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Show By GaLtaln B&utand Bicozei BASIC FLTCJTT INSTRUCTION LESSON NUMBER FIVE Robinson Fly down the line of the track. Keep her level and on a straight course. Now make your turn and go back to the field, and make your landing on the place where 1 you've been landing. Think you can do that? OHank you just watch met Robinson And remember about the wind and landing. You never know when the wind's going to change. We're coming into the field now; circle 'round to see which way the wind's from. Hank By George, Bill you're right. IFind has changed! I'll have to land from this direction. Robinson Right you are! And do you see what I mean by saying "never take anything for granted"? Always be sure you're right before give you the idea of what I meant. Let's climb in. Hank Right. All set? Robinson All set. Take off. Good take-off, my lad. Hank Thanks. How high do you want me to go? Robinson What does the altimeter altime-ter read? Hank Twenty-five hundred. Robinson That's high enough. I'll take the controls and show you why it's bad business to make spirals when losing height before landing. Now we are making nice, easy spirals spi-rals and are almost ready to land. We should be facing the field, but are we? Hank We certainly are nott Robinson Do you know why? What you've got to do always in a plane, Hank, is to do the sure thing. get me on all this? Hank I get some 0 it but Tm not sure I get it all. Do a sideslip and I'll watch. Maybe then it will all be clear to me. Robinson All right. We'll take off. You just watch the stick and rudder bar. I'm going to try to land her right by that stretch of green grass down o your left. And. before I forget It, the real value of sideslipping sideslip-ping Is found in case of a forced landing where you may have very little ground to land on. . . . So when you practice, pick out a certain spot and act as if you were compelled com-pelled to land right on that spot We're going to do that now. . . . Here goes. I pull back the throttle, put her on the left side by using the stick, and kick on enough top rudder to keep her nose on the horizon and pJ-J As the plane nears the ground the stick is con-A-XS. tinually pulled straight back until the - tail ""Tl) " nd wheels touch the ground (This is a cornet corn-et r 1 plete stall on the ground) in the desired position. See how we're losing height and not going forward much? . . . Now I'm flattening flat-tening out as I put the stick back to the other side to straighten her up, and put her nose down just enough to keep flying speed. Now I pull the stick back a little past neutral. There we are! Made it in fine shape, and just about in the center of that grass I was telling you about. See how easy that was? Think you can do it? Hank I'll try. Next best thing to success suc-cess is an honest failure. Robinson That's the stuff! You'll make it. Now take off, and start landing from about the same place I did. . . . That was a swell take-off, Hank, but you turned a little too soon. Don't do quick turns until you've had more time in the air then you can do climbing turns. I'll tell you about that later. . . . Now we're just about where we were before. be-fore. Pull the throttle back and put the stick farther over. That's it. Watch her nose. You're letting her fall down apply a little top rudder and put that stick on the other side, quick! Put the rudder in neutrall That's it. Now put her nose down a little. Wait a minute don't level out too soon. All right, level out. That's fine. You overshot the mark a little "that time, Hank. If that spot had been the only one on which you CROSS-WIND TAKE-OFF AND CLIMBING TURN INTO THE WIND . "rT you go ahead. Now that the wind's changed, do you want me to land her? Hank think 1 can do it note's as good a time to learn that trick as any. Robinson That's the idea. But since you have to land from this direction, start bringing her down before you get over the field. Otherwise Other-wise you might overshoot and run into the hangars. . . . Fine. Fine! Great landing! Now I'll climb out and you go ahead and do some straight flying, solo. Don't stay up more than an hour, and don't get out . of sight of the field. If your engine shows the slightest sign of being off, come straight in don't take any chances. . . . And look out for other planes. Don't get close to them Or let them get close to you. The sky's wide as the world, and then some no sense to collisions in the air. . . . See how good a pilot you can be on your own, Hank, and watch out for everything. Remember keep your eyes open and look in all directions. So long. (Walks over to stand with Casey at Hangar No. 1 while Hank makes the flight.) Casey Looks like that fellow's going go-ing to turn into a crack pilot. Robinson He is. Always on his toes and remembers everything well, almost everything the first time he's told. Has a good sense of distance, too fact is, he seems to have the stuff good pilots are made of. Robinson Well, Hank, you've been doing quite a lot of flying this past hour. How was it? Hank Some of it wasn't so good. Bill. I tried landing on different places on the field, and a couple of times I seemed to hit on one wheel. Robinson Do you know why? Hank Sure! I wasn't landing with my slick in neutral. It was over to one side and, of course, that made the plane till a little. Robinson That's the answer and, since you know it, you won't make that mistake again. 