My father-in-law from a former marriage was a Naval Aviator back in flying boat days. He wrestled big PBMs up and down the supply lines from Norfolk along the east coast to Coco Solo, Panama and on down to Bahia, Brazil, the jumping off point to the Azores and Africa.
He used to tell the story of his brief but memorable Pensacola graduation ceremony during the hurry-up days of WW2. The Admiral, with better things to do, made his speech short and to the point. "Gentlemen, I want you to remember three things. Keep your airspeed up, keep your airspeed up, keep your gawdamn airspeed up."
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Flying from Chester County Airport (40N) near Philadelphia to the EAA's Spring pilgrimage at Sun 'n Fun in Florida, we'd discovered that flight planning shouldn't be limited to topics aeronautical.
When we arrived on a Saturday afternoon at our planned RON point in Rockingham, NC the line shack was locked, not a soul was around, and no self-serve fuel was available. So when we called a couple of local hotels, figuring we'd get fuel in the morning, and discovered there was no room at the inn thanks to a big NASCAR race, we knew we had a problem. My copilot and I, being neither virgin nor saint, respectively, knew that we'd have to get our ass on to another town.
Only one problem. We were down to about 40 minutes of fuel and it was going to be dark soon. A quick look at a chart, and we spied a place just 15 minutes away where the AOPA directory showed there was fuel and a hotel nearby. And no mention of a race track.
So back to the Travel Air for a quick hop down the way. There, Yankees that we are, sure 'nuff y'all, found room at a motel adjacent to the airport, and grits for breakfast the next morning.
At the airport, rarin' to go, we discovered that southern hospitality didn't include fuel before bible-belt church is over on a Sunday morning.
The sectional and AOPA directory indicated, for us heathens, that there was another strip literally just down the road, the other side of a tree line, across the border in Georgia. And they opened at 8 on Sunday.
With a measured fuel quantity of 6 gallons (we carried an official stick for just such measurements, meeting the FAA requirement as a fuel guage) we knew we'd be under the 30 minute VFR requirement, but within safe range for the 5 minute flight--and even the hop back if we couldn't land for some unforeseen reason.
When the biplane's engine sputtered and almost quit on take-off my former Father-in-law's story didn't come to mind. But the idea of keeping the airspeed up sure did. I pushed the stick of our Travel Air forward, felt her start to mush and pushed harder to get the nose further down. We gained just enough airspeed to flare for an abrupt landing. Pancaking down from a hundred feet, I'm sure, would not have produced such an uneventful outcome.
As we taxied off the runway the 220 Continental ran just fine. Back at the departure end of the runway we did an even more thorough run-up including a full power check. Everything looked and sounded good. Well, let's try 'er again.
Ready this time, when the same thing happened again I pushed hard to pitch the nose from about 30 degrees nose up to about the same angle nose down. We actually felt a little light in the seat, but the airspeed stayed pegged at 50, where it belonged.
My Dad taught me when I was a fledgling that airplanes talk to you, and that they can communicate a whole bunch if you'll listen. Two partial engine failures on takeoff qualifies, in my book, as being yelled at. Something obviously wasn't right, and any further attempts to fly until we found out what it was would be fool-hearty. Taxiing back to the ramp the engine ticked over pleasantly, as if to say, "Good lad, you listened."
First we'd have to solve the engine problem, then we could worry about the gas problem. Turned out they were one and the same.
As we wandered around the deserted airport, looking for someone with grease under their fingernails, we discovered an experienced looking fellow in well used coveralls tinkering on a Navion. When we asked if knew anything about round engines, he asked if we were the folks in the sputtering Travel Air. We admitted we were, and he answered simply, "Head pressure."
Asking for a bit of amplification he said, "Well, I heard you folks come in last night at dusk. And the fuel pumps are closed so I knew you didn't buy gas. So my guess is you're low on fuel. With the fuel tank in the fuselage, and a Continental with no fuel pump, you depend on gravity for fuel pressure. On the ground, with only a few gallons it works okay, but after takeoff, when you pull the nose up to climb, the fuel level and carb level are at about the same. No head pressure. Fill 'er up with fuel when the pumps open and she'll run fine." And she did.
Aside from that illuminating lesson, the more important one I learned from this experience was that when an engine quits on takeoff you have to really push to get the nose through what amounts to 60 degrees of pitch, if you want to maintain flying speed.
Like the man said, keep your airspeed up, keep your airspeed up, keep your gawdamn airspeed up.
• Air speed, AIR SPEED
• How much is 3 times 13?
If boring holes in neighborhood skies is fun, flying a 1929 biplane from coast to coast qualifies an adventure by any standard.
Committed to starting a barnstorming business near Philadelphia as an escape from the corporate rat-race, my new love and I had searched until we found an affordable biplane.
It was waaaay over there on the left coast, but after a recent coast-to-coast cross-country experience in a '58 Bonanza, we'd learned the way you do it is one leg at a time. Somehow that makes it more manageable psychologically. A lot of the "what ifs" go away when you only have to think in 250 mile hunks, the case when you're flying an 80 mph biplane.
With a mere 5 hours on the newly overhauled (and therefore questionable) engine, no radios, a wobbly 'whiskey' compass, and an antique altimeter for navigation, flight planning had as much to do with AAA as it did FAA. The former provided the road maps and the latter provided what we needed to know about elevation and no-fly areas. Help from a portable GPS wasn't available, they hadn't been invented yet.
