{"id":4452,"date":"2017-06-09T06:16:22","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T13:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=4452"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","slug":"183-visit-groundloop-saloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/183-visit-groundloop-saloon\/","title":{"rendered":"#183 A Visit to the Groundloop Saloon"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

(This is one of my very rare forays into fiction.\u00a0 Written in the fall of 2016.)<\/p>\n

As a teacher of flying, I found that on those occasions when I sought to overpower a student on the controls, I was always pushing.\u00a0 I was always trying to get the nose down.\u00a0 Was it only me, who had taken up the cause of lower angle of attack?\u00a0 It had really been bothering me.\u00a0 On occasions like this, I often seek truth and consensus at one place.\u00a0 It may be about the only place where I really feel I belong.<\/h3>\n

I wandered down the taxiway at Tailwheel Town.\u00a0 The sun had gone down and gradually the sound of the old piano, of the band, of scintillating conversation and of glasses tinkling and great thoughts being shared became louder and louder.\u00a0 I found myself at the end of the taxiway where a hangar home had been taken over.\u00a0 You see, the former inhabitants had not been pilots.\u00a0 They had sought a place with a nice home and a big hangar for uses other than the storage and maintenance of airplanes.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t go over well with the pilot population and the non-flyers had been unceremoniously booted out of Tailwheel Town.\u00a0 I heard that the \u201cdisplacement committee\u201d had told them, \u201cIt\u2019s a waste of property if you live on an airport and don\u2019t have an airplane.\u201d They handed them a check for the fair price and said, \u201cNow get out.\u201d<\/h3>\n

So now the place, re-named \u201cThe Groundloop Saloon\u201d, belonged to the Flight Instructors\u2019 Club.\u00a0 I pushed my way into the place.<\/h3>\n

Picture that famous nightclub in the very first \u201cStar Wars\u201d movie.\u00a0 When Han Solo and his friends go into the place, it\u2019s filled with funny music, kind of like Klezmer.\u00a0 Many weird and different sorts of beings all drink, fight and carry on at tables scattered about the place.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the \u201cGroundloop Saloon\u201d looks like.\u00a0 It\u2019s where lots of professional pilots, but mostly those who have come to the calling of flight training seek the company of like-minded individuals.\u00a0 Sometimes I think that the spirits of the departed exist there, not just in their pictures, hanging on the wall, but drifting around and visiting at the tables.\u00a0 They drop their wisdom from time to time as they drift from table to table.<\/h3>\n
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The Fairey Swordfish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Tom Jones, the first American air show pilot to fly the Russian Sukhoi SU26.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Jessie Woods, Wingwalker, Flight Instructor and great lady.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"\"
Bill Warren, Airshow Pilot and great stick.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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(Just a few of the pictures on the wall at the \u201cGroundloop Saloon.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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On this night I was searching for an answer, so I banged a spoon against my glass of \u201cSheepdip\u201d Scotch whiskey as I stood on the small stage.\u00a0 Gradually I got the attention of most of the denizens of the Groundloop.<\/h3>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been wondering\u2026\u201d I started.\u00a0 \u201cOur airplanes all have dual controls.\u00a0 They have dual controls so that we can overpower our students or maybe sometimes demonstrate to them.\u00a0 But I find that on those occasions when I am overpowering a student, I\u2019m almost always PUSHING.\u00a0 What is your experience?\u00a0 Have any of you characters ever PULLED on the stick or control wheel, or are we always PUSHING?\u201d<\/h3>\n

The answer was unanimous.\u00a0 Some of the pilots had to perk themselves up out of an alcohol-induced haze, scratch their thinkbumps and consider for a moment.\u00a0 Some had to converse momentarily with their comrades, but they all muttered together that, indeed, they almost always pushed, never pulled.\u00a0 In fact, the only time they ever pulled was to keep a student from making an aircraft-shaped hole in the runway during a landing.<\/h3>\n

\u201cThank you,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s kinda what I thought\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 I ambled over to the bar to refresh my glass of Sheepdip and someone drifted over to me to help me understand.<\/h3>\n

