#21 - DHC1 deHavilland Chipmunk

I am an unabashed fan of the whole deHavilland Corporation fleet.  What sort of mad brainiac names their planes after land dwelling mammals?  What says ‘load carrying beast’ better than Caribou?  Is there a better name for a plane that opens up the back woods than Beaver?  I don’t know what it could be.  But the Canadian naming guru who came up with the moniker for the company’s first big post World War Two military trainer deserves a special prize.  How better to convey the thought that this plane is the stepping stone to the Spitfire, Fury and Meteor than by naming the airplane after that speedy, agile, hostile rodent – the Chipmunk.  It is genius and nothing else.   No Texan or Valiant for those sardonic Brits and Canadians. No, they would strap on the Chippie and learn the aerobatics and control that would allow them to immediately transition into a single seat fighter with about eight times the horsepower.  Amazing. 

John getting in first to prevent me from leaving him behind

I love pilots…they are just the most fascinating, friendly and eccentric group of people I have ever come across. My friend John is a UFO (United Flying Octogenarian), and former professor of family medicine who commuted to work in a float plane.  His wife clearly shared his passion for aviation but embodies the sensible half of their partnership.  She laid down the rule that John could only have two airplanes at a time.  His main ride is a Cessna 180 but that second plane has cycled through a bunch of really neat types.  He has had part of a Breezy, a Hatz and the J5 Cub medevac airplane that I flew on an earlier occasion.  Since he has a lease to buy operation going with the J5 he has a free spot in the hanger and of course it was going to be filled with another taildragger.  Apparently the Chipmunk (DHC1) had been a long time dream and, after an amazing false start that makes the current Chippie technically his second, he is the proud owner of a genuine British ex-warplane.

John’s schedule has become more and more constrained with his flying time largely devoted to getting cancer patients off, then back on, the island for treatment. Though he had offered to take me up in the Chipmunk sometime, I assumed it would be a treat for the distant future.  However, the fates aligned in the form of an air show, a former DHC1 owner and a grass strip John had never flown into.  He offered me a ride in the back seat, and after looking to make sure there were controls back there, I jumped at the chance.  It made for an unforgettable Saturday morning.    

We met at the fuel dump and headed over to the plane.  Our destination was Meadow Mist, a 2000 foot long grass runway at a fly in community.   John carefully briefed me on how to get there because my job was to navigate.  He had one of those paper sectional things and planned for us to head to a VOR (despite not having a NAV radio) and then turn due south for 2 miles.  I expected him to scoff when I pulled out my iPhone, fired up Foreflight and told him that the airstrip was 16 miles away along that magenta line, and we could fly that if he wanted to.  Without even a headshake over the loss of skills in the kids flying today he said that the iPhone sounded just fine. The pressure was on though…those sectionals never run out of batteries or lose the signal, and to tell you the truth I am not sure how well I could have dead reckoned to this airfield.

Our little archipelago is made for flying

The Chipmunk is a fascinating airplane.  It has a metal fuselage and leading edges, but the wings, aft of the main spar, are fabric.  Like the planes it was designed to prepare students for, it is a low wing tail dragger.  The engine is a Gipsy Major with four cylinders, in line, hanging down from the engine (inverted).  This particular plane is painted with British  insignia and bears the markings of an airplane that has been used to teach plane anatomy and repair as well as flight.  The cockpit houses two seats, one behind the other and is covered with that wonderful greenhouse like canopy that so many fighters had.

The seating is just awesome.  I am used to squeezing into place, cheek by jowl with the other fellow, but here each seat is roomy, with plenty of space to put your feet, and your elbows have some room to get into trouble.  I have worn several types of harness before, but this particular five-point model is certainly an early test of a pilot’s coordination.  Two shoulder straps, two leg straps and a crotch strap meet at the groin.  Four tabs must be fit into holes and then the whole face of the buckle is rotated to lock the tabs in place.  There is not a hint of friction getting the tabs into their holes and they are stabbed into the central disk at every sort of angle.  In turning the disk to find one hole, a previously filled one is apt to spit out its tab.  When you rotate the face to lock it all in, there is a one in three chance that all the tabs will engage.  I gathered rather a lot of evidence to support this one in three proposition.  My advice is to pretend that you are avidly engaged in reading a complicated check list.  Also, be sure to lengthen the straps before trying this trick, or you will dislodge all the tabs every time you sigh in frustration. 

