Aircraft Market Place

By:      Norm Goyer

Ron Caraway with his beloved 1954 Cessna 180. Ron and this aircraft provided excellent camera plane duties for many years and several magazines.

In my 60 plus years of flying I have met and been influenced by many great pilots and instructors, some were a little way out but I learned from each one. My thanks.

Two days ago one of best instructors and formation pilots I have ever flown with died of a heart attack, it tore the large pilot community of the High Desert apart. Ron Caraway had succumbed to a massive heart attack. He was in his early 70s, he was too young to die. His position in life cannot be filled by anyone. Ron was unique. Ron was the test pilot to go to when you finished your new homebuilt. He was the pilot to go to if you had a student who had special problems, Ron could and did salvage many students for a life of flying. Ron and friend Diane flew to Alaska recently in Ron’s C-180, Ron ferried a Mooney to Austria. Ron flew the wing walker in the Silver Wings aerobatic team. Ron built or has helped build many outstanding homebuilts and was currently helping a local man build a Murphy Moose, Ron was friend to everyone. What a loss for aviation and humanity, Ron is gone. My world will never be the same.

My first instructor, Henry, who soloed me in a tattered J-3 Cub in 6.5 hours. Why? He was too drunk to fly. He staggered out of the airplane, lay down on the grass and fell asleep. I figured “Why not?” I opened the throttle and took off and did three landings and take offs until I got bored and managed not to bend the Piper or dent my head. My log book now read 6.5 hours. Old Henry was never completely sober, but he did know how to fly the airplane and how to pass on his knowledge. He even taught me to do spins at about 5 hours. I could even recover on a point provided that it was a wide point. This kindly old instructor taught me confidence in myself and also how to teach myself how to fly many maneuvers right to the edge. I have always believed that it was Henry who put the fun into flying for me.

Bob Gardner and I often flew formation in early morning missions of mischief in Western Massachusetts in our Texans, similar to these two military aircraft.

I also have to acknowledge the influence Robert Gardner of Northampton, Massachusetts had on my warbird flying. I hadn’t flown an SNJ since Navy training days and I really didn’t feel totally confident. Gardner was severely deaf and had a heavy speech defect. He did not use the radio but checked me out in his AT-6D by shaking the stick when he wanted control, then he did the maneuver and then I got it back. My Navy instructors were good, but it was Gardner who really mated me with the Texan. It became a part of me. I purchased two of my own and spent the next three or four years terrorizing Western Massachusetts in early morning strafing raids and stupid forays under the Calvin Coolidge Bridge, sometimes in formation with Gardner. This man could fly any aircraft, a truly natural pilot.

Roger Atwood taught me to love sea plane flying. He would often fly local fishermen and hunters into Canada with his Sea Bee.

I have to give a tremendous amount of credit to Roger Atwood who has been my close flying friend for over 50 years. I learned seaplane flying and glider flying from Roger and he introduced me to his Cessna 195 in which he flew with Dottie to Cuba and back. Roger came out to California for several summers to help me sell aircraft and also doubled as a backup instructor, my pilots and crew loved Roger. It was Roger who polished my flying and instilled a love of seaplane flying and was responsible for my very own Cessna 195. Roger was still flying at 89 when he passed on sitting in front of his TV watching FOX. Way to go Roger.

One day a pretty blonde girl driving a camouflaged Toyota Jeep, complete with a Japanese rising sun on the door, appeared at my office. Hi, I am Cindy and I am a recovering alcoholic, an artist, a concert musician and a damn good instructor. I also hold a current world’s record for upside down flying distance in a Decathlon. Now that spiel caught my attention. I ended up hiring Cindy, let her stay in a small house on the property. She was very popular with our young students and lady pilots. I loaned her money for her Engineer’s FAA ticket and for some time in a DC-3. She paid back every penny. She applied and got a job flying copilot for Western Airlines. She always loved aerobatics and called me one day to say she was competing at El Mirage on Sunday. I loaded friends into my turbo Arrow and flew to the contest. We were watching Cindy perform when she entered a spin too low, we were all pilots and knew there was no way she could pull out. The crash shook the ground, we were shocked. A very accomplished young lady was no longer with us. Why, Cindy, why?

Cindy modified a Bellanca Decathlon so she could set a world's record of upside down long distance flying.

