#1 - P28A - The Piper 140, Cherokee, Warrior, and Archer

I do not think I am capable of fully explaining just how poorly I understood the causes and effects of my actions in this (or any) airplane when I started flight training.  I clearly remember grokking the radio call on my second flight. The function of the big black lever that made it loud in the cabin did not sink in until about hour twenty.  There is no point in explaining what I thought of the Warrior I first flew, it was a 160 horsepower model without the 'Hershey bar' wing.  What I can still remember, really like it was yesterday, was my first flight in a Cherokee 140.

I spent a year in Washington DC working for the feds at a granting agency.  It was a great job that really took advantage of my knowledge of the field and I would have been pretty happy with the year regardless of the flying.  As it turned out, the flying was just phenomenal.  I did not have a plane, but I had something even better...a friend with a plane.  Jim D. was my first flying friend and we bonded pretty much right away over stories of mistaking one lever for another, being unable to find the airport, and in general managing to embrace the mysteries of flying without experiencing that severe level of competence that I fear will take away some of the joy of breaking from the ground.  After flying in our offices for a few days Jim and I decided to get night current together.  I am still not completely sure about the FAA view of this...but a pilot must have 3 landings at night in the last 90 days to carry passengers.  Now, if two pilots are not night current can they go up and get current together?  Is one a passenger?  If so, there is trouble and I want you to remember that all that I write is fiction.  I am in fact a spectacular pilot with preternatural skills and I have never taken a wrench to my plane or violated one of the myriad Federal Aviation Rules (FARs) designed to keep me (and you) safe.

The plane lived on the grass, off the runway of the oldest continuously operated airport in the United States, College Park (CGS).  We took the Metro to the airport, and it was most excellent to be zipping through the underground with our pilot bags and headsets, knowing we were about to embark on a much cooler mode of transport.  Since the 9-11 attacks the completely misguided powers that be decided we would all be safer if small planes were heavily regulated in the DC area.  They insist on a screening process before you can fly in the FRZ (flight restricted zone).  This was a bit of a bummer for the small airports in the FRZ since it meant there was suddenly very little traffic.  I dealt with the paperwork the day I got to DC and as we headed for the plane I was equipped with my recently issued secret code word that would get me an FRZ squawk code.

The Cherokee 140 is a really cute little plane.  It has tricycle gear, which means the nose wheel is up front. There is a single door into the four seat cabin and for mysterious reasons this is on the co-pilot's side.  Jim and I trooped up the wing root to deposit our gear and don headlamps.  We did the preflight in the dark but warm evening as shadows at the edges of the airport began to mill around.  We climbed in, Jim in the left seat and me in the right. Jim would give me a run down of the plane as we headed to Fredrick (FRD) to do our night landings.  The plane did not feel substantively different than the three P28As I had flown in training, but this was emphatically not a rental plane.  It had all the hallmarks of an owned and well loved family plane.  Kids headsets in the rear, notes stuck to the panel and seats and seat belts set up for the usual occupants.  I would play merry hell with this order over the next 12 months.

I called Potomac Approach and spoke of secret codes, destinations, souls aboard and our sincere desire to obey all the laws of our union.  I was issued the call sign 'blue strike leader' and told to squawk 4309.  Or something along those lines.  We hopped in and Jim started up the smallest of the Cherokees.  We taxied across the grass and in the bouncing taxi light the moving shadows became a bunch of deer browsing at the edge of the runway.  In negotiating the uneven terrain I was particularly happy to have a steerable nose wheel. When we made the radio call to head to the run up area the FBO sent out a golf cart with a light to scare them back into the woods.  This service made landing after midnight (when they were no longer lounging around the airport) a very problematic affair.  As we lined up Jim explained his somewhat unorthodox technique for getting airborne.  He runs it up with the brakes on, lets go and starts the roll.  At 60mph he yanks sharply on the Johnson bar to put in 15 degrees of flaps.  This boots the airplane into the air like a Garo Yepremian touchback bound kickoff.  Not a bad idea in a somewhat underpowered airplane, in the dark, with trees at the end of a runway...on a warm night.  All in all I was glad of every bit of altitude as we climbed past the northwest end numbers.

As airplanes go the 140 is a pretty basic beast.  It gets you off the ground, carries four really small people, easily cruises well beyond your bladder and is dead easy to fly.  The dead easy part is because it has a very stable design that dearly wants to fly straight.  It will turn, and there is not a bit of heaviness to the controls, but it is not a very nimble type.  The most unusual thing relative to other planes I have flown is that the elevator trim is on the ceiling.  That's right, a crank is sitting smack in the middle of the cabin roof.  It is craftily labeled with arrows to tell you which way to turn to get the nose to go up.  This is a good thing, because I am here to tell you that my brain has no clear idea what should result when the crank is turned.  It is a testament to the incredible flexibility of my brian that even after a year of flying the 140 it was a 50/50 proposition when I reached up to crank without looking up to read.  Once the trim is dialed in the plane flies straight and true with virtually no control inputs.