3 Hank No, not that one anyivay. Know how high I got this afternoon? Robinson You tell me. Hank was up three thousand feet and I started my last landing from that altitude. First I pulled back the throttle 'mnd put her nose down, then sort of glided in in a spiral. Robinson That's good. But when you're at a high altitude like that, It's always best to do those "S" turns I showed you. . . . Always do your turn toward the field. In that way you'll be facing in the right direction direc-tion when you are ready to land. It's pretty hard to determine just how much height you're losing with each spiral so that you'U come out Just right. You were plain lucky on what you did today. And that's just another proof of what I've told you be sure you're right before you go ahead. Hank You mean I might have cracked up? mr Robinson You were in real dan ger. HankJThetv! lust knowing that sort of knocks the tvind out of me. Robinson I'm glad that you just "sort of" got the wind knocked out of you, and not actually. And that's all we'll be doing today. See you tomorrow. Robinson Well, Hank, you had a little experience on your own yesterday, yes-terday, doing a spiral to lose height before landing. Remember I told you to do "S" turns instead? Hunk I remember and how! Robinson We'll go up now and I'll There can't be any guesswork in this game. Spirals are not for landing because be-cause you never can tell where you'U be facing when you're ready to land. . f . Instead of landing, we'll climb up to the same altitude, and I'll show you what you should do and why you should do it. We're up now at twenty-five hundred feet and I'll shut down the engine and lose height by doing "S" turns. . . . Down goes the nose through a gentle gen-tle glide and we bank in the same direction as the rudder. After she's over in the direction you want, you make a small glide in that direction direc-tion before reversing direction, which you do by reversing your controls. con-trols. . . . Of course, you have to govern the length of your glides by the width of the ground on which you intend to land. . . . You continue this operation until you are at the edge of the field and about a hundred hun-dred and fifty feet up. Then either sideslip or glide straight onto the field, and land. Remember: treat every landing as if it were a forced landing; by doing that you'll always al-ways be in practice if ever you have to make one. . . . And always pick out the spot oh the field where you intend to land. That helps you learn to judge distances. . . . See how I gave her the gas then? Just before you are ready to land, after having your engine throttled for any length of time, always give her a shot of gas, to see if she holds. Here we are a perfect three-point landing. Did I tell 'you about those wheel landings? The point is, don't ever make wheel landings. . . . First, because be-cause they are unnecessary and second, sec-ond, because in wheel-landing you might hit something on the field, too small to be noticed but big enough to toss you over on your nose. . . . Stick to the three-point landing it's the only perfect way to set her down. HankSuits me fine. But why lias it so bumpy coming down? Robinson Did the Dumpiness scare you? Hank No, I just wondered why it was bumpy. Robinson The bumpiness was in the air, Hank. In still weather a plane, properly rigged, will almost fly and land itself. But the weather's weath-er's not always perfect, and to be a good pilot you have to know how to fly in spite of the weather. . . And again I caution you not to take chances; no matter how good the weather, be alert for the unexpected, unexpect-ed, always. Now I want to get you started on sideslips and cross-wind landings. Hank Sounds like a large order. Robinson Not so large an order, but before we take off I'll explain. The purpose of a sideslip is to lose altitude in the direction in which you intend to land. Jo sideslip correctly, correct-ly, the nose should be pulled well up, the ship banked, and the top rudder rud-der applied. The stick should be eased forward enough to prevent turning. Recovery Is accomplished by raising the low wing and easing off on the rudder, observing due care to complete the recovery with the nose in its gliding position. . . . Keep her in that position until you get the trick of judging distances. When you get that trick, you can bring her out of a sideslip much closer to the ground. ... Of course, after you bring her out of the sideslip, you must keep her nose down to the proper angle until yon are ready to level out and lose flying speed. Then set her down on three points. Do you cuuiu nave lanaea, you a nave overshot and probably run into a fence or a ditch, or something else that would have made a smashup. . '. . We'll try it over and maybe over again until you get the hang of it. Take off. Hank Do you want me to go the same way as before? Robinson Yes. Take off just as we did before. All right, now this altitude is high enough. You're on your side too much. Put the stick back on the other side a little. Fine. Watch her nose. . . . Now look ahead for that mark and don't forget that you have only a small spot on which to land. All right bring her in and land. That was fine. You're getting get-ting into the swing of it. When you are doing your solo work, you'd better bet-ter do a lot of these small-spot landings. land-ings. Good thing to be expert in landing in close quarters never know when you'll have to do it. . . . We've gotten that pretty well in hand, so I'm going to tell you something some-thing about landing cross wind. The purpose of cross-wind take-offs or landings is about the same as for sideslipping. . . . Suppose you want to take off across wind instead of directly into the wind. The first thing you'd do is to take off in the regular way as if into the wind. . . . As soon as you have good flying speed and have left the ground, bank your plane slightly in the direction of the wind with the right wing down if the wind is from the right. That will counteract the drift of the plane over the ground, caused by the force of the wind. . . . Gradually rudder the plane into the wind, and after you-have faced the wind neutralize the rudder and pull the stick back for a climb but not too steep. Do you get the idea? |