For those who actually fly

[Guest TConnor]

I just wanted to ask those here who are actually pilots, which aircraft did you do your ab initio training in? And what did you think of that aircraft?

 

I have done mine in a C152. It seems a fairly reliable machine, very stable easy to fly, except for landing, which they told me is more difficult in a plane with a high wing.

 

It is pretty cramped though. Very little room in there.

 

I did fly a BE77 skipper once, and found it to be much easier to fly, and much easier to land. I flew this when I tried out another flying school, but I went back to the old school due to the instructor and condition of the BE77, which to say the least was bloody horrible.

 

The clear advantage I found was the visibility of the ground, add to that it's cheap to operate. I am soon progressing to a PA 28 161 for my navs, and I'm really looking forward to that.

 

When I take family and friends flying it will be in the Warrior, unless I am just doing circuits, then the C152 will be fine.

 

 

[Guest lonewolf]

I did most of mine in the 152 aerobat although a C172 was also used and a Tiger Moth snuck in for a bit of the old biplane tail wheel stuff. At present the 152 is probably my favourite even though it is a bit squeezy for my 190cm frame. It is very robust and will loop and roll quite happily although you are right it does get a bit frisky when you do the landing thing and would probably prefer to stay in the sky!!!!!

 

 

[Guest PRSOV]

I completed all my ab-initio training in a C150 and C152 and I think for that phase of training, it was the best aircraft for me. It was fairly easy handling and it allowed me to grasp the main concepts before moving up the aircraft I am flying now for my PPL/CPL.

 

Just a training aircraft and I think the C152 does a great job for the initial stages of training because also low wing aircraft obstruct the view quite substantially. I know you are only suppose to be looking out the front windshield or at the instrument panel but I find low wing aircraft that are used for PPL such as the piper warrior, it just makes navigating a little bit harder, even if you are only flying out to the training area and back.

 

PR

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

Well... in 1960 there were fewer aircraft types available.

 

Most of us started in Tiger Moths. A few may have entered their aircraft through a DOOR in Austers and others started at the higher end climbing over the side of a Chipmunk.

 

Many at that time started in the Tiger and later during training stepped up to the complicated Chippy.

 

Tiger Moths... You FLEW them. They don't take you where you want to go. The only time the slip needle (forerunner of that little ball) was in the centre, was as it passed from one side to the other. You're working the rudder all the time.

 

In Melbourne it was BLOODY cold doing your flying lessons in the mornings. There was a gale rushing just a couple of inches past your shoulders.

 

Lots of noise... no mufflers on those engines.

 

You'd go out to your aeroplane carrying the required number of cushions. They were in two standard sizes, "ordinary" and "half". It depended on your height.

 

The Tiger Moth's seat was an aluminum pan, so the pilot sitting on his parachute wasn't too high when strapped in.

 

The aero clubs, lousy buggers, didn't give us Civvies parachutes, so we all knew how many cushions we needed.

 

I was "a two and a half cushion man"... er sixteen year old youth.

 

There was one poor bugger, a great beanstalk of a bloke who was a "NO cushion man". HE learned to grease 'em on real quick... didn't like bein' whacked in the bum by a plummeting Tiger.

 

Communication:- the artisans who manufactured your tailor made, leather flying helmet, which cost more than an hours flying, were of two minds when it came to which type of tubing was best. There were, according to the metal flexible tube men, cheapskates who used plastic tubing from your ear cones to the metal "Y" that pushed into the plastic speaking tube from the other cockpit.

 

The metal flexible tube proponents claimed, "They'd had university tests done on both mediums" and the findings were, plastic tubing absorbed two and three eights percent (or some other authoritive figure) of the sound passing along it?.

 

I got metal tubing.

 

To communicate, one jammed his mouth into the sort of squashed speaking funnel, poking tiredly out of the dashboard and shouted.