Once sitting securely in the front office, and with all the straps and the form fitting seat it does feel secure, your attention should wander to the instruments and controls. I was sitting in the back seat since John likes me, but he wisely only trusts my ability to land an airplane he is not sitting in.  The only difference between the front and back seats seemed to be the ability to tune the radio and the view.  I had throttle and mixture in a single quadrant by my left hand, a trim wheel low at my left hip, and magneto switches and lighting just above my left elbow. The brakes are differential with an interesting twist.  The amount of braking (and the parking lock) are on a red lever on the left side, while the amount of left versus right is controlled with the rudder pedals.  A giant, impossible to read, compass sat squarely between my feet and a flap lever with two positions was at my right hand.  The stick had a push to talk button and at its rearmost position it was not close to my belly, though full left and right required some adjustment of my legs.  The gauges are endearingly simple.  A horizon, turn and bank, a vertical speed indicator, and an altimeter and engine RPM gauge that were surprisingly easy to confuse.  Perhaps it was the large size of the RPM gauge or the fact that it was at 2200 most of the time, but I certainly congratulated myself on holding altitude when in fact I was holding RPM. For the non-pilot, holding RPM is a tad easier…resist the temptation to mess with the throttle and you are golden.

I had watched this plane take off several times and it impressed me how much it looked like it wanted to fly.  I was very interested to see whether my 210 pounds would make it look a little less like it was levitating and more like it was laboring into the air.  Nope, the throttle went forward and we were in a very flat decked climb within 700 feet or so.  The oddest thing, was that because the Gipsy rotates the opposite direction than most engines, you have to hold a little left rudder rather than right rudder in the climb.

At altitude John raised his hands above his head and said something incomprehensible into the headset.  I swear, when I get a little money I am buying him noise cancelling headsets. I was not sure what was going on, perhaps there was spider up in his area.  In any case the plane was not flying as well as it had been so I found myself sneaking my hands and feet into position.  After all, perhaps it was a dangerous spider.  Turns out that must be the universal signal for ‘your airplane’. I wonder how well it works when the fellow in back in these tandem jobs tries it, but in any case I was now really flying. 

Before I am allowed to buy another airplane, or even floor mats for an airplane, my spouse gets a long arm quilting machine with an automatic stitch regulator. It is good that this was somewhere in my mind, because after a single steep turn it was painfully difficult not to ask John whether it wasn’t time for him to do another lease to buy program and get a different second airplane.  I have already said that the DA40 is my favorite plane, and I suppose because it has four seats it will remain atop the heap. But, I have never flown anything that was as smooth and harmonious as the Chipmunk. 

The controls are so well balanced, and there is so little cross talk between axes, that it truly feels like the plane is wired in to your brain.  What a total gas.  The plane zips along at 100 knots and the landings, both three point and wheel, were very straight forward.  John kindly demonstrated the resilience of the gear on one landing and I am confident that even I would have a hard time beating it up too badly.  The benign deck angle and good forward visibility meant only gentle s-turns were necessary, and it also made landings a very calm event.  Good visibility down the runway goes a long ways towards making a taildragger feel good as you line it up to touch down.  Even in the three point flare we were not looking at nothing but nose the way you are when you solo from the back seat of a cub.  I swear in that plane I wanted to punch a hole in the front floorboards to see the center line.

We had a great flight over to Meadow Mist, the iPhone and Foreflight did not let us down, and once there we met Paul, an 86 year old pilot of remarkable versatility.  The hanger where John and Paul discussed spare Chipmunk parts housed a Stinson L5 (WWII observer) and two fabric jobs from 1931.  The first was a pretty, but pretty conventional looking American Eagle Eaglet.  The second was a bright red plane of dreams, the Curtiss Wright Junior.  Sporting a pusher prop powered by a teeny French radial with a single magneto, the pilot sits so far out in from that she is practically dangling her feet off the end of the plane.  It looks like a blast to fly. The airspeed indicator is a paddle that sits in the wind connected to a wire indicator that sits in either the red or white depending on whether you are too fast, too slow, or just right.  It was a banner day for airplanes, airplane people and airstrips.  I owe John a huge debt of gratitude for type #21. 

