A Passion for Flying...Where are Aviation Safety Ethics Today

Part Four-

In those days remembering my flight instruction on a case by case, lesson by lesson was easy. Both my brother and I reveled in stories, books, and movies about flying. If it had wings we were interested.

My interest in flying started by building model airplanes. Memories of going to the local hobby shop with my father on a rainy weekend day and picking out a model to buy and take home to assemble might have been the start of a yearning and understanding of aviation.

After the plastic models, were the flying balsa models, then the U-Control plastic Cox gas .049 powered models flown at the corners of our neighborhood. This progressed into larger U-Control balsa and rice paper airplanes. From there we skipped radio controlled to much larger Cessna 150s.

These were obtained by renting from Rex and Mildred Wells, and flown with our flight instructor Tony Mason.

Our lessons consisted of a conversation about what we were going to learn before each lesson. A conversation about what we were about to do while we were sitting in the airplane, then taking off and doing what was discussed. We would perform flight maneuvers or a takeoff and landing at the direction of a cool, calm, Tony Mason.

 Tony was usually around the airport but when he wasn’t you could depend on him to pull up in the families leaf green Toyota pickup truck.

Mason wearing his Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses looked the part of a flight instructor, was a bit quiet and always challenging our motor skills with some exacting activity. He reminded me of a circus act performer or a tight rope walker always practicing precision.

Mason would first show you how to perform then talk you through your takeoffs and landings and then would require you to do the same by telling him what you were doing. If you slipped up instead of yelling at you or grabbing the controls he would tell you to go around. Start over, or would perform the required action again.

Quick look for this or that, airspeed altitude attitude questions  could come at any time, best of all were the lets do that again and see how you do replies…meaning I did a poor job the first time around. This would allow me to re-think and perform a more masterful approach, or turns with no loss of airspeed or altitude. In short he demanded perfection and mastery of the aircraft.

My favorites were learning to spin the aircraft and recovery from stalls in a turn. Today most flight instructors would be terrified to teach a student these very essential aspects of flight.  The theory of how an aircraft will recover, and the reality are sometimes very different.

For example the stall in a turn, a scenario that we in Alaska call a Moose stall meaning that while looking at an animal, in this case a moose, while flying low and slow you stall the aircraft low to the ground the result is usually fatal.  Why the aircraft gives you no warning, buffet or indication and suddenly flips on its back in the opposite direction of your turn, with one wing stalling and the other still creating lift, or drops nose down too low to recover airspeed before planting the aircraft like a lawn dart in the  ground.

 Most pilots will immediately yank on the ailerons to correct the action when adding rudder to stabilize the gyration is the solution to the stall. Of course the rate of gyration or in some cases a half snap roll is exaggerated by adverse yaw due to the direction the spinning propeller. If you fight it or use ailerons you will lose a fair amount of altitude.

 If you understand this stall entry you can recover in a few hundred feet, or less if you are ready and aware.

Tony once showed me this and I was amazed at how the aircraft stalled rolled on its back and by quickly pushing forward on the elevators while inverted with neutral aileron and by using the rudders to re-position the nose the plane rolled right out almost on the point that we entered the stall albeit some feet lower.

You never forget those violent maneuvers, but when your flight instructor says ok let’s do it in the other direction and follows you through… it makes more sense.

Just a note; Mason then remembered that we did not cage the artificial horizon, said I’ll take the controls and proceeded to do a series of maneuvers to right the gyros.

 His explanation was like this: “This is a rented aircraft and if we return with the horizon out of kilter the owners will think we were doing aerobatics. You and I will then be restricted from using the aircraft again.”

Well Tony might have been teaching on the edge according to the aircraft rental agreements which amounted to a lecture from Rex Wells (who incidentally flew with Sammy Mason and the Hollywood Hawks) but it left me with a better understanding that the aircraft and its controls will react if the aircraft has airspeed and altitude and what the correct inputs are at the right moment. 

