Jim Davis - PLANE TALK

WHAT A BUSINESS

SWELLENDAM.

I would like to report that my little flying school in George was expanding, and so it was. But not because it had so much business, but rather because it had so little.

I’M INCLINED TO IGNORE the economics of running a flight school. Fuel was dirt-cheap, maintenance was minimal because my Cherokee was brand-new, and the thought of putting money aside for engine overhauls didn’t enter my mind. Here’s the sort of stupid thing I would do.

I flew west for one hour and 15 minutes to the pretty little town of Swellendam. This was in order to do two hours of instruction in Tiger Moth ZS-DND, and one hour in a delightful little Piper Cruiser, ZS-BHZ.

Total income for the venture was R12. And my expenses were two and a half hours of Cherokee flying and two days of my time. Okay in those days the Rand was slightly stronger than the US Dollar – but it still didn’t make any business sense. Financially I was going backwards. Both the Tiger and the Cruiser had interesting lessons for me.

Edwin Sands was The Main Man of the Swellendam Flying Club and I was there to do some Tiger flying with him, and then to give him some aerobatic training. As soon as we got off the ground I became suspicious of the aircraft. All Tigers rattle and shake, but this one had taken the vibration to a new level. It was as if there was someone under the cowl beating the engine with a four pound hammer. I told Eddie to do a tight circuit and put us back on the ground before something broke. “Don’t worry” Eddie shouted into the Gosport, “it’s always like this.”

“Not while I’m in it – isn’t” I bellowed.

So we shuddered round the field, plopped down on the stony uphill runway and taxied back to the hangar while Eddie complained about people who imagined noises in airworthy aeroplanes. Of course the clattering stopped when the engine did. This left me in a rather silly position. We opened the cowlings and peered at Mr de Havilland’s black, oily lump of pig-iron, but of course there was no clue as to where the clatter had come from.

A couple of other club members wandered over and formed a small Afrikaans-speaking focus group, with each member trying to simulate the

Not while I’m in it

noise by rattling their tongues or gurgling the backs of their throats. Reading between the lumps of gob, they seemed to conclude was that I, ‘die Engelsman’, was a bit of a coward. This led to a sort of stalemate. They said it was fine, and I said it wasn’t. So we stood around in a semi-circle staring at the offending engine. Of course it wouldn’t make a noise while it was stationary, and it left no visible trace of what was causing the problem. Eventually I decided to run the engine with the cowls open. Now, this is a dodgy thing to do. The cowlings hinge upwards, and the front is very close to the whirling prop. Each one is kept open by an oily metal rod, which can easily jump out of its catch. No matter what happens, everyone must think carefully and move slowly. So, after sticking the chocks in front of the wheels, and dumping a stick holder-backer in the rear cockpit to keep the tail down, I swung her into life. It only took a moment to see that there was serious trouble.

The engine was jumping around like a rock star at a rave. It was not difficult to see what had happened. The bolt that was meant to attach the right hand bottom engine-mount to the fuselage was mostly undone. The engine was about to depart the airframe. On closer inspection I could understand why it had probably never been tightened in the first place – it’s a bastard to get at. A smallish contortionist with exceptional spanner wielding skills, and much perseverance, must slime, upside-down and head-first, into the front cockpit, wedge his coconut against the rudder pedal and work with his hands above his head where he can’t see what he is doing. I learned two things from this: First, if you think there’s a strange noise, there IS a strange noise. Second, if you want to do a pre-flight properly, you have to endanger your life by running the engine with the cowlings off. Hmmmm… not really practical on a modern aircraft – but I still do it on strange Tigers.

Cruiser Crisis

The Cruiser had equally profound lessons for me.

• Don’t risk your life trying to train a student who doesn’t understand the only language in which you are proficient. • Ensure that the student has the mental capacity to follow simple instructions. • Find out if the student can read and understand labels on the panel. • Try to establish whether the student could be described as not the sharpest knife in the kitchen. Do this before you climb into an aeroplane in which he can reach a number of vital controls that you can’t.

The bolt that was meant to attach the right hand bottom engine-mount to the fuselage was mostly undone.

This particular student was a really nice guy but he didn’t look great – he had taxi-door ears, squiffy teeth and long floppy arms. He was a kind and decent human being, but that’s the way he had been kitted out. None of his previous instructors had encouraged him to take up a less intellectually demanding pursuit, but they had all avoided flying with him again. Poor man. So I am doing circuits and bumps with this guy, and they are not happy events. While his body is in the aircraft, his mind sits on a stone in the sun, chewing grass. We were doing a glide approach when all the Swiss cheese-holes align themselves with the planets. In the last few seconds he has done two things wrong. He has started the glide too early, and he has forgotten to use carb-heat. In those days, most training landings were from a glide approach that started at 1000 ft on base.

Now, before I go on, I should tell you that the Cruiser has fore-and-aft seating – like a Cub. The instructor sits in the back and only has access to four controls – the stick, the rudder the throttle and the door handle. You can see little more than the back of the pupe’s head unless you loosen your seat-belt, stretch forward to peer over his shoulder. So there we are in a glide with no carb-heat – and the engine is about to stop. This wouldn’t matter if we were going to make it to the field – but we weren’t. “Carb heat,” I say. Nothing happens, so I repeat my request, louder. We didn’t use head-sets – we just shouted. But the comparative silence of a glide approach made comms pretty easy. It wasn’t that he couldn’t hear me – it just wasn’t getting through. His mind was still sitting in the sun chewing grass. “Carb heat!” I shout and tap him on the shoulder. He is made of rubber. His head twists round 180 degrees, like a turkey, and he seems surprised to find someone else in his vicinity. I point at the panel and repeat my instruction slowly as if talking to a defiant infant. He faces ahead again and yanks out the mixture. The engine noise ceases completely and the prop slows to a very slow windmill. “Not that one,” I say cranking the voice to a greater volume. So he pulls another knob that works the cabin heat. But leaves the mixture out. I seldom shout at a pupe, but this calls for decisive action,

The need to get back on the ground before something broke.

so I bellow at him to push the red knob – the mixture – in.

There is only one other red knob in the whole cockpit – it’s not even on the panel – it’s the throttle on the left sidewall, just below the window. So that’s what he goes for. As he moves it forward the only thing that changes is the look on his face. Of course it makes not a damn of difference, because the mixture has killed the engine. We are very low so I grab the controls and we skim over the dirt road and plonk down in a boulder-strewn area 50 yards short of the runway. And stop almost immediately. There is no damage, but I have to get out and swing the prop to get us to the runway, and thence to the hangar.

Another Cruiser

And while we are talking about Cruisers, here’s another quick story about one in Port Elizabeth, a couple of years later. Ian Ritchie, the engineer, has done a major rebuild on this one. I am the only commercial pilot around – so the test-flight is mine. This time I sit in the front. There is a southerly wind, so we taxi to 17. We go through all the normal pre-takeoff formalities, and I tell the tower we were ready to go. They say okay, so I line up and pour on the coal. Initially everything goes as expected, then I get the impression that I am falling over backwards. This is because I AM falling over backwards. Ian’s appy has forgotten to secure my seat to the floor. My head crashes down on Ian’s lap and my feet get stuck under the panel while my bum is pushed up by the now vertical base of the seat.

Ian hauls his throttle back as we sail off the runway into the grass, while ATC bleats feebly through the overhead speaker. It could have been really embarrassing if this had happened after lift-off. Someone had taken the rear stick out, so Ian would have been left at 20 feet with only the throttle and rudder, and a sack of potatoes in his lap.j

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