\u201cYou do know what flight instruction is, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u201cYeh, yeh, yeh, \u201cI replied.\u00a0 \u201cThe gradual transference of responsibility for the flight from the teacher to the student\u2026 I\u2019ve said it a million times\u2026\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u201cThat may be,\u201d the voice agreed, \u201cbut there is just a little more to it than that.\u00a0 You see, everyone really knows how to fly.\u00a0 It\u2019s our job to simply allow their knowledge to come to the surface.\u00a0 And part of that process is the shedding of human instinct in order to allow knowledge of flying to replace it\u2026\u201d<\/h3>\n

That voice sounded a bit familiar.\u00a0 So did the words. \u00a0I looked to the wall where pictures of departed aviators hung.\u00a0 Bill Warren\u2019s[1]<\/a> picture was bit fuzzy.<\/h3>\n

\u201cYou mean\u2026\u201d I started.<\/h3>\n

\u201cYes, exactly\u201d, the voice agreed.\u00a0 \u201cYou know that old joke: To make an airplane go up, pull back; to make it go down, pull back further?\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u201cSure\u201d, I nodded, slurping the peaty-tasting liquid and allowing its hotness to gurgle down my gullet.<\/h3>\n

\u201cThat experience of overcoming the pull with the push is simply that moment where you are, in effect, telling your student, \u2018no, don\u2019t fall victim to your own instinct\u2019, just let the airplane fly\u201d.<\/h3>\n

\u201cYou mean like that scene from \u201dMy Friend Flicka<\/a>\u201d that I\u2019m always repeating?<\/h3>\n

\u201cExactly\u201d, the disembodied member of the fraternity nodded.<\/h3>\n

\u201cOl\u2019 Wolfgang Langewiesche got it right\u2026\u201d<\/h3>\n

Just then the spirit of Wolfgang Langewiesche appeared and his thick, German accent was unmistakable and undeniable\u2026\u201dAch! Is about time someone realized I vas right all along\u2026\u201d and then he disappeared.<\/h3>\n

The disembodied spirit continued.\u00a0 \u201cAirplanes ARE like horses and often they simply need to be given their head.\u00a0 Remember when Frank Chapot wrote that article about making sure that there was no contact on a horse\u2019s mouth when he went over a jump?\u00a0 It\u2019s the same thing.\u00a0 When you are pushing on the stick or control wheel, it\u2019s because you are recognizing that the student is pulling on the horse\u2019s mouth just as he is trying to clear that hurdle.\u00a0 That\u2019s the last thing he needs\u2026 and it\u2019s the last thing an airplane needs.\u00a0 As the spirit\u2019s presence disappeared, I looked over to the wall.\u00a0 Bill\u2019s picture had come into sharp focus.<\/h3>\n

It was that night at the Groundloop Saloon and in the company of fellow members of the Flight Instructor\u2019s Club that I achieved my consensus and true understanding of just one of the thousands of things we teach when we set about to make a flier out of a ground-pounder or to perfect what Acme set out to teach.<\/h3>\n

Filled with new assurance, I wobbled out of the Saloon and headed back to my place.\u00a0 I passed another hangar, where a late night meeting could be heard.\u00a0 That\u2019s where students and tailwheel endorsement applicants were plotting against their teachers.\u00a0 I knew all about that custom.\u00a0 I also knew that for some of them, it would be a relatively short trip to the Groundloop Saloon.\u00a0 A flight of passage awaited them as they learned to teach what they\u2019d learned.<\/h3>\n

\u00a0My step was at once a little unsteady because of the Sheepdip, but it was partly resolute with the knowledge that I was on to at least one little tidbit of truth.\u00a0 My colleagues, both present and past had provided me with the little vote of confidence that I needed.\u00a0 They had provided me with an instructional tidbit.\u00a0 It was a tidbit that I would share with all those who came to me for their own transformation.\u00a0 I felt better already\u2026 or was it the Sheep Dip?<\/h3>\n

[1]<\/a> For more about Bill, see https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/\/2012\/24-bill-warren\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“As a teacher of flying, I found that on those occasions when I sought to overpower a student on the controls, I was always pushing.\u00a0 I was always trying to get the nose down.\u00a0 Was it only me, who had taken up the cause of lower angle of attack?\u00a0“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4455,"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":[35,38,67,85,171,174,178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452"}],"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=4452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}