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Show Can I Learn to Fly? hy William R. Nelson Showing the Inspector TAKE-OFFS, landings, vertical banks, and a tailspin were all Included In-cluded in the nest lesson. 1 was at the controls, bul 1 had a passenger. And he was a critical one. too. Instructors at the flying school where I took my course are "checked" periodically by an Inspector who flies with the students. He picks students who, the records show, have had widely wide-ly varying "hours" to indicate they should know. "Taxi out, take off, fly around the field to the left and land," he ordered or-dered as we climbed- into the plane. The air was smooth and I was "hot," for both of which 1 was grateful. grate-ful. The take-off, trip around and landing were all smooth enough. He said nothing about them. "Now go up to 2,000 feet and watch for my signals. Fly away from the field for a short distance." He called for right and left turns, road following, and right and left vertical banks. 1 managed, somen, ,v, to put the plane'through each maneuver maneu-ver without, his help and was congiat-ulating congiat-ulating myself when he suddenly shut off the motor and called for a "forced landing." As we neared the field 1 picked out, he opened the throttle and we zoomed up. He signaled for a climb, which I continued until we reached 3,000 feet. Then he cut the motor and shouted : "Can you bring it out of a tailspin?" 1 nodded "yes." He pulled the stick back and, as we stalled, put on full right rudder and we fell off to the right and into a tailspin. Instead ol looking straight ahead, as I had done before in spins, I followed the advice of other students stu-dents and looked upward at the horizon. hori-zon. A body of water flipped past just as we locked :n to the spin. When it went past again 1 neutralized the controls and a half turn later pulled back on the stick. We came out perfectly per-fectly and my fear of tailspins was gone. I knew where we were at all times and I was not sick. He, apparently satisfied with 'my exhibition, signaled for a landing, cutting cut-ting the motor a'- be did so. We were too high so 1 threw in an "S" turn to lose altitude and gunned the motor when I saw we were undershooting. He nodded approval of both maneuvers. maneu-vers. Eights and Spot Landings UNCLE SAM'S Department of Commerce Com-merce believes that persons seeking seek-ing pilot's licenses should be able to , do certain things with the machine they desire permission to operate. To ascertain the applicant's ability to meet the several requirements of each class of license, a test flight Is, given. For the private pilot's license that test includes "figure eights,'' "spiral glides," "take-offs," and "spot landings." land-ings." As I had had everything but the figure eighls, spiral glides and spot landings, my Instructor was back with me again the next lesson to show rue the eights and spot landings. "We'll use those two trees they are a quarter of a mile apart as pylons." my instructor said, pointing them out. "Make yonr first turn Into the wind and try to hold your bank until one end of the figure eight Is made. Then level out, lly to the other pylon and reverse the tu-i." It sounded easy but holding that turn around the tree whs difficult. A balf dozen trips around the figure eight course, however, polished me np ifficiently for the next step. "Now we'll use those two trees," and he pointed out two much oljser together. "You will have to bank almost al-most vertically." The "tight eights" were easier for me. Satisfied with my grasp of the maneuver, he signaled for a return to the field. As we flew to the landing he spoke again. "See that big tree down there? Put dowu on a tine with it. Cut rhe motor wherever you think is right- Don't gun the motor ex.ept to clear It." Estimating our distance away and up, I cut the motor to Idling and Parted Part-ed the glide in. Forbidden to gun the motor, is I had bean doing in practice, prac-tice, I missed the mark by city block. "There Is ro trick to spot landintrs," my instructor explained. "It Is merely mere-ly a matter of practice I'll take yon around oi,ce. then you do It From now on make aM of your landings spot. That i the only way to learn to do It by constant practice." He took .the controls and $e roared around the pattern again. I made mental notes of landmarks for each thing lie did, but was forced to discard dis-card them. He overshot the 6pot line. Disgusted, he few around again and that time put don perfectly over the line. r. 1930. Western Newacaner Onion. |