The 140 racing down the runway.

The night landings were just a blast.  Jim did the first one and then we alternated.  Because my brother has a plane and hates to fly right seat I have a lot of time flying from the co-pilot's station.  The 140 offers a clear sight picture on landing and it was a simple matter to get a nice stabilized approach going.  This particular Cherokee does have the 'Hershey bar' wing which has a tendency to float if you are a little fast.  The wing has so much lift that coming in just 5 MPH over the spot landing speed will have the plane cruising along in ground effect a few feet off the ground instead of settling well.  Or, if you are an enthusiastic flarer the plane will pop up a dozen feet before settling rather firmly.  The landing gear is tough though, and the plane can take the drop.

All in all this trainer is an absolute joy to fly.  I put 48 hours on it in a year and flew through snow showers, rain and wind, to destinations up and down the east coast.  The plane had no trouble fitting my spouse and daughter and enough fuel to hit New York City.  It did give me a scare twice.  Once on a very hot day I had full fuel and just my own fat self, but I rotated early and mushed for 500 feet or more.  I corrected by lowering the nose but managed to scare the pee out of myself by barely missing the trees and construction cranes at the end of the runway.  On another departure, with three little kids aboard, I took off to find the airspeed indicator was dead. So was the altimeter.  And the vertical speed indicator. Quick...what was wrong?  The usual...a bunch of vile bugs had built a home in the pitot static system.  I did not realize that I would be nervous landing without airspeed.  Short runway, trees to miss on approach and a plane full of kids meant I had enough sweat for a hot day.  It ended well and was easily fixed with a piece of copper wire.

So...high marks for getting off the ground.  It is a basic plane, but at $18-25K it is plane that will serve you well and very cheaply.

Starting at 20...

It would have been kind of cool to dream up this goal while still sitting in my very first airplane, but of course that would require an artistic sensibility that might herald a desire to wrap bridges in orange fabric or preserve hemisected cows in formalin filled plexiglas boxes.  I have not anything like that level of creativity.  This idea emerged, fully formed, from well tilled soil.  Without flying another hour I am already 20% of the way towards my goal.  Yes, there are 20 types in the logbook even as we begin this adventure. I started flying in April of 2005 and now, six years and a few months later I have managed to add about three types per year to my total.  At this rate it will be more than 25 years before I make the grade, but I have several reasons for supposing things might speed up.

The most important reason is that for the first time in my life I have a pilot community that is broader than my younger brother.  We learned to fly together and for the first 4 years we were pretty much the only pilots we knew.  Oh, one or two acquaintances earned the ticket and then stopped flying, but neither of us had the camaraderie of fellow fliers.  When I moved to the island all that changed.  On this little rock it is odd if you go to the grocery store and don't meet a friend in the veggie section, and it is not at all unusual to have someone wander into my hanger to profess a deep and abiding concern about the nasty float I exhibit on landing,  We have a pilot's association, but more importantly, we have a vibrant and interested community of people who recognize the joy and the utility of flying.  These are folks with varied backgrounds, not all of whom own a plane, but every one of whom feels that same little frisson when the wheels leave the pavement and the act of ascent has begun.  Until that moment you are a person with a world of choices, but once you leave the ground you have one looming constraint.  You must return to earth in a safe and hopefully stylish fashion at your intended destination.

The 20 types, as abbreviated by ICAO, are as follows:

AA1, AA5, AC11, BE24, BE36, C150, C172, C180, C82R, C206, CH7A, CH7B, DA40, DR40, DV20, EVSS,  G103, J3, J5, and P28A.

Oddly enough, in alphabetical order the last was first.  My first training flights were in the low wing Piper Warrior (P28A) and several really memorable flights have been in other models of this popular trainer.  The first was second...the little fighter plane wannabe Grumman American Yankee (AA1) was the second  plane I trained in.  Each of them has two stories, the first is how I came to fly the type and my breadth of experience in it, while the second is a tyro's view of how the plane flew.  I have gained some experience over the years, so my next glider ride will not be quite the adventure my first one was, but I am still such a long way from an educated pilot that my descriptions of the flight characteristics will have little to do with a test pilot's opinion and might more closely mirror the experience of an average, or below average, pilot hoping to own a plane.

To fly 100 types of aircraft before the FAA decides I am too fat, slow and stupid to control an aerial vehicle

My grandfather's tales of flying wooden, cloth covered airframes in the first world war inspired in me a deep love of flight.  I built models, read a lot, and finally, when I was good and old, I learned to fly. The typical student pilot eventually earns the private pilot certificate in about 70 hours and is then allowed to fly single engine airplanes of modest engine size, with a nose wheel and landing gear that does not go up and down.  She is further restricted to flying in relatively benign conditions during daylight and nighttime, as long as there are no clouds around.  I was somewhat below average, but managed to earn the license to learn in spite of rather poor natural ability.