#5 - DV20 - Diamond DA20 Eclipse, Katana, Evolution

The Diamond Aircraft Company, along with Cirrus and the no longer independent Columbia, has been instrumental in reinvigorating small, piston engine, general aviation.  All three companies started with a clean sheet design, using well understood, but underutilized composite materials.  Diamond, an Austrian company, had the oddest airplane parentage.  Their entry into the small plane market started out as a motor glider.  Sometimes called self launch gliders, these very long winged, lightweight two seaters, are a staple of European general aviation.  The Dimona motorglider became the Katana, a two seat trainer and that morphed into the Diamondstar, the four seat fiberglass airplane that my brother owns.  By his lights the flights in the Katana, the Evolution and the Eclipse DV20s were our first forays into the air in a real airplane.  He never really considered buying a tin plane, and the Cirrus and Diamondstar were the composite front runners from the moment he realized he was as obsessed with flying as I am.  

One of the two seater Diamonds I have flown sitting on the ramp in Santa Paula

My brother and I learned to fly together.  It is really not a practical method for most folks, since it is hard to find a training partner, but boy did it make the whole experience a blast.  We took nearly every lesson together.  The airtime was split with one of us sitting in the back seat while the other flew. Watching the other guy make a set of mistakes was really educational and it was also a huge plus to get to go on a pleasure flight as a passenger a couple of times a week.  In any case, we finished flight training a few weeks apart and set a date to get checked out in a Katana at the Torrance airport for a  celebratory hop.  What started out as a planned trip to Big Bear became a ten airport hop to practice VOR skills.  We decided to split the flying duties, swapping PIC roles after every landing.  Since it was a pain to jump in and out on every landing my career as pilot in command from the right seat was under way. 

The transition from a metal plane designed in the 50’s to an all composite airplane designed in the 80’s was not difficult but it was a big adjustment.  The very first thing you notice walling up to the Katana is the very narrow cross section of the fuselage aft of the seats.  Wasp waisted about captures the way a two person canopy swelling necks down to a round section beam that can be encircled with one arm.  This would also be my first t-tailed airframe.  The horizontal stabilizer, usually set in the middle of the cross section of rear fuselage sits up on top of the vertical stabilizer.  The clearest effect of this t-tail configuration is that the elevators, which control the pitch of the airplane are not in the prop wash and so they are not affected by increasing or decreasing power.  Bringing back the throttle as you come in to land will not drop the nose nearly as much as it will with a conventional tail.  There is no doubt that the plane is also just flat out gorgeous.  Though small, it has the flowing lines and swoopy curves of an Italian sports care.  It looks fast tied up on the line waiting for us to unleash its 80 hp Rotax engine.

Did I mention some things are a little different than we are used to?  Well the first thing you do in the Katana is make sure it will not melt while you are out gallivanting.  This entails pulling back the seat padding to reveal a section of heat sensitive color that will change a ‘no go’ red when the composite heats above a certain point. The Katana is a low wing with a tilt up canopy so entry is similar to the Grumman American Yankee.  There is very little room behind the seats for luggage as the gas tank sits below what looks like an outsides hat shelf behind the pilot and co-pilot headrests.  After firing the engine up the gearing of the Rotax made me do a double take a few times since the redline on the engine was over 5,000 rpm, a solid 2300 rpm faster that the more familiar Continental and Lycoming power plants.  The nose wheel is castering, just like the Yankee and taxing is dead simple with differential braking.  Pushing the throttle foward it is immediately clear that this airplane dearly wants to be airborn.  That will prove to be the most challenging thing about it.  Every other plane I have flown is perfectly happy to stagger into the air, but the Katana hits aflyable airspeed quickly, then it is all you can do to hold it on the ground. 

Cruise flight and navigation is very straightforward, but on landing we discovered an interesting thing.  This son of a glider does not want to stop flying.  The wings are long and thin and the airframe is very light, and the whole fuselage is remarkably well streamlined.  This means that slowing down to land is non-trivial.  If you are spot on with your approach airspeed the beast will drop softly out of the air as you crank in the small bit of nose up that counts as a flare in this plane.  When you find yourself high on final in every other plane I have flown you have a poorly explained and not often recommended option.  You can point the nose down and start picking up speed while losing altitude.  Then, because the plane is usually pretty draggy just leveling out will scrub off the speed without gaining altitude.  This is a perfectly acceptable alternative to a slip in many airplanes though it can cause palpitations in your passengers so it is not often performed.  Try a similar trick in the Katana and you will find that the plane is so well streamlined that when you pull up from your little dive the plane will maintain most of the speed leaving  you way to hot to do anything other than a low pass at the runway.  It took a bit of practice to learn that the over the fence speed had a lot tighter tolerance than in does in the other trainers I have flown. 