One of very worse aspects of growing old, and at 85 I am old, is the loss of family and friends. You wonder why them and not you, why are you still around? All of the folks I wrote about and remembered are not unique, a similar scenario is happening at airports around the world. There are no better friends than a pilot friend. Pilots stick by you, they are true friends, forever. After Tina died Ron came over and told me that he was a phone call away, anything I needed, he would help me out. I am sure that you as a pilot have similar friends and how much you love and respect them. Here’s to all the Rons in this world. You have made the earth a better place. Norm Goyer

By:      Norm Goyer

The FAA is considering a change in the minimum numbers of hours for Airline Academy trained pilots.

For another point of view on this subject, read Budd Davidson’ column in the Jan/Feb , 2012 issue of Plane and Pilot. Thanks Budd for the inspiration for my column, NG

Hopefully some clear heads remain in the FAA agency. The loser of the numbers game is once again the pilots. Some of the statements made by the do not make any sense, at least to me. The latest rumor making the rounds is the minimum flying times needed to fly right seat and left seat in aircraft carrying passengers, airlines and short haul airlines. The incident that sprung the trigger were the pilot and copilot of the commuter airline crash near Buffalo New York a few years ago.  The stick-shaker and warning devices sounded out loud and clear, but the pilot instead of doing what most pilots would do, like lower the nose, you’re going to stall, didn’t do that. The young, relatively inexperienced pilot over rode the stick shaker and pulled up. The nose went up, the airspeed went down, the airplane stalled and went over the top into the ground killing all aboard. The authorities are now saying that the fault of this accident was the very low flying times needed to fly as pilot in command. The FAA’s goal appears to be to mandate where a pilot is taught how to fly. It looks like they want future airline pilots to graduate from an approved flying academy. They ascertain that pilots taught to fly in an regimented environment will be better, safer pilots so therefore they can have a reduced number of hours needed for hire. The numbers kicked around are currently 700 compared to 1500 for non flying academy pilots. I doubt this cure will make any difference except to many young pilots wishing to make airline flying their dream..

The difficult part of this discussion is that the pilot and copilot lost their lives along with the 50 passengers. They paid the ultimate price for their actions and 50 families were devastated for life. The real problem was that the pilot of this and many other accidents are caused by instinctive reflexes. If you and your plane are going down the answer is to pull up to keep away from the ground, but the real answer is to push down to increase the speed and avert the potential stall. Instinct goes opposite what is needed. As I am writing this I am having a flashback, a scary one. I was flying in a Cessna 182 with the door off over the Colorado River photographing an ultralight on floats for a cover shot. The stall speed of the 182 with flaps down was greater than the top speed of the ultralight. My pilot was John Conrad, an old school pilot who really knew how to fly a plane. The 182 was creeping along with stall warner blasting and it stalled, John slammed the throttle and control column forward and we had a windscreen full of Colorado River. We pulled out with 100 feet to spare.

It is a fact that flying academies do have the latest equipment and hardware to train future airline pilots.

In my opinion no amount of flying hours is going to help a pilot who was never really taught how to fly-the-plane. Modern pilots are taught to fly the numbers, many have never really stalled an airplane, most have never entered a spin and learned how to recover. Why? Because stalls and spins scare new pilots and the fear might stop them from buying an aircraft. This change happened a long time ago and we have been paying the price ever since. The sky contains many pilots who are airplane drivers at their best. Once again it is our  fault for putting up with these restrictions. We need to teach new pilots HOW TO FLY AN AIRPLANE, and not how to fly the glass cockpit and sound like an airline pilot when talking on the radio. Radios and glass cockpits do not fly the airplane. Aerodynamics do, there will be plenty of time after a pilot knows how to fly the airplane to teach him how to operate the avionics.

The cabin of the new Boeing Dreamliner has the latest in electronic equipment.

I am a product of military training and I was taught how to enter a spin in a J-3 Cub and how to recover on a point after three turns. At the time I had not soloed yet and had about 5 hours total time. You had to know how to enter and recover from a spin before you could solo.

During World War II many fighter pilots in Europe had less than 200 hours total time and zero time in type. When the new Mustangs arrived just in time for a mission the pilots complained that they had no time in a Mustang. They were told, learn how to fly the airplane on your way to the target. Technically airplanes are getting better and avionics more sophisticated, unfortunately learning to fly the plane is not keeping up.

