{"id":3087,"date":"2014-11-07T17:04:49","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T01:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=3087"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:56","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:56","slug":"117-shadow-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/117-shadow-game\/","title":{"rendered":"#117 The Shadow Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a new CFI, I was consumed with inventing new training maneuvers.\u00a0 Gee, maybe I still am!\u00a0 One of the maneuvers I came up with was The Shadow Game.\u00a0 I was flying out of the Montague Airport in northern California.\u00a0 We were very close to Interstate 5.\u00a0 That highway teemed with traffic, whizzing north and south.\u00a0 I\u2019d take my students over to the highway at about 1,000 feet on a clear day.\u00a0 We\u2019d find our shadow moving across the ground, then move to a position from which that shadow was over the Interstate.\u00a0 We\u2019d place our shadow over one of the cars and try to keep it on that car.\u00a0 It was a challenging game.\u00a0 We had to play the sun\u2019s angle.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say we were northbound in the morning with the Sun high and on our right.\u00a0 In order to move our shadow left, we\u2019d try to move the aircraft 90 degrees to the sun.\u00a0 That would mean that we\u2019d move left and up.\u00a0 To move our shadow to the right, we\u2019d move right and down.\u00a0 Sometimes we\u2019d just put the shadow on the highway and disregard any cars.\u00a0 That would teach the student to get familiar with the basic principle of the Shadow Game.\u00a0 Then we\u2019d find a car and deal with the speed, matching ours to the car on the interstate.\u00a0 But the funniest phenomenon was the speed adjustment that so often came when the driver of that car became aware of the airplane overhead.\u00a0 More times than I can remember, the driver would suddenly slow down as soon as he became aware of our shadow.\u00a0 That would require the pilot to immediately reduce power and raise the nose in order to match the speed of his plane with the car.<\/h4>\n

I was smugly thrilled with this little maneuver.\u00a0 It really developed the ability of my students to put their aircraft where they wanted.\u00a0 It also took their head out of the cockpit as they controlled the airplane while watching the cars on the ground.<\/h4>\n
\"Speed<\/a>
Mine wasn’t the only airplane lurking over the interstate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But have you ever noticed that there is often a \u201cspoiler\u201d which lurks in the background, waiting to louse up a good thing?\u00a0 There sure was in my case, and the spoiler was wearing the uniform of a California Highway Patrol officer, who came to visit me one day at the airport.<\/h4>\n

\u201cAre you the guy who\u2019s been putting his shadow on traffic over on the interstate?\u201d the cop asked me.<\/h4>\n

Not certain what kind of trouble I was in, but pretty sure that I was in SOME kind of trouble, I hesitated a bit before answering, \u201cuh, yeh, I guess I am\u2026\u201d<\/h4>\n

\"Speed<\/a>\u201cI really wish you\u2019d stop\u201d, he said, then explained why.\u00a0 \u201cYou see, the stretch of I-5 that you\u2019re playing your little game over is where we use a Cessna 180 to catch speeders.\u00a0 In fact, there are big signs on the side of the freeway which state, \u201cSpeed controlled by aircraft\u201d.<\/h4>\n

Suddenly it all became crystal clear.\u00a0 The drivers would see that sign, then they\u2019d see my shadow either on the pavement ahead or right on top of them.\u00a0 In order to avoid getting a speeding ticket, the drivers would often slam on the brakes in order to slow to the speed limit.\u00a0 That maneuver on their part, challenged my students to alter THEIR speed and made the game even more productive.\u00a0 But it drove the cops nuts!<\/h4>\n

So I cut back on my fun game.\u00a0 Eventually I left Montague and pursued a career in the airshow<\/h4>\n
\"Speed<\/a>
The cop who visited me was not nearly as friendly as this officer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

business.\u00a0 I pretty much abandoned my old Shadow Game.\u00a0 But lately I\u2019ve resurrected it a bit.\u00a0 You may want to as well.\u00a0 But if you do and you see an annoyed-looking cop looking for you at the airport you\u2019ll know what\u2019s on his mind.<\/h4>\n

Happy Swooping\u2026 and shadowing!<\/h4>\n

Brian<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAre you the guy who\u2019s been putting his shadow on traffic over on the interstate?\u201d the cop asked me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3091,"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":[35,174],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087"}],"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=3087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}