The Rotax engine is not the only power plant for this plane and I have flown a total of four engine configurations.  They were all pretty good on gas, much better than the other two seaters I have flown and they were all remarkably quick (130 knots/156 mph) given the tiny engine.   The used market for these planes reflects the cool factor of the composite airframe, the high cruise speed and the often sophisticated electronics.  The asking price will be 3-10 times the price of a similar quality Cessna 150/152 and I suspect that it is the availability of these lovely airplanes that keeps a lid on the resale price of the 40 year old Cessna technology. 

#3 - C150 - The Commuter

It’s pretty clear from reading the flying magazines, and watching the graph of active pilots make like the S&P 500, that there is a problem with recruiting new pilots.  The vast majority of the pundits put the blame for both the huge attrition rate and the low numbers who start lessons on the high cost of flight.  It’s true that learning to fly is not cheap, but I suspect the problem is compounded by the near complete lack of sensible training curricula.  There are a few national flight training companies, like American Flyers, who have spent some time developing a recipe for primary instruction, but even with their offerings we are in the dark ages of learning to fly. 

Dan explaining to Luke that the big vertical swingy thing is really important and should be well attached to the airframe. 

SCUBA diving was in a similar state 40 years ago and PADI, a strong certification agency (with a VERY healthy profit motive), changed the face of diving and made it accessible to every person who could spell cruise ship.  The truth is, flying is not hard.  It really isn’t…and it is getting easier.  The whole navigation thing for example, has become trivial just in the time I have been flying.  There are a lot of things to keep track of when flying and they range from brain work, like communicating on the radio and figuring out where you will be in five minutes, to the pure hand eye of keeping the plane in level flight on a particular heading.  But, none of these tasks is beyond a reasonably bright ten year old.  Just spend half an hour watching a pair of grade schoolers work the joystick plus button field of a video game controller.  If they were playing a flight simulator hooked up to a real UAV they would be flying a Predator through the Holland Tunnel after 30 minutes.  The problem with flight training is that it is capricious, arbitrary and has a very poorly thought out combination of flying, ground school and homework.  

Flying is awesome fun…it just is.  It should sell itself as a leisure activity even if it is more expensive than skiing.  Ground school is not fun at all and the homework is insanely boring.  We need some pro education folks who care about and love flying to figure out the equivalent of the PADI method for learning to fly.  As much as possible of the groundwork needs to be laid at home, on computers, hardwiring skills that will make the cockpit an instantly interesting and understandable place.  After a first flight with stalls, steep turns and landings, the second flight should be a cross country and the third through fifth should be 15 landings each.  Then solo.  My grandfather soloed in 5 hours.  This was not unusual in the first world war and rumor has it that those airplanes were a tad less forgiving that the ones we fly now.  Of course he did break off the landing gear on his third solo landing, so there is a downside to getting in a squirrely plane too early. Flying isn’t hard, as WEB Griffin was fond of writing NASA taught a few chimps to fly.  We need a method to get people into the air quickly an easily so they spend their money buying an airplane rather than a PPL. 

Barring that, everyone needs to learn to fly from Dan.  Preferably in a Cessna 150.  I had 9 flight instructors on the way to getting my private pilot’s license in about 70 hours.  I ended up finishing with the one I started with but that was purely a matter of logistics rather than inclination.  Had Dan lived in southern California I would have take 40 hours and had three instructors.  I was about 22 hours in to learning to fly and had soloed the P28A Warrior when I had to move north to the island to teach for the summer.  I was already completely addicted, so there was no way I would go without flying.  I figured I would take a lesson or two so I did not lose ground.  I ended up finding the ultimate primary flight instructor and flying one of the most fun types there is.  Looking back at my log book to get this right, I flew 2.3 hours with Dan in the 150 before he let me loose on my own.  That means that not only did he get me to transition from high wing to low and four seater to two seater, but he also got confident enough in my ability to land the thing that he was willing to let me go on my own.  16 landings.  Dan managed to teach me a ton during those landings all the while evaluating me for solo potential.  I am in awe.  So is my father in law, who is training with Dan now. 