The main thing I learned is that I just love, absolutely adore, the feeling of flying.  I have spoken with hundreds of pilots and former pilots and many seem to tire of the simple act of departing firm contact with mother earth.  Myself, I get a silly grin whether I am headed to a distant destination or taking a plane up to make three landings so I can remain current in my ability to fly passengers.  I am a total junky.  Since 2005 when the FAA made the initial error and granted me the ticket I have not managed to go 45 days without a flight.  I get antsy and stressed and start thinking of really bad excuses for getting into the air.

Two years ago my life changed when we moved from southern California, one of the great places on earth to fly, to northern Washington state.  I now live on a small island and flying is not just fun, convenient and entertaining it is very useful logistically.  The three hour trip to Seattle is just 45 minutes.  The 4-6 hour round trip Costco run is a 14 minute hop to a waiting car that is just 5 minutes from consumerism's Mecca.  This is a great place to fly and I somehow managed to convince my family that owning a plane was the way to go.  I had been seriously shopping for planes since my third lesson and had perhaps the most minute knowledge in America of the asking price and condition of perhaps 5 airframes over a 6 year period.  Buying my plane was relatively simple when the deal of the decade appeared.

My plane in the shadow of a somewhat larger plane.

With my own plane and the island life my flying time leapt from 50-90 hours a year to 180-250 hours per year.  The total cost stayed similar because I was no longer renting planes...and taking nearly quarterly check rides.  All this time in the bird, flying the same routes, made me realize that I wanted a new goal in my aviation life.  I am too old and fat for the real records.  I can't imagine flying higher, faster, further or with fewer clothes on than anyone else ever has.  Or even achieving an impressive standard in any category but the last, but I am somewhat usual among my aviation friends in that I actively love to fly new things.  I am not a great pilot, and with fewer than 600 hours I am far from an experienced pilot.  I can't fly in clouds and floats are still beyond me. Still, I just get a huge charge out of sitting in a new type of plane and reading through a completely unfamiliar checklist.  Check oil pressure...excellent, where is the gauge?  Fuel pump on...that switch must be somewhere down here.  The checklist and the pilot's operating handbook are like brand new junk reading from my favorite mystery writers.

I have a few endorsements to my ticket, so without further training there are several hundred 'certificated' airplanes out there that I can just climb in and fly around.  Add to that a rather stunningly diverse world of 'experimental' types and there is really quite a lot of variety for a flying gourmand like me.  For years I have read the flight reports in magazines and I follow the forums of several type groups, and this serves to whet my apetite for new airframes. Because I rented for so many years I really learned a lot about the variety available within a single type, the most popular airplane ever built, the Cessna 172.  This bird comes in carburated and fuel injected models and can have gauges so primitive they are literally powered by the winds of flight, or so sophisticated that they can fly you through the clouds and put you within 300 feet of the end of your destination runway.  Nevertheless they all fly pretty much the same way.  If I had to steal one I would be quite confident that I could be gone in 60 seconds and that my departure would not inspire comment.  So, while I had once thought it might be fun to fly every 172 from the 172A all the way though the 172SP after about 10 models I was not feeling much of a challenge.  In some years the only difference was a new window.

Recently I switched to a new digital log book and I realized that I had flown about 18 types of airplane.  The International Civil Aviation Organization standardizes things like airport codes and type of aircraft.  This codification provides a convenient litmus test for determining whether two aircraft are different.  All 172 Skyhawks are C172, and all those variants on the entry level Piper are P28A whether marketing decided to call them a Cherokee, a Warrior or even an Archer. So, my goal is simple: I want pilot in command time (and hopefully a few landings) in 100 types of aircraft.

I have been thinking about the goal for a while, but recently I got a little more serious and decided to write about the effort.  It is fair, dear reader, to ask why I would want to write about a rather abstruse and ultimately self centered task.  I have little conceit that anyone cares about my adventures, but I do suppose that my perspective on some planes my be of interest to a new prospective airplane owner.  Perhaps some  non-flying reader with the manual dexterity of a nine year old and the mental acuity of a bright chimpanzee will sense kinship in abilities and decide that if the writer can get off the ground, then so too can she.  One thing is quite sure, we may not need more writing, but we do need more pilots.  Pilots are thin on the ground, they are getting older, and they are not doing a good job of inspiring the young folks that they once were.  I came to this game late, but I have tried to evangelize for this craft and have one new pilot/plane owner to my credit and two more on the way.  Another reason to write this is that I have to write something.  I have to write for my job, but the text is generated in longish lumps with some temporal distance between them, and in a style that is only slightly less off putting than the old Japanese/English instruction manuals for hooking up daisy wheel printers.  I like writing and whether there is a deeper purpose or not sometimes it just needs to get out.