AME Directory

The cockpit of the JU52 is like flying a locomotive - with lots of large levers and stop cocks.

Once, as a small boy, my Dad lifted me into the cab of a steam engine. That memory flashed through my mind as I entered the frontoffice of the Junkers. There seemed to be little difference. The big pressure gauges, copper pipes and red-handled valves were all there, as were the large wood-rimmed wheels and coloured levers.

I like to sit in a new cockpit for a long time and absorb its nature, its ambiance and its layout. When you need the throttles your hand must go there without thinking about it, and when you want to set the manifold pressures you eye must go to the right gauges. Scully gives me plenty of time for this – he is messing around outside with the engineers and pouring about a bakkie load of 120 into the oil tanks.

The cockpit is mostly very old but it’s partially updated by the insertion of new avionics and flight instruments. If you are looking for some sort of pattern in the layout you will be mightily disappointed. Chaotic would be a charitable description. Nothing comes to hand easily, and some things are almost impossible to find without help. For instance, there are no pitchchange levers - the props are controlled by fiddling with spring-loaded electric switches. For rudder-trimming you use gigantic levers situated either side of your legs and labelled "left engine" and "right engine" - for which one has failed. To the right of your seat there is a huge wooden wheel that operates the elevator trim. If you scriggle your hand amongst the spokes you will feel a lever which has to be pulled up in order for the wheel to operate the flaps and the trim simultaneously.

I have said before that flying behind a radial always feels as if you are flying the engine, and the rest of the aeroplane just comes along for the ride. Well taxying a JU52 is like taxying a braking system – you just have to get the brakes to the destination and the rest of the aircraft will join you.