The Cessna 150 was built as a trainer - a two seat, tricycle gear, stable beast with a tiny engine.  For some reason it was given the name commuter, though it is hard to believe that many served in this role.  The side by side seating is cramped, and it is not the airplane for the vertically well endowed.  At 6’1” I would say I am within an inch or two of needing to fly without a headset.  Like the Skyhawk, the 150 is a very ordinary plane, and that is a real strength when you are learning to fly.  It simply does not have any surprising or bad habits.  The most difficult thing about it is what made the plane worth returning to long after I learned to fly.  It is really light and is at the mercy of every gust or wind, every burble, rotator and swirl will kick the plane a little in one direction or another.  There is not much that is more fun that landing the 150 in a 20 knot 45 degree crosswind at an airport like KFHR that has some structure around the runway.  It was the first plane that really reinforced the three dimensionality of flying because on short final a lump in the air could perturb several axes (roll, pitch and yaw) all at once.  Where the Warrior and Skyhawk plow down the approach corridor, nose dropping or rising with gusts, the 150 will suddenly be pointing 20 degrees down and 45 degrees right with the left wing low.  All from one bump.  It is a total joy to get to the point where dancing on the rudder pedals and swinging the yoke will keep this little dragonfly headed straight down the pipe towards the numbers. 

This great little plane is not all about training either.  If I had an average mission with fewer seats it is hard to think of a more economical solution to the transport problem in a place like the San Juan Islands.  Flights are rarely more than an hour.  With reserve fuel that means you need 14 gallons.  That leaves room for fat guys and sides of beef in the baggage compartment.  Perhaps my most memorable flight in the 150, and a flight that hooked a colleague on flying, was a night return from Boeing field (KBFI) to Friday Harbor (KFHR).  It was a moonless summer night, so clear you could read the Flight Guide by starlight.  I picked up Stas at midnight after his 16 hour flight from Germany in the heavy iron.  His bags in the back plus a little extra fuel for night flight over water peace of mind, left us somewhere between max gross weight and, well, let’s just call it max gross weight.  Thanks goodness in the Pacific Northwet the summer nights are cool.  We waddled down the 10,000 foot runway at Boeing and started the 75 foot per minute ascent to 3500 feet.  I flew us from town to town up the coast, each little burg a scattering of lighted jewels that begged for Thomas Kincaid to put up his easel.  The big, forbidding dark areas were intimidating, but also a wonderful contrast to the well lit land.  We made a 4 mile crossing over water around Anacortes and approached Friday Harbor from the East.  The town was well lit and a ferry rested at the wharf for the night.   As we dropped down to 1100 feet over Brown Island I clicked the mic to light up the runway.  The pretty blue and white lights popped magically to life and Stas auibly gasped before offering (in his endearing Ukrainian Accent) that it was like we were millionaires returning to OUR airport for the night.  It was a special feeling as we dropped onto the runway as lightly as thistledown and rolled towards the 34 end.  I turned off and said ‘that’s what I love about flying’…and it is.  Controlling a well thought out airframe as it does its job is crystal meth for the thinking set.  What a total blast. 

So, a perfectly reasonable 150 will set you back $15-20,000 and will be as inexpensive to run as a large SUV.  How can you not go out and buy an airplane when there are hundreds of these available for sale?  

#6 - C172 - Cessna's Skyhawk

I first flew the 172 early in my flight training.  I was slow student and I was interested in whether my speed of progression had to do with my inherent lack of ability or a shortcoming of my primary instructor.  This led me to try several other instructors and the airplanes they came with. Perhaps it was this early exposure to a variety of airplanes that has made me agnostic in the high wing/low wing debate, the metal vs. composite discourse and the pleasant ripostes exchanged over the importance of a glass panel.  I am an enthusiastic member of the group that views any conveyance that can be made to become airborne, even if only briefly, is just a fantastic device, worthy of praise, admiration and constant use.  I don’t remember much about that first Skyhawk, but it was a 180 hp carbureted version and my impression was that it was more powerful than my usual trainer.  I know it sounds crazy, but I had not embraced the importance of horsepower at that point.  I was so impressed at getting into the air that I would not have been able to tell an O-300 from a TSIO-550.  That the 180 hp 172 was meatier than the 150hp P28A was a matter of feel rather than fact.  Anyway, that plane is not the one I would write about when describing the Skyhawk because I own one and have since 2009.

My usual ride next to its refueling bird.  The Ohio National Guard were at the edge of their ambit when I  parked next to them at Boeing Field.