After a couple of glorious hours over Sonoma wine country on aircraft fam hops and some landing practice, my darlin' and I set out with real trepidation on the first leg toward Monterey. Spectacular beyond belief because of surf, rocks, and mountains the coast was an unforgettable sightseeing route. However, the pucker factor was often off the scale given the complete lack of emergency landing options along much of the route.
Nevertheless, we arrived at our first stop without any problems, only to be accosted by a madman wanting to know what the hell we were doing flying his plane. After a few heated moments all around we figured out why he was carrying on. The only other blue and orange Continental powered 1929 Travel Air with a wood prop anywhere around, maybe in the world, belonged to him and was based at Watsonville where we'd landed.
After a good laugh at the coincidence, and lunch together, we set off on the next leg inland to Mojave, an aviation equivalent of Mecca, right up there with Oshkosh in my book of places you have to visit at least once in your life. It was 241 miles, and at 80 mph that made it about a three hour leg.
There is no pilot operating handbook for a 1929 aircraft, but those that know say a Continental 220 burns about 12.5 gallons an hour at 1700 rpm. Just what we burned on the first leg. So figuring 13 gph to be safe, I calculated at 3 x 13, we'd burn 36 gallons. With a 42 gallon tank we'd have 6 gallons and a legal 30 minutes reserve, more or less.
So off we went fat, dumb and happy. A late lunch made us fat (and a bit sleepy), lots of flat fields to land on if we needed them made us happy; but the dumb part was poor flight planning. Seemed like the sun was starting to get awfully low as we passed half way. Wonder what time sunset is around here anyway? Nice time to be thinking about that. Hmmm, wonder why there are all those windmills in this canyon. Anyway, we're getting close so better start calling on the handheld radio to see if we can raise someone, this being the first attempt with the contraption.
Damn, no answer. Nice time to find out the radio doesn't work. Start to circle to stay outside the airport traffic area. As we turn we damn near stop. Into the wind we're virtually hovering over one spot at cruise speed. Look at the windsock, it's just hanging here. Weird, blowing like crazy up here but calm down there? Gonna be some major wind shear on final.
Call the tower again. Again, no answer. Talk about crab angle! Getting kinda dark. Be nice if we had some lights in this crate. Geees, 3+15 since engine start. Be nice if we had a fuel gauge that worked too. This one's been stuck on 3/4s full for the last 2 hours. Oh well, can't see it any more in the dark cockpit anyway.
Make a pass downwind parallel to the longest runway (man, we're zippin' along). Waggle the wings while still calling on the radio. My darlin', a student pilot, in front turns around and gives me this, "What the hell?" look, and points at her watch. I nod and return a, "Yeah, no shit!" look, and go back to hawking the runway and looking for a signal light from the tower cab. Nothing. And the rotating beacon just came on. With no lights we're now officially illegal.
Screw it, we're going to land. Worry about the consequences later.
There's pavement everywhere. The windsock still looks droopy, but I learned a long time ago flying gliders that what the wind sock sez and what the wind does where you are often two entirely different things. Another attempt at radio contact, a careful look around for other aircraft. With this maybe my 10th landing in the bird it really bothers me that we're crabbed 45 degrees off runway heading as we start down final.
Same crab angle all the way to short final. I allow us to drift off to the downwind side then turn directly into the wind and land diagonally across the runway. Shortest landing roll I ever made, even on an aircraft carrier. The tires might have turned 3 times, and we were stopped. Nary a bump in the air all the way down because it's just as windy down here as it was up there. Another look at the windsock, and it wafts slightly in whistling breeze. What the...? Is that thing made of iron?
Regardless, the problem is how to taxi with the aircraft still flying, for all practical purposes. I could actually lift a tire off the ground with the big elephant ear ailerons, the lower wing tip almost touching the ground. First time was wind gust, second time was a test. Withering looks from the front cockpit both times.
Well, let's taxi off the active runway at least; then we'll decide what to do. So we fly/taxi to the ramp, and discover there are tiedown chains everywhere. Works for me. Let's get this bird shut down. Wonder how much gas we have left? Sweat drips from my leather helmet as I pull it off.
The tiedown chains looked like they were designed to moor the Queen Mary, and would secure a 747 in a hurricane. No way we could wrap them around our fragile wood and fabric wings. Ah, wait here's a solution. Brought along some tiedown ropes and big sod screws in case we had to spend the night out in the boonies somewhere.
So we used nylon rope to tie the N-struts to the huge tiedown chains, wrapping shop towels around the rope to prevent chafe on the leading edge. Walking away, in desperate search of a toilet, we listened to the ol' girl creaking and whistling in the wind. Of such experiences are friendships made—at least between pilot and airplane—but not necessarily between pilot and passenger.
In the line shack the gas boy answered two questions. Tower closed an hour earlier, and they have a "30 mph windsock" designed for wind not breeze. They'd talked about just hanging some anchor chain out there, it gets so windy. Next morning he answered another question. We put 41 gallons in that 42 gallon tank. After some quick calculating we discovered, sure 'nuff, she'd burned the predicted 12.5 gallons an hour.
What goes on here, how's come we almost ran out of gas then? Oh, wait. Three times thirteen is thirty-nine, dummy, not thirty-six. Duh.
Lessons learned? One, learn how to do maths. Two, do a better preflight--read the facilities directory and know what's what at your destination. But the most important lesson was that the FARs, while the law, are not the best rules to stake your life on. The VFR rule that you must have 30 minutes of fuel on board is not necessarily sufficient or sane margin.
Blue skis and tailwinds,
Tailspin
