{"id":3411,"date":"2015-06-05T06:26:27","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T13:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=3411"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:56","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:56","slug":"131-you-didnt-tell-me-i-had-to-land-this-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/131-you-didnt-tell-me-i-had-to-land-this-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"#131 \u201cYou didn\u2019t tell me I had to land this thing!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I will admit that, deep down, I have an admiration for many airline pilots.\u00a0 A lot of my tailwheel students are airline pilots.\u00a0 I admire their knowledge of their equipment and of the system in which they fly.\u00a0 I also admire their ability to learn, as well as their desire to learn when they come to Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\n

My friend, Bert Garrison, who is also an airline captain, once shared with me his opinion that a lot of people believe an airline pilot can fly anything.\u00a0 As a well-trained flyer, who soloed in a little taildragger before he was old enough to drive, perhaps ol\u2019 Bert is one of the reasons for that misconception.\u00a0 But I think he\u2019s right.<\/h3>\n
\"PiperJ3handprop600dpi\"<\/a>
(I couldn\u2019t find a picture of John doing his act, but this picture shows Merle Larson hand propping a J-3 engine in flight over Concord CA in 1946. Gladys Davis is flying the Cub from the rear seat. This photo was taken by Bill Larkins, to whom I\u2019m very grateful.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/h3>\n

Many years ago I met a guy who did a comedy act in a J-3 Cub.\u00a0 His gimmick was that he\u2019d dead stick it, then, in a pass by the crowd, clamber out on the gear leg and hand prop the plane.\u00a0 He\u2019d get it started just in time to hop back in and land safely.\u00a0 John\u2019s act relied upon his getting a qualified pilot to sit in the other seat, mainly to act as a human auto-pilot and keep the wings level while he was outside propping.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, I didn\u2019t see the performance which I\u2019m about to describe.\u00a0 I guess I heard about it later from some friends, so if I get a few details wrong, forgive me.\u00a0 The point will be the same and that point is that maybe there are certain assumptions which we shouldn\u2019t make.<\/h3>\n

Perhaps John made that assumption that Bert referred to.\u00a0 A lot of airshow pilots are airline pilots.\u00a0 John asked one of them to \u201cride shotgun\u201d for him.\u00a0 With this high-time, popular air show pilot in the seat, John proceeded to fly his act.\u00a0 He stopped the prop, then transferred control of the plane to his \u201cauto-pilot\u201d and climbed out to hand prop the little Cub.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t start. With the ground gradually approaching, John finally gave up his attempts and tried to scramble back aboard. But the ground was fast approaching. He hung on, half in and half out of the cockpit while his co-pilot, suddenly promoted to Pilot-in-Command, attempted to land the plane.<\/h3>\n

But John\u2019s assumption included his belief that a Cub is so simple that anyone can fly it.\u00a0 That might be true if not for the fact that there are plenty of high-time, accomplished pilots who have never flown a tailwheel airplane.\u00a0 He\u2019d selected one of those.\u00a0 The result was a wild, bouncing trip down the runway.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t witness it, but for all I know it may very well have ended with a ground loop.\u00a0 When the dust had settled, all had ended well, with no damage to the airplane and only a little to some egos.<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ll bet ol\u2019 John never made that assumption again.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll bet his second generation airline pilot helper realized that maybe the \u201cWhat-if\u201ds should be considered the next time someone was needed for that kind of job.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s a lesson we learn from time to time: Don\u2019t make assumptions.<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I will admit that, deep down, I have an admiration for many airline pilots.\u00a0 A lot of my tailwheel students are airline pilots.\u00a0 I admire their knowledge of their equipment and of the system in which they fly.\u00a0 I also admire their ability to learn, as well as their desire to learn when they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3412,"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":[35,67,173,174,178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3411"}],"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=3411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}