I will not wax poetic about the bird just because I happen to have put a few hundred hours on it.  I have no romanticized notion that it is the very best plane, or even the best plane for my mission.  It is a good plane, moreover it has been an exceedingly inexpensive plane, and that my friends is an unusual characteristic worthy of thought.  My bird is a 1968 172G with the original O-300 engine that has been field overhauled once.  At 1800 hours the TBO is laughably short, and mine is now at 2150 and still looking good.  I love my airplane, warts and all, mostly because it fulfills exactly the role that I had envisioned when I was pining for a plane.  It is always there, ready to take me away.  My headset is sitting where I left it.  My sunglasses are on the glare shield.  The spare batteries for the intercom are in the seat back pocket, or, if they are not it is all my fault.  The tires are pumped because I pumped them.  The oil is at 6 quarts because that is where I left it.  This sounds a bit silly, but I rented for the first 380 hours and it was always a bummer to have to get set up…to learn a new set of squawks and a new set of instruments...often a new checkout to rent from a new place.   I did 15 check rides in the first 4 years. 

I can’t afford a plane, not on any reasonable grounds.  Sure, it gets 14 miles per gallon and the straight line distance in these parts is usually about half the road miles.  So really, it gets about the same mileage as my spouse’s VW Jetta.  There are annual costs of about 1 AU ( Aeronautical Unit - $1000…very handy when speaking with other pilots in from of non-pilot parties interested in the monetary outflows associated with airplanes, especially as they relate to expensive sewing machines they might covet.)  Oil needs changing, bits needs replacing, and there is the ever rising cost of Avgas relative to Mogas.  So, even though I live on an island in one of the best places to fly in the whole world, I can’t really justify the airplane as a necessary expense.  It is on the basis of recreation, obsession, and stress relief that I figure its worth relative to my professorial salary.  On those grounds it is a complete steal. 

It helps that I got a great deal on the plane and that I have a pretty hard nosed attitude about buying things for it.  The engine is over time and that is fine with me.  I hear and read about people repowering the plane at TBO.  Replacing this particular sort of mechanical system on a time or use basis is a poor use of resources.  There is very good data to support the concept that piston engines should be replaced and refurbished on condition.  And furthermore, it is worth investing time and money to determine the very least invasive solution to the particular failure you are seeing.   There are data to support this, it is not voodoo or faith but a firm belief in data that keeps me flying my family in a plane with an engine that’s older than my sister and a contemporary of my bother and I.  I use oil analysis every 25-30 hours and an engine monitor to warn me of impending issues.  When those problems show up I will attempt to deal with them in a calm and rational manner.  This will be aided and abetted by an anemic checking account and a spouse who finds comfort in a quilting fabric stash sufficient to clothe the entire population of our island in the event of some catastrophe that leaves them in sudden need of knickers with mod patterns.  Could I argue that a new ELT or even a good intercom system is a safety of flight issue?  Sure, but it would be disingenuous and the fact that either improvement would cast more than 10% of the purchase price of the plane acts as a restraint. 

So, who cares about flying the 172…it is reviewed everywhere, and besides, it is a boring plane with relatively crap performance.  Hold on, oh purveyor of myths, buyer of old wives tales…there are things to love about this plane.  There must be.  It is the most produced general aviation airplane because it is just flat great at what it does, not because Clyde Cessna managed to sneak a trade restraining bill past congress.  This airplane beat out every other manufacturer and the race was not even close.  My airfield is blessed with more really smart, experienced aviators than any have ever hung out at.  One of these characters was recently asserting that there were two perfect airplanes for the islands. One was not the 172.  The other was an older (O-300 powered) Skyhawk that had been given a full IO-360 180 hp upgrade.  The combination of the light airframe (relative to the later heavier 172s) and the powerful motor makes for a plane that can’t be overloaded and will nip along at 120 knots on 8.5 gallons of fuel.  Folks who were listening did not shout him down.  The plane is a solid, stable and sensible platform for VFR and light IFR flight. 

After a year and a bit I had flown 200 hours in my plane.  I was updating my logbook when I realized that I had not gone more than 100 miles from home, or above 5000 feet in that time.  I immediately jumped in the plane and went to 10,500 and flew around Mount Baker.  I still have not been more than 100 miles from home.   For this short hop commuting type of flying the 172 is a great choice.  I average 1.8 full seats an hour.  That means there is no way I could be happy with a two seater and I probably don’t really need a six seater.  I have even had five in the plane when one was a lap child. 

