28 SA Flyer MagazinePeak Drive on a weekend. And guess what
I’ve discovered? That the bike goes towards
what you’re looking at, just like a microlight.
Hence, don’t ogle the shapely backside of
the female cyclist you’re about to overtake,
and don’t fixate on the Mercedes badge on
the grille of the approaching bus, because
if you do you’re going to hit what you’re
looking at. Look where you want to go – not
where you don’t want to go.
How does this apply to general
aviation? Easy – it doesn’t. There’s no
way any aircraft built in America is going
to follow your eyes – you need to heave
that yoke around with deliberate force to
get any kind of control response, but that
doesn’t mean that lots of other actions
don’t become grooved with familiarity.
With recurrent experience, one’s eyes and
hands learn where to find stuff and know
what it should look and feel like. Bit by
incremental bit, the nervous system co-opts
the machine as an existential extension
that has both obeying the common will of a
single brain.
The African goat Capra hircus has
an affinity for rural airfields, not due to its
passion for aviation, but because a cleared
runway offers a convenient open space to
have a kip. Some of the herd are always
white so they’re easy to spot from afar.
Plovers liked spending their nights roosting
on the residual warmth of the tarred runway
at Vereeniging, and a lot of those failed to
see the next sunrise, because their guts
were draped all over my aircraft after being
chopped up by the prop during a night
landing. The birds never did much damage
beyond plastering the aircraft with their
gore, but a goat going through the prop
or snagging the nose wheel would surely
cripple the aircraft. But then the choice you
have before you is, either abort the mission
and go home, defeated by a few goats, or
clear the runway and land.
Without help from someone on the
ground, the only way to get the little butters
to shift their butts into the adjoining bush
is with a screaming low pass. You fly low
down the reciprocal path, which scatters
the intruders for a minute or two, followed
immediately by a fast and low teardrop
turn and settle to a halt, before they re-
assemble to continue their snooze. To do
this quickly and smoothly without crashing,
your right hand needs to know exactly what
to do: where to increase the propeller to
max rpm, get the fuel flow to takeoff level,
open the cowl flaps, and extend the wingflaps. All while the eyes are fixed on the top
left corner of the windshield, which is where
the runway will first appear, and the left
hand is maintaining a very steep turn close
to the ground.
With pilot and plane in perfect accord,
the only hazardous part of this manoeuvre
comes during the very last few seconds,
when the imperative to keep the landing
extra short meant the nose pointing high
in the sky while powering high on the
back of the drag curve. At that time, the
forward visibility is nil, and any obstacles
encountered on the ground will be heard
but not seen, like the little children thing in
reverse.
Then, just when you think a lifetime of
bliss reaches to the far horizon, it’s time
for your first MPI, and buyer’s remorseChapter 2 sets in. Whatever the previous
AMO overlooked, the new one is going to
discover, and not just because it’s coming to
the end of a slow invoicing month for them;
new eyes see things that others maybe
chose to miss. They find real and serious
problems: SBs not attended to; logbooks
out of date for any number of omissions;
corrosion in hard-to-reach places; blow-
bys that are unexpectedly dismal; metal
shavings in the oil trap – think of your own
disappointments.
The second and subsequent MPIs are
progressively less painful, as you slowly
weed out the legacy of neglect and the
penny-pinching postponement of prudent
upkeep by the previous owners. Alongside
this, each additional hour shared brings
plane and pilot into closer coherence until
the seam between them fades entirely. Man
and machine become one.
Knowing how much flying time is
required to gain the first level of virtuosity
on any particular type, and the tortuous and
costly process of debugging it, I question
the wisdom of splitting one’s attention
between too many types – you might not
live long enough to learn to fly and fix them
all.
It might take a year or more for initial
antipathy to turn into acceptance, then
respect, then affection and finally the bond
of love, but, because all things in nature are
in balance, that love will last well beyond
the time you have to give the aircraft up –
maybe even forever.columns
j
Then, just when you think a lifetime
of bliss reaches to the far horizon,
it’s time for your first MPI