A_F_2015_03_04_

It is only after a first solo flight can a person truly

call themselves an aviator. As Jim Davis explains,

it is a momentous occasion that will be recounted

many times over a aviation career.

56

onderboom

(Pretoria) at six

o’clock in the morning.

Clear skies, no wind,

no ATC, an instructor

and a yellow Cub – what

more could you ask?

I had been doing circuits and

bumps every morning for a week

and I had four different instructors,

so they weren’t exactly queuing

up to fly with me. They were

Buitenhuis, Welgemoed, Dirty

Bosman, and Mike Kemp.

Mike did two circuits with me,

then he climbed out and carefully

tied his seatbelt while explaining

that if I broke the aeroplane I would

need bowel surgery to remove its

component parts from my innards.

He then turned his back and

stomped off across the grass.

I remember every second of that

flight. I taxied slowly to the threshold

of 11, did the few checks that are

required in a Cub, while the 65HP

Continental clattered like a well-worn

sewing machine. I lined up on the

runway facing into the rising sun and

let her run a little to make sure the

tail wheel was straight. Then I took

the red wooden knob on the left and

moved it smoothly all the way forward.

The sewing machine noise gradually

changed to the sort of rumbling that a

contented cheetah might make.

Despite the meagre power–already

diluted by altitude–things happened

more quickly than I expected; the

little aeroplane was now relieved of

half its load. The tail came up within

a few paces, and I had the luxury

of seeing where I was going – there

was no instructor to block my view.

While I was marveling at this, the

ASI eased past 40 mph and the

ground drifted away. I leveled off for

a few seconds until we were doing 55

mph and then climbed with the nose

unusually high. I lowered it a tad to

get 60 for the climbing turn. When I

leveled off at circuit height the speed

went right up to a cracking 70 miles

an hour. I broke into lusty song – a

sound capable of frightening old

ladies and little children.

I maintained this vocal onslaught

throughout the downwind leg,

totally forgetting to do my landing

checks. Actually, there is nothing

much you can check from the back

seat of a Cub ... the instrument-panel

is a couple of yards away. All you

have are stick, rudder and throttle,

plus carby heat and trim, and a pair

of ineffectual heel-brakes.

When we seemed to be within

gliding distance, I pulled out the

carby heat, held the nose level until

we were doing 55 and trimmed back

A Solo Effort

AUSTRALIAN FLYING March – April 2015

JIM DAVIS

class

Master

Jim Davis has 15,000 hours of immensely varied

flying experience, including 10,000 hours civil and

military flying instruction. He is an established

author, his current projects being an instructors’

manual and a collection of Air Accident analyses,

called ‘Choose not to Crash’.

GLENN ALFORD