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Show Can I Learn to Fly? By William R. Nelson mmj,,,,,"nniMiiBi Showing the Inspector TAKE-OFFS, landings, vertical banks, and a tailspin were all Included In-cluded in the next lesson. 1 was at the controls, but I 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 files 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 ar.d I wns "hot," for both of which I was grateful. grate-ful. The takeoff, trip around and landing were all smooth enough, tie said nothing about them. "Now go up to 2.0UO 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. I managed, somen. v, to put the plane through each maneuver maneu-ver without his help and was congiut-ulating congiut-ulating myself when he suddenly shut off the motor n-id called for a "forced landing." As we neared the field I picked out, he opened the throttle and we zoomed up. He signaled for a climb, which 1 continued until we reached 3.1XK) 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 of 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 wtnt past again 1 neutralized the controls and a half turn later pulled back od the stick. We came out perfectly per-fectly and my fear of tailsplns 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 as he did so. We were too high so I threw in an "S" turn to lose altitude and gunned tne 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 atility to meet the several requirements of each class of license, a test flight Is given. For the private pilot's licenss that test Includes "figure eights," "spiral glides," "take-oils," and "spot landings." land-ings." As 1 had had everything but the figure eights, spiral glides and spot landings, my Instructor was back with me again the next lesson to show n,e 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 your first turn into the wind and try to hold your bank until one end of the figure eight Is made. Then level out, ily to the other pylon and reverse the tu-i-." It sounded easy but holding that turn around the tree was dilllcult. A half dozen trips around the figure eight course, however, polished me up tlliclently for the next step. "Now we'll use those two trees," and he pointed out two much cl jser together. "You will have to bank almost al-most vertically." The "tight eights" were easier for me. SatisrJer1 with my grasp of the maneuver, he signaled for a return to the field. As we flew to the landing be spoke again. "See that big tree down there? Put down on a I in-; with It. Cut 'he motor wherever you think Is right Don't gun the motor ex;ept to clear It." Estimating our distance away und up, 1 cut the motor to Idling and E'art-ed E'art-ed the glide in. Forbidden to gun the motor, is 1 had hesn doing In practice, prac-tice, I missed the mark by city block. "There Is ro trick to spot Inndings," my instructor explained. "It Is merely mere-ly j mutter of practice. I'll take you around once, then you do it From now on make all of your landings spot. That Is the only way to learn to do It by constant practice." He took the controls andwe roared around the pattern again. 1 made mental notes of landmarks for each thing lie did, but was forced to discard dis-card them, lie overshot I he spot line, j Disgusted, he few around again and ' that time put down perfectly over the I line. (CEl. J 930. Western Nc-wspaoor Union.) |