{"id":2098,"date":"2013-08-01T08:06:02","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T15:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=2098"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:58","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:58","slug":"74-the-new-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/74-the-new-standard\/","title":{"rendered":"#74 The New Standard"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Adam<\/a>
Adam Haldeman with dad Jay Haldeman’s J-5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is a story about nothing, but it\u2019s kind of interesting to me.\u00a0 I\u2019d been flying with Adam for close to a month.\u00a0 His dad is an Alaska Airlines Captain who owns a very nice Piper J5 and I was finishing up Adam\u2019s private license instruction.\u00a0 Since this type of aircraft requires the instructor to sit in the back, there are not very many instructors who will do it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about it before: (https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/\/2012\/23-taking-a-backseat\/<\/a>)There\u2019s just something uncomfortable to most instructors about sitting in the back of a tandem airplane.\u00a0 Some are worse than others.\u00a0 The J5 is pretty blind back there, but I\u2019ve found that I can demo maneuvers fairly easily from that blind back seat. Mike Dennis from Oregon Aero had even provided some auxiliary seat cushions which helped comfort, visibility and safely.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0It wasn\u2019t always that easy.\u00a0 I think that, to be honest, I\u2019d have to say that it\u2019s taken me a long time to get comfortable in the back seat of a tandem.\u00a0 Fortunately, some of my earliest instruction was from the back seat of my 100HP Cub.\u00a0 That helped a lot.\u00a0 And one day I was given an opportunity to fly for Steve and Suzanne Oliver.\u00a0 They owned a 1930 New Standard Biplane and needed a relief pilot for ride-hopping.\u00a0 I was in good company.\u00a0 In addition to Steve and Suzanne, the plane was flown by aviation legend Joe Kittinger, whose bride, Sherry, served as roustabout and ticket-seller.\u00a0 The old biplane seated four (that\u2019s right, four and sometimes five) passengers in the front cockpit.\u00a0 The pilot sat in the back cockpit.\u00a0 Being a taildragger and biplane with that size and all those people in front of you, you were blind as a bat back there.\u00a0 That was when people started asking how you could see to land.\u00a0 Steve would point out, \u201cIf you can\u2019t see the runway to the left, and you can\u2019t see the runway to the right, it must be right in front of you\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Hoop<\/a>
Hooper and Brian Lansburgh in the New Standard at a fly-in back in 1993.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I probably learned more about flying in that type of configuration from that airplane than from any other.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always prized the time I put in the old New Standard and it remains one of my very favorite airplanes, despite the necessity of measuring its roll rate with a calendar.<\/p>\n

So it was no big deal to do a bunch of instruction this year in a Super Cub and then in the J-5.\u00a0 I was actually enjoying unusually great visibility when Jay, Adam and I knocked off from an afternoon of maintenance to just goof off with some formation flying.\u00a0 Adam got to slide into my usual seat in the back of the J-5.\u00a0 I hopped in my Cessna 140 and we all formed up over Sisters, then headed for Sunriver to meet up with Jay\u2019s pal, Andy.\u00a0 Andy rose up to meet us in his PA-12 and the three of us formated around for a while before landing at Sunriver to plan the next stage of our little evening adventure.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>
Owner Steve Oliver flies the New Standard over Florida with a front cockpit full of happy passengers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I taxied in to the resort\u2019s tiedown area, there was a New Standard D-25 parked on the ramp, its little stool waiting to help passengers into the front cockpit. \u00a0It was “Stanley”. \u00a0He now sports a different paint job and he has a different owner, but it\u2019s the same airplane.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same great old plane that Suzanne, Steve, Joe, Sherry and I all flew and for which I still have such fond memories.<\/p>\n

I was having fun, flying with my friends, but I have to admit that, had I not had to pay attention to the flying at hand, I would have been looking fondly at \u00a0old three zero victor and maybe even muttering, \u201cGood to see you, old friend.\u00a0 Thanks, Stanley, for teaching me so much\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“As I taxied in to the resort\u2019s tiedown area, there was a New Standard D-25 parked on the ramp, its little stool waiting to help passengers into the front cockpit. It was “Stanley”. “<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,115,171,178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}