By:      Norm Goyer

The Westland Whirlwind was first used in 1935. It was an excellent low level fighter.

I have always been attracted to aircraft which I thought had beautiful lines from all angles. All aircraft designers are faced with two problems. They know an aircraft has to be appealing to look at and in addition, must be functional in performance and comfort for the intended passenger count. Translation, single seat fighters with a long inverted V or in line engine have the sleekest nose which may end with a spinner which is an extension of the cowling. The best illustration is the all time beautiful, yet functional North American P-51 Mustang. This particular aircraft grew more beautiful as it matured over its World War II years in service. Initially the Mustang had a cockpit which was part of the fuselage. The original P-51 A,  and C did not possess the lines of the D model with the bubble canopy and smaller rear fuselage. It would be hard to find any aircraft that rivaled the beauty of the Mustang. Or would it?

The de Havilland Mosquito was one of Britain's most successful fighter bombers. It was of wood construction.

I was stationed at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, NY for a brief time while in Navy flight training waiting for the next class to start. One day I was on the ramp and a small flight of Grumman F7F Tigercats flew in. Wow, this was a beautiful aircraft. I had built a “shelf model”, now there is a term that many younger folks haven’t heard of. They were also called “solid models” and they were about 12 inches in wingspan and were carved out of balsa or pine and painted. These evolved into the current “plastic models” that were ready to assemble. I had built a solid model of the Grumman XF-5 Skyrocket and it was an interesting airplane but frankly it was just a tad ugly. To me the F7F was the epitome of beauty. That is until I discovered three British twin engine aircraft.

The first one that caught my eye was the  very unusual Whirlwind 1935 design by Westland. The Whirlwind   had a full bubble canopy and a T-tail. The Whirlwind was an outstanding aircraft with four 20 mm cannon which raised havoc with ground targets. Unfortunately, the Rolls 885 hp Peregrine engines were not of the same quality as the larger Merlins in the Spitfire, Hurricane and Mustang. They were not as powerful and proved to be slightly unreliable. But there were other problems as well. The aircraft had limited range, under 300 miles combat radius, which made it marginal as an escort. More troublesome were the continued failures of the Peregrine engine. It was originally intended to be one of Rolls’ main designs, but the Merlin had become much more important to the war effort and the Peregrine was relegated to a secondary status and development cancelled (there being no other aircraft needing the engine); the first deliveries of Peregrine engines did not reach Westland until January 1940 But the aircraft was a winner in the looks department.

The German Messerschmitt Bf. 110 was a similar fighter bomber.

Aircraft designers in World War II years were hampered by lack of larger engines which they could update the aircraft for more speed and vertical performance. In many cases the answer to success in the air was the ability to climb very fast and to “get out of Dodge” even faster. The maximum sized engine was the Merlin and the double row Wasp radial from Pratt & Whitney. Larger radials such as the corn cob were not available until almost the end of the war. The only answer the designers had was to install more engines and build slightly larger aircraft to carry the extra weight of two engines and the fuel to keep them running. Enter the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and the British Mosquito, Hornet and the Whirlwind. Germany had several including the very effective Messerschmitt Bf.110. To me, twin booms such as the Lightning are awkward while the lines of the Hornet are almost flawless.

The de Havilland Hornet was essentially a Super Mosquito with low profile Merlins, laminar flow wing and a large dorsal fin. It was not used in World War II.

There is no doubt that the deHavilland built some beautiful aircraft including the twin engine biplane Rapide.  The de Havilland Hornet was actually the Super Mosquito with lower frontal profile Merlins which added to the streamlining which cut drag. The tail was metal with a larger dorsal fin and the wings were thinner with a laminar flow airfoil similar to the Mustang. The  cockpit was moved forward for better pilot visibility.  The Hornet was designed for use in the South Pacific against the Japanese. The Hornet was also used on British aircraft carriers.  The Hornet did not arrive for duty until 1946 but was involved in aerial combat during the English Malaysian conflict. The Hornet broke many speed records for both twin engine aircraft and wooden aircraft. As you can see by looking at the photograph, it was indeed a beautifully designed aircraft from any angle. The coming jet age wrote the end to prop driven fighter aircraft.