 

Shouting came natural to many of my instructors. They often reeeally needed to get the message across... "PULLLL back NOW" ?.Open the throttle... ALL the way!!!

 

I thought plastic tubing might be better, as my ears were ringing a bit after some of the louder commands.

 

Back then we were under a different syllabus. Forty hours for a private license. No such thing as restricted and unrestricted. We did a three hour dual cross country then a three hour solo one as part of the syllabus.

 

Glide approaches were the norm back then? only used powered ones on short field landings.

 

Pilots who needed to put on power on an approach were noted and were condemned as poor judges, unless it was a mate, then he'd have been caught out.

 

We tended to close the throttle a bit late and get rid of the excess height on final be side slipping.

 

"Gees! THAT was a GREAT side slip I saw you do out there" was received with smug, pleasure after you'd rammed on full rudder and opposite aileron and shoved the nose hard down... Could be a bit of a bugger if you had a cold and runny nose doing mighty side slips... you know how noses really run if you get in a cold wind?

 

Well! when you side slipped, that gale passing close by your shoulders suddenly came in the cockpit past your face.

 

Nose started gushing... lots of turbulence around your goggles... suddenly you can't see for viscous liquid on ya goggles.

 

Mad wiping with gloved hand managed to smear snot ALL over the goggles, so as soon as you straightened up out of the side slip you needed to whip your goggles up so you could see where you were going.

 

Maps. Many maps that weren't treasured enough landed up in farmers paddocks and alarmed pilots somehow found their way home. This was a good reason for, ?No loose objects? in the pre aerobatic check.

 

It wasn't all bad in Tigers. Spins were POSITIVE. Whoosh over you went. No mucking about having to really try and spin 'em. Came out positively too.

 

The feeling of the tail rising early in the take off roll and you could see where you going over the nose.

 

The most pleasant memory of flying a Tiger in Melbourne was returning to earth from seven thousand feet out in the aerobatic area in winter.

 

You?d climbed above the inversion on the way out and hadn?t noticed you were breathing pure air.

 

On the return you?d enter the inversion layer and the smells of the earth would hit you. Flowering wattles, eucalyptus, brown coal smoke were the most pronounced. Great as you soared like an eagle homewards after the exhilaration of a few stalls, spins and a couple of illegal loops for the fun of it on your way back to the circuit.

 

Chipmunks:- Out of the wind!

 

Scary for upgrading Tiger Moth blokes? had lots of modern stuff in them.

 

An electrical flight/ground switch (Master) This was a beaut substantial thing with a big spring inside so it flicked into either position with a satisfying positive clunk. I think Massey Ferguson had an over order on them and flogged them off to DH Canada at a knock down price. They did match a ground power plug you still see stuck in the belly of Boeings to-day.

 

Chippies had brakes, two fuel tanks with a gauge that told you how many gallons in white for the air and red for the ground, mixture control, flaps, a canopy you could slide open in the air or have closed, and a wireless with five crystals in it for talking on

 

The five channels were A, B, C, D, and E and you carried a little note book in your flying suit with translations of what frequency and what aeradio station or tower used that channel.

 

Moving up into the Chippie meant additions to the checklists you?d managed to finally learn so the old mantras were often heard being repeated by the family while you fitfully slept.

 

You didn?t wear your expensive flying helmet in Chippies, you grabbed a pair of headphones and throat mikes that were usually in a beaut tangle.

 

Throat mikes were two oblong brown Bakelite things you strapped each side of your Adam?s apple with mutinous straps that some designer thought people would understand what you were saying as your voice box made noises? lots of educated guesses.

 

At least in a Chipmunk, when dim-witted students failed to obey instructors by not listening, instructors could bang students on the head to get their attention or if students forgot to look over their head back at the horizon in a loop the instructor could grab a handful of the errant one?s hair and position the head in the correct place.