In case you have been living in Vero Beach, the Skyhawk is a high-wing airplane.  That has some advantages: good view below, less ground effect float when landing, a built in sun and rain shade when entering, exiting, or standing around the plane and a ‘both’ selector on the fuel tanks.  It also has disadvantages:  you can’t see where you are going when you turn, you have to climb a ladder to fuel the plane, and you will acquire a nasty gash from walking into a control surface at some point.  The seating is close, maybe not as close as a Mooney, but the 172 just does not have much shoulder room.  My smarter half likes to ride in the back because there is not enough room to knit while sitting next to me up front.  This is not terrible as my daughter is getting into the whole radio call thing. 

The plane taxis without any excitement and, at least in the case of my 145 hp powerplant, it begins a stately ground roll when the coals are put to it.  At 65-70 mphyou can rotate, or, if you are not shy of runway and enjoy the sensation, you can let the plane fly away by itself when it hits 75 mph.  The deck angle for a maximum performance (Vx) climb is too steep for passengers, visibility and engine cooling, and even Vy will leave my cylinders hotter than I like.  I settle in at a 350-400 fpm climb at 100mph and count on the slowness of the airplane to get me to a respectable altitude before I have to leave the comfort of having land below me.  I have flown a lot of airplanes where checklists are really important.  In this plane the emergency checklist is vital, but the flying checklists are so short I have them taped to the panel.  For descent you two things could kill you…you must put on carb heat (the O-300 has a bad reputation for ice) and you must enrichen the mixture.  Everything else is optional or not applicable.  The prop is fixed pitch, the gear is welded down, the turbocharger has been attached to a different airplane, and with the fuel knob on ‘both’ there are no fuel issues to contend with.  This is an easy plane to fly from the point of view of remembering things and it is just as easy when it comes to aerodynamic manners.

The 172 has had a couple of wings and I have flown them. I have also flown every one of the possible power plants with the exception of the military 195hp version.  Even the amphib 172 with the 220 hp Franklin engine is pretty much the same as the 145hp 172.  This is a very stable beast.  It has no bad habits - adverse yaw is minimal, it stalls benignly and lands easily.  In short this is a great airplane.  It does not go super fast or carry a foursome more than an hour or two, and I would be looking for new planes if I had to fly hard IFR, but for the short haul, family flier it is just as good as a plane can get.  I take four big guys to the movies and we have gas to get there and back.  With my wife we can hit Costco and fit a months worth of paper products. With my daughter I can go camping and just throw every dang thing she takes a fancy to into the back seat and luggage area.   Why yes, that is a plastic kitchen, complete with microwave and sink.  Why not bring that camping?  A good 172, that you can put 200 hours on without spending more than 1 AU in upkeep and repairs, should run you less than $25,000.  There is just no excuse not to own, the calculus for owning relative to buying has shifted down to about 65 hours a year if you are a frugal beggar like me.  Go…buy a plane.  Heck, for that price buy two. 

#2 - AA1 - Grumman/American Aviation Yankee

If you read flying magazines with any regularity you will see some great advice on how to learn to fly.  Following this advice will lead to getting your license in an expeditious and orderly fashion.  There is not an expeditious or orderly bone in my body.  Moreover, I have a serious problem with staying on task...so, about a dozen flights in to learning to fly I decided to see what it was like to have a different instructor.  Since my brother and I were learning at what amounted to a one man shop that meant I would get both a new instructor and a new airplane to learn in.  Sounded good to me.  If you want your license quickly...do not do this.  Aircraft type #2 was as different from the Piper Warrior as darts and frisbee.  The American Aviation Yankee is a two seater trainer with a fighter plane style sliding canopy and just two seats. There may be more people designing airplanes, but for all intents and purposes it feels like everything was first engineered by Burt Rutan, Roy LoPresti or Jim Bede.  The Yankee is a trainer that was built from one of Bede's earliest kits plane designs, the BD-1.  Bede was big on easy to build and fast and less concerned with easy to fly.  That makes the Yankee an unusual trainer, and I think his little jet has now killed everyone who could fly it.

This is someone else's image of the very plane I flew.  The cover was not in place while I was piloting.

