Posted on 06/16/2005 12:47:08 PM PDT by SamFromLivingston
Sounds like he had some prior stick time..
Very unusual, though.
Here's the offcial press release: http://www.fortpayne.org/fortpayne/fppd/show_event.asp?ID=203
Using one of these to study for my Instrument ticket..
On this one, a certain amount of the time (with a CFII in attendance) is FAA approved as IFR-loggable.
Realistic? Right down to the armpit sweat stains on a final approach!
(but no sounds of twisted aluminum on that last one I under-shot either....)
As a minor, he won't have a felony on his record.
Does that IFR simulator have rudder pedals?
There was actually a competition for an everyman's safety plane in the 1930s. The Stearman-Hammond was one of the entries. There were about eight entries, and IIRC none won the prize!
The reason the Weick and the makers of the S-H eliminated separate aileron and rudder control inputs was because it was understood that cross-control stalls frequently led to nonsurvivable low altitude spin entries. Wolfgang Langeweische (sp?) wrote that "they spin in, and in fifty years, someone will write that they spin in." (a paraphrase but a close one; and wasn't he tragically correct).
The safest a/c in the thirties was probably the Pitcairn autogiro. It was probably safer by design than most modern gyroplanes.
There were some hairy airplanes indeed in this period, because for every degreed engineer like Fred Weick (who worked at NACA Langley in this period) there were a lot of amateurs of highly variable skills and spotty knowledge.
Kinda like today ;)
One ship called the Crouch-Bolas used two engines blowing their prop blast over the wings to get incredible STOL performance. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, if either engine failed, you were already below VMC (this is a bad thing; you'd roll into the dead engine inexorably and hit the ground in an unsurvivable manner). Prof. Otto Koppen of MIT campaigned tirelessly against this kind of design (he would later be involved in the Helio project, a much safer low-speed plane).
Modern tiltrotors would be similarly unsafe with one engine out, but materials science has advanced enough that a crossover shaft runs both prop/rotors off either engine and a freewheeling clutch disconnects the dead engine.
Ercoupes are as much fun as they look like. You can open the windows (in the later ones, the canopies) and go into "roadster mode". There is a guy at my field who thinks he's a hot rock. He shuts down at the intersection of 16-34 and Taxiway A and then coasts down the ramp, weaving in and out of the parked a/c, to spin with a flourish and stop exactly in his tiedown spot.
In a crosswind, landing a 'coupe without rudder pedals is a lot like landing a big four-engined jet. You crab it in wings level and let the gear take the sideload. The landing gear on the 'coupe is that robust. ISTR that the original 415C, 415D etc. did not have any max crosswind component. (for the non-pilots, in a normal crosswind landing it is vitally important for the airplane to be moving parallel to the centerline of the runway, as close to the centerline as possible, and with its own axis also parallel to the runway centerline (and therefore the direction of motion). Pilots usually do this by putting the upwind wing down a little and using the rudder to keep aligned with the centreline.
You can't do that on some 4-engined jets cause you'd drag the outboard engine, and the paperwork is unbelievable.
As far as this punk joyrider is concerned -- there is one of these every few years. In 2003 (IIRC) there was a kid who got drunk and tried to steal a Bonanza. After taxiing it around he decided he better not mess with it, and stole a 172 instead. The cops found it wrapped up in a field with an open 30-pack of Bud inside, and a blood trail.
When they came for the guy -- already a multi time loser -- he greeted the cop and stuck his toothbrush in his shirt pocket... he knew he wasn't gonna be waking up at home. Amazing he lived though.
Back in the 1990s, somebody stole a 150 in (IIRC) the Seattle area, and ultimately tried to fly under a bridge (not a maneuver to be attempted spontaneously, but risk management wasn't this cat's thing, I guess).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Yes, rudder pedals are included in the sims.
Another aviation historian....
Love it!
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Ah, the Stearman-Hammond is a relic of the "Vidal Safety Plane Competition." Vidal was Eugene Vidal, the father of prize-winning writer (and raging queen perpetual TV guest of a bygone era) Gore Vidal.
Unfortunately there does not seem to be one nifty page on the Vidal comp. the way the accuracy freaks at Aerofiles did the earlier Guggenheim competition. (Guggenheim also sponsored all the most significant research of one of my boyhood heroes, Robert S. Goddard).
(To Archangelsk: these safety planes are relics of the days when engineers thought they could build pilot error out of the system. Now you guys try to train it out. Most problems still happen between the stick and the seat (or between ear cups of the headset) and that's just the way it is).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
In the 70s some jailbirds broke out of a prison in the midwest, and took off from a nearby field in a twin engine. The pilot had studied a "how to fly" book in the prison library, and "visualized" in his cell for practice. The twin was the only plane they could start, and even though he had "visualized" only a single engine, he managed to take off. He landed short of Mexico when running out of fuel, they were arrested at another field attempting to refuel. No damage to the plane.
The above is true, but from my memory.
Flying a plane is simple enough. Flying a plane, getting to the proper destination, and not crashing every time takes practice. Keeping within FAA rules and regs takes even more.
Yes it does; CH Products also sells a rudder (and yoke) if you're trying to set one up.
BTTT
Are you referring to the guy who stole the roadgrader and plowed the hangers and aircraft at Chino AF back in the late 80s?
He was pissed at his wife and started wrecking cars in the city to the north of Chino AF. A buddy called me and told me to flip on the scanner as a nut had shown up on the Chino ramp and was ramming hangars and planes with a roadgrader.
When he almost ran over a deputy on the runway the San Bernardino County sheriff helo took him out with a Mini 14. Bullets never hit the guy directly, they just grenaded when they hit the inside of the cab of the grader, putting the demo man out of commission.
He got a few years for mayhem, assault on a cop and a few other charges.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.