 

Spins in Chippies were quite different to Tigers? they didn?t want to go in, so you spiral dived for a turn and a half before popping into the spin. The steep dive angle suddenly decreased and around and around you went with the nose down angle decreasing the longer you spun.

 

You needed a concentrated effort to get them out. You needed to look at the stick to make sure you were pushing with twenty six or more pounds force.

 

Twenty five felt like you had the stick full forward but it wasn?t and you continued goin? round and round.

 

A number of people spun into the ground in the early sixties, so lots of people got scared and wouldn?t fly ?em.

 

The next aeroplanes up that you could fly were Tri pacers of Cessnas.

 

Man they were really scary? TWO wirelesses to talk on and a bloody great dial operated three band radio compass that you had to tune roughly to the required number on the dial then twiggle back and forward listening for the screech to null in the BFO tone oscillator to get right on the frequency ?but they did have a steering wheel like airliners.

 

They were the stuff of nightmares.

 

Remember that nightmare we all had. Up in a strange plane trying to work out where you were and how to fly it.

 

Mine was the Tripacer with a fishing reel attached to the ceiling.

 

It had the HF wire trailing aerial wound on it and there were a requisite number of turns of the reel to send out the correct length of wire with a tiny windsock on the end for the frequency you were using.

 

More info for your little book ? ?twenty seven turns for 3460 kc seventy four turns for 5460 (or whatever)

 

I?d wake up in a sweat not knowing how many turns of the handle to use or what speeds to fly at and remembering ya? gotta? wind the trailing aerial in before landing or the CFI?d get up ya?.

 

By the time I flew those cabin monoplanes the trailing aerial had gone ?. Replaced by a switch in the ceiling that tuned the aerial in automatically. Channel one on the HF in the dashboard and channel one on the aerial switch.

 

By 1963 the Cessnas and Cherokees were the flying school line up and all that old technology had been sold to enthusiasts or crop-dusters.

 

What?s my favourite aeroplane ? hard to say! Flown many and they all have their attributes.

 

I prefer high-wings for mooching about the country in looking at the scenery.

 

A Fairchild Argus or Cessna 195 are gentleman?s aeroplanes? masses of room and a WIND DOWN window beside the pilot? now that?s CLASS!

 

I suppose the dreaded Tri-pacer or a One seven two would be where I gravitate to.

 

 

[TAA Student Pilot]

Great reports Sixties, those old machines definatly had stuff to offer that more modern machines can't.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

New planes have good stuff.

 

I went over to a private ALA yesterday in a Dragon and one of the ultra lights had an amazing array of glass instruments.

 

Complicated stuff that takes all the uncertainty out of flying from place to place .... till the electrical failure.

 

I think the name of the aircraft is on the side. I have to re run the video and see. Looked like a pregnant raindrop... gets along at 130 K.

 

a Colt was in one of the hangars too... milk stool style

 

 

[djpacro]

sixtiesrelic - excellent stuff, that item deserves a wider audience.

 

The good news is that it is still possible to fly a Tiger from Moorabbin - at least until recently and I've heard that another will be online soon. The bad news is that it is still cold in Melbourne at 7,000 ft in the aerobatic area. I gave up flying an open cockpit Pitts a long while ago.

 

I learnt to fly in a Cessna 150 at Geelong in the mid-sixties. The 150 is a great trainer and the 150 Aerobat is a great aerobatic trainer. Does that make me a sixties relic too? Moved my flying ops to Moorabbin in the late 70's - flying the Pitts and a bit in a Chipmunk.

 

Most of my flying is in a Decathlon these days but still get in a Pitts (with canopy) as often as I can. My next move may be to Light Sport Aircraft in a real airplane: http://www.amerchampionaircraft.com/whatsnew/whatmain.htm

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

Wouldn't that be too heavy for light sport category?

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

Now! This is REAL flyin'.

 

Wilbur and Orville stuff... no instruments, just the sound of the wind whistling past your ears and a rapid dredging up of lost memories of the principles of flight.