Flying the Yankee is flat out fun.  It is even a hoot to get into - walk up the wing, slide back the canopy, lift the seat cushion with your toe, stand on the seat, step down into the foot well and sit down.  Then you can slide the canopy over your head and start making gun noises.  The one I flew was even painted in camouflage.  Though Tom, the instructor used the term castering nose wheel it did not sound relevant to my life.  Moreover I had no idea what he was yakking about.  I just wanted to get up in the air.  Strap on plane, fire up teeny tiny engine, call the tower and tell them to dial 9-1 and watch for me to head to the run up area, release the brakes and steer with my feet to the runway.  Well, all went as planned except that last bit.  To move side to side there is, on most planes, a big sticky up thing called a rudder. If you are sitting in a plane that is safely turned off you can swing the rudder left and right by stomping on pedals at your feet.  The plane will not move left or right, after all it is turned off and there is no wind over the rudder.  Well, even when the noisemaker out front is going, the plane will not leap side to side as you dance on the pedals unless you have some speed up.  That is where this castering nose wheel becomes important.  You see, in the other plane I had flown there was a connection between the pedals and the nose wheel.  Castering means there is no connection...the nose wheel is free to swing around wherever it wants to go.  In the case of a student pilot applying some power from a standing start that wheel wants to go straight ahead pretty much regardless of how enthusiastically the student applies foot to pedal.  Well, once Tom figured out that I was an idiot he explained that you steer with differential braking.   It is like a tank, slow down one tread and you will turn in that direction.  Cool.  A bit of a worry for the fellow preflighting about 50 feet in front of me when I started out, but you could tell by his expression that he was impressed with the lines of the Yankee. 

The panel of the AA1A was bog standard simple VFR.  Push pull engine controls and the usual, initially baffling, but ultimately transparent set of gauges. The view is anything but standard.  The canopy is entirely transparent so there is spectacular visibility in every direction but straight beneath you.  Not a bad airplane for pilots afraid of heights I suppose.  This really enhances the sense of flying and a bubble canopy is just a wonderful feature in my book. My recollection of the flight characteristics is dimmed by 5 years time, but I still distinctly remember that the plane did not accelerate well with two 200 pound plus people in it. But, once in the air it was a total joy.  Most airplanes use bits of wire or string to connect the flight controls to the surfaces that actually change the plane's direction.  The Yankee uses pushrods, solid chunks of metal that directly connect your hand motions to the wings.  This makes a difference that even a pilot with ten hours can feel in an instant.  The plane really loves to maneuver, it rolls quickly from side to side, pitch changes are crisp with an near instant change in airspeed, and kicking the rudder leads to an emphatic tail wag.  All really great fun.  We did some stalls, and these were completely benign affairs in which the nose dropped through and the plane started flying again.  I still don't understand why people do not like stalls.  

According to my log book I have 18 landings in the Yankee.  I probably learned more doing those 18 than in all the previous landings or the next 100.  This airplane is really responsive. That is awesome when you are zooming around well off the ground.  However, once you get close enough tot he ground that it acts as a reference for where you are that responsiveness becomes twitchiness.  Really, the plane did not seem to go where I wanted but I could certainly see every little bit of palsy, every hesitant push or pull, and certainly every careless attempt to do something else with my hands than fly the airplane.  After the first two landings I was convinced that there must be some prohibition against flying the plane in hay fever season because an inopportune sneeze would mean a certain trip to the panel beater. But  eight or nine more landings and I was beginning to appreciate the plane's ability to link my desire to immediate action.  In addition to requiring rather more hand eye coordination than other planes, the Yankee stalls at a higher speed than most trainers and with a very flat deck angle.  The trick to landing them well is to hit the airspeed pretty closely then flare very gently.  If you get the nose up, the way you might in a Piper or Cessna you will shortly thereafter find that the remarkably study landing gear does not cushion a fall from 3-5 feet very well at all.  In my experience it did not really float or balloon so much as rear up and quit flying.  This led to some stern landings but did not lead to the multiple bounce variety that was my usual state in the P28A models with the 'Hershey bar' wing. 

If I were looking for a bargain basement two place plane this would be right at the top of my list.  It is fast, miserly with fuel and great fun to fly.  The flight characteristics would be easily mastered and while I might not like to hand fly a lot of hard IFR in a Yankee I would much rather have it on a 100 mile VFR trip than either the Cessna or Piper two seater.  And if I were flying solo I would choose it over the P and S brand 4 seaters.  It is a darn fun plane to fly.

#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.