was lots of fun and relatively cheap fun even in 1960. I certainly could have gotten my license faster with more focus on the requirements for the flight test but I was in no particular hurry. On one of these little cross countries I went to Midland, MI to a fly-in breakfast. This stubby four seat, fabric covered plane flew in with an Aexperimental sign in the window. It was the prototype Maule. I was impressed by how wide the cabin was compared to the Taylorcraft.

The solo distance requirement at the time was a flight of three legs, one of which had to be at least 100 miles long. If you look at the lower peninsula of Michigan, it is apparent that it is hard to get a 100 mile leg starting from Mt. Pleasant in the center of the state. So I flew east to Saginaw then southwest to Muskegon and back to Mt. Pleasant. The Saginaw - Muskegon leg is exactly 100 miles which the flight examiner questioned on my private flight test. Using his wall chart, he made it out at 98 miles. The only memory I have of my first solo cross country flight is that when I transferred fuel from the wing tank to the nose tank, it ran over and gasoline went all over the windshield and came dripping into the cabin. That was really no problem, however when the same thing had happened on my dual cross country, my instructor was smoking a cigarette. He opened his door and threw out the cigarette so fast I did not know what had happened. He was scared and he never smoked while flying after that. We had decided when to transfer fuel by looking at the Awire on a cork fuel gauge on the main tank. After that method had failed two times, I figured there had to be a better way. From then on I transferred fuel based on time and that solved the problem. The wing tanks held 6 gallons each. So after flying 2 hours there was plenty of room in the nose tank but the wire fuel gauge would be completely down for 30 minutes before the two hours was up. Very disconcerting but it worked. It was my first lesson about managing fuel and never trusting fuel gauges.

In early June, I flew to Grand Rapids where I could take the private written test from the FAA. There was a control tower and since the Taylorcraft had no radio, I was controlled by lights from the tower which worked just fine. When I was ready to leave, there was no one to prop the engine. I went back into the FAA facility and one of the secretaries came out and got me started. I thought that was a neat way to talk to a young lady but from then on I carried a short rope in my flight bag to tie the tail down so I could prop myself.

During 1960, the FAA decided that all private pilots had to be able to demonstrate the ability to control the airplane by reference to instruments. Another new rule required navigation by radio. With several club members nearing the private flight test, the club had a turn and bank instrument driven by vacuum from a small 2 inch venturi installed over the summer. They also installed a small battery powered low frequency receiver that would get the “A” or “N” morse code signal from the old four-course radio range stations, a few of which were still around. The low frequency stations could be used to demonstrate navigation by means of radio until all the stations were closed. Omni navigation was the new thing at the time but they were expensive, and needed a lot of power – they were full of vacuum tubes. The Taylorcraft had no electrical system so there was no way to provide the power needed in any case.

When I got home from college that spring I got the job of baling hay for our family, the neighbor with whom we owned the New Holland bailer and for several other close by farms. The fact I remember is that in 14 days I baled 14,000 bales of hay. Crank starting the V-4 aircooled engine on the bailer was right at the limit of my strength and I learned that it could kick back if the choke was not used properly. It was much harder to start than the larger Cont. A-65 on the Taylorcraft I flew.

When I got back to school in the fall, the first thing I did was schedule dual to learn how to “fly on instruments.” I made a two hour flight in the middle of a warm October day on “needle-ball and airspeed”. I was mentally and physically exhausted after that flight and on short final the instructor asked for a wheel landing, which I did OK. However, I lost directional control as the tail was coming down, and ground looped off the hard surface into the grass and went right around a runway light. The wing tip had grass stains but no damage. We had to dismount the tire to get dirt out from between the bead of the tire and the wheel. It was my first experience working on an airplane and while the ground loop was embarrassing, taking the tire off the wheel, cleaning and inspecting everything and reinstalling it was interesting to me. I recognized there were more enjoyable things to flying than the act itself — I was to learn that can be applied to other aspects of life as well!

There was another unusual thing about that first instrument training flight which I had forgotten about until I was looking at my log book. I made that flight totally blind to the outside world and I was not wearing a hood. There was an opinion at the time that wearing a hood for instrument training was no good so the Taylorcraft’s windows were covered on the inside with this ugly orange cellophane and you had to wear a pair of blue goggles. With this set up, the windows just looked black. It was impossible to cheat as you could with a hood and all the students hated it. It also cut down on the instructors ability to “look-and-see” other planes so we gave up on that system and started using hoods before I took the private test. We, of course, flew without any hearing protection and that proved helpful in the instrument training. Like all of the tube and fabric planes made in the 1940's, the Taylorcraft had no sound proofing and air leaked in everywhere. I soon learned that hearing was a better sense to use at low airspeeds than the airspeed indicator. And if you paid attention to where the draft was hitting your face and the air sounds you could be way ahead in recovering from unusual attitudes.

One Friday evening in late November I returned from a local flight just as the sun was setting. The FBO had a contract to fly pipelines all over the state, including the upper peninsula and the man who did the flying had just returned from a long day of flying to find the boss totally drunk. The boss lived on a small airport about 20 miles away and he wanted to fly the patrol plane to his home. He was in no condition to fly but he was mad, and he wanted to leave right now as the runway he was heading for was unlighted. When the patrol pilot told him he was too drunk to fly, he threatened to fire him if we did not get him into the plane. He was too drunk to walk so I helped literally carry him to the Cessna 140 and he flew away. The next time I was at the airport the boss asked me if I had heard anything. I had not and did not know what he was talking about. However, when I got my mail that evening there was a letter from the City Council asking me to appear at their next meeting. There were several other people at the meeting and the topic was the FBO and if we had ever seen him fly while drunk. Very shortly we had a new Fixed Base Operator. When the year 1960 ended, I had 53:15 TT and 18:30 dual and the last hour of dual was marked “Preparation for flight test.” To be continued...

Copyright © 2001 by Gary Collins.  All rights reserved.

Prev Part     Next Part