 

Never been as scared in an aeroplane as I was in this thing.

 

This was about the maximum height I flew it... 2 foot wasn't too far to fall down.

 

It was the first "minimum aircraft" allowed to fly in Oz.

 

Bugger all the glass instruments and the 130 knots.

 

Get back to real flyin'

 

 

 

[djpacro]

LSA is 600 kg = 1320 lb which fits the 7EC Champ.

 

US$80,000 is the basic list price.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

DJ that makes you a relic from the sixties too, but there's only ONE sixties relic!

 

Another, a mate of mine who flew for TAA is one of those people we'd ALL like to be.

 

He and his older brother bought a Popular Mechanics magazine in the fifties and built a plane featured in it from bamboo and covered it in brown paper.

 

It was WAAAAAY out on a farm. They happened to have a motorbike engine and bolted it on the front and flew the thing.... often.

 

The older brother bought a Tiger Moth for a song and got it delivered to the farm.

 

Drove off to Rockhampton and did flying lessons with the aero club and on getting home, wheeled the Tiger out of the shed, strapped little brother in and took him off to teach him what older brother'd just learned.

 

Before he got his Private... the old syllabus ... (40 hours) older brother got sick of the long drive so flew down to Rocky to do next lesson.

 

Couldn't understand all the fuss the instructors went on with and got a bit shitty when CFI flew him home and made him drive him back to Rocky.

 

Didn't take any notice of the finger wagging and continued taking little brother off for flyin' lessons when he returned from his own.

 

Neither are dead.

 

Big brother owns a plane or two. Little brother finished up a TAA 737 Captain and a pretty good pilot.

 

 

[Guest Jackson]

Sixties relic. You write wonderfully - a sheer pleasure to read. I started on Tigers in 1951 and then again in the RAAF plus Wirras. What gets me about todays flying is the excessive time before first solo. In my day it was six to eight hours the norm on Tiger Moths and that was without a decent intercom, lots of aircraft sharing the same field and no radio which meant keeping your eyes skinned. Now the average around Melbourne is 15-25 hours in an easy to fly C152 with good intercom and radio and everyone yakking in the circuit to tell you where they are.

 

So what has changed to make such a huge difference. I believe the answer is in the inexperienced instructors who have barely got their CPL and who are intent on hour building at the student's expense. Also the lack of close supervision of junior instructors by senior instructors with the result a student can go for many hours without a senior insstructor flying with him. Because instructors are invariably paid by each hour flown the senior chaps are reluctant to take the new instructors period as he loses money. Worst I have seen recently was a young female student up to 50 hours on circuits mostly with the same unsupervised grade 3 instructor. She never went solo and gave flying away after being ripped off. I also know a CFI who runs his own small school who refuses to send students on first solo under 20 hours dual in a C150 because he says they need a minimum of 20 hours to learn "situational awareness".

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

It's a lot like these professors who have hidden in the hallowed cloisters of Uni, never having gotten out into the world.

 

They're bright but inpractical and spend years studying and producing courses on common sense which companies pay thousands for and send the employees off to get certificates at the end of a boring bunch of lectures.

 

Lots of ceremony with bound notes and powerpoint presentations, but at the end of it we mere mortals "wonder what the hell that was all about".

 

Sadly the wankers have gotten control and the allmighty dollar (just making ends meet mostly in this industry though) means fleecing poor buggers who had a lifelong desire to fly.

 

Go RAA gents!

 

"Normal" CASA controlled flying has almost had it.

 

I speak to many of the realists who have tried running flying schools and they are selling their VH aircraft in disgust.

 

As for the miriad reports in the circuit... some new bloke winll come along and come up with sweeping directives to cut down the chatter on the airways AGAIN!!!! You'll have been all through that lot Jackson on a frew occasions too.

 

Every one reckons their's were the good old days, burt I think maybe most will agree that ours really were!