A Passion for Flying...Where are Aviation Safety Ethics Today

Sammy Mason of the Hollywood Hawks

Flight Instruction—Part 3-

Our days at the Santa Paula airport, getting on the airport with our bicycles, observing and asking questions to pilots and aircraft owners were a direct result of the early days of aviation culture.

Let’s look at the origins of flight instruction.

Flight instruction started out for most people when they learned to fly after they bought a plane. They would take instruction after they saw barnstormers who crossed the country, took a ride and realized the advantages of flying above the terrain.

Farmers, ranchers, and businessmen were all enchanted with the idea of getting from point “A” to point “B” when they wanted, weather permitting.

This led to flight instruction that consisted of getting just enough flying time with an experienced pilot to know the controls and learn how to get the aircraft aloft, and return to earth. Most of the time the experienced pilots would jump out and solo a prospective pilot, not so much when the newbies were ready, but for self-preservation.

Better flight instruction and aviation would have perhaps progressed more rapidly during the period of 1910 to 1920 if there had not been World War I.

Some might argue this point but German aviation records show that the average pilot’s time aloft as a fighter pilot lasted only 14 days. When they were shot down, or killed in action. This may have elevated the need for flight instruction to make new replacement pilots every two weeks but did not sufficiently explain aerodynamics in a manner whereby the pilot might experience the result of aerodynamics.

Many of the maneuvers developed during the conflict were to avoid being shot down, quick instincts appeared to be thwarted by jammed guns, engine and structural failures, fires and so on.

World War II flight instruction was developed in a more systematic manner developed with a pause in war between 1917 and the late 1930s (in Europe).

Knowing  that air superiority was just as, and in some cases more important the that of ruling the oceans the U.S. developed flight programs for every aspect of military planning.

The regime of flight instruction was based on some solid recognition of aeronautics, and a lot of interest in speed, weapons, and delivery of explosives. So in a nutshell the military approach required some expertise or at least some exposure to pushing the envelope both in speed and payload.

In short American pilots were getting trained using a syllabus, and practical experience with knowledgeable flight instructors who had flight experience in less capable aircraft, thus the knowledge of how far to push the envelope, and once busted how to return to manageable flying.

Cases in point are the test pilots of the Sammy Mason era, who knew how to fly out of an aircraft’s negative characteristics by a thorough understanding of aerodynamics (a lot of altitude and a bit of luck). They knew what a good flying machine was, and what a bad machine with some flying characteristics they should beware of.

History shows us that the first Civil Aeronautics Administration leader came from the Army Air Corp, thus the strict regime of pilot training and regulations directly after WWII.

Today there are few instructors that will routinely approach spinning an aircraft without a lot of altitude, parachutes and a few Hale Mary’s before the flight. The reason is that they are only biding their time to build flight hours, move on and fly commercially by climbing the ladder from First Officer to Pilot in Command (PIC). Besides the regulations now don’t require it…

Basically their cop out, or shall we say the system’s ability to allow this cowardly approach to teaching physics has created FAA certified flight baby sitters.

So the FAA had to create Practical Test Standards to guideline certain areas and regulations necessitating demonstration to a designated pilot examiner before achieving a new authorization or license.

Strangely spinning an aircraft has been left out of basic maneuvers and not a requirement to become a flight instructor (unless you fail an oral and practical test to identify the incipient stages of a stall spin). The PTS has served only to create “Aviation Ego Gods” of Designated Pilot Examiners beyond reproach not better pilots, but better rule followers.

This comes at a time when FAA and NTSB statistics show that the increasing and overwhelming cause of accidents among Part 91 and General Aviation accidents and incidents nationally on take-off and landing, are categorized as a “loss of control” by the pilot.

What an embarrassment to those test pilots, instructors and CFIs of the past who mentored, watched advised and policed their apprentices until they earned wings of flight knowledge.

More soon in part 4-