Category Flying and Gliding

No description of general aviation airplanes would be complete without including two other makes of airplane, each with their own rabidly loyal following: Beechcraft and Mooney. Both Beechcrafts and Mooneys are as strong as army tanks and blessed with enough power to outpace most other single-engine competitors. Owners of Beechcrafts and Mooneys both congregate in their own tight-knit clubs, and they identify with their airplanes with as much enthusiasm as Harley-Davidson owners do with their “hogs.” In fact, scores of Mooney owners make a yearly pilgrimage to the Mooney factory in Kerrville, Texas, where they eat, drink, and tell flying stories, most of which center on their beloved airplanes.

Spoilers are panels or plates that manufacturers install on the top surface of an airplane’s wings to "spoil" the lift and allow a pilot to descend for landing or to slow down quickly in flight.

(We’ll go into lift and the other forces of flight in Chapter 8.

"How Airplanes Ffy, Part 2: The Aerodynamics of Flight.") If you’ve watched an airliner’s wings during a descent and land­ing, you may have noticed metal plates located about half-way between the front and back edges of the wing rising into the airflow. Those are the spoilers, and when they move, they indi­cate that the pilot is trying to steepen his descent or slow down.

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Mooneys are a famously well-designed family of planes that manage to squeeze more speed out of each horsepower than virtually any other mass-produced plane. The credit goes to the company’s designers, who obsess over every detail in trying to make their planes’ skin smoother or finding a more aerodynamic way to hide a piece of equipment. Mooneys are so sleek, in fact, that they don’t seem to want to come back to earth once they’re aloft. Pilots have found them hard to slow down for landing, so designers have installed spoilers on the wings.

The Mooney M20 is among the most popular models the company has produced. M20s are plentiful in the used-airplane market, and, with a cruise speed of almost 200 m. p.h. from a modest, 200 horsepower engine, are one of the best performers among the inexpensive small planes.

In the years since the M20 was first manufactured in the mid-1950s, Mooney has unveiled model after model of faster, sleeker airplanes, each with the Mooney signature vertical stabilizer that juts forward slightly as though eager to go even faster.

Beechcraft’s signature model is the high-performance, single-engine Bonanza. Bonanzas are a bit more barrelchested than Mooneys, but they’re just about as fast and they provide passengers and pilots alike with plenty of room to spread out. (Mooneys are notorious for their tight, uncomfortable cabin, although it is that narrow waist that helps the planes fly so fast. It’s your choice: speed or luxury?) Beechcrafts are put together so sturdily that closing the cabin door sounds like closing a bank vault.

The Bonanza has been manufactured with two different styles of tail. In one design, the tail retains the familiar combination of horizontal and vertical surfaces, which pilots call, appropriately, the horizontal and vertical stabilizers. (We’ll talk about what these surfaces do in the next chapter.) But Beechcraft turned that familiar model on its ear in 1945 when it first flew a V-tail model. Like its name implies, the V-tail Bonanza has a tail design that eliminates the traditional horizontal and vertical stabilizers and replaces them with a V-shaped pair of surfaces called “ruddervators.”

Beechcraft designers were criticized for the unconventional design, but the company was convinced the idea would catch on with the flying public, and it did. The V- tail Bonanza is one of the most strikingly beautiful planes you’ll ever see, and thanks to a recent “patch” that cured some structural weakness the design suffered from, it is just as safe and fun to fly as any other airplane in the sky.

If price is no object, the best single-engine airplane, to my taste, at least, is the robust, speedy, and reliable Cessna 210 Centurion. I’ve already explained my preference for the high wings and the easy access to Cessnas, and add to those factors the 310 horsepower engine and a hefty list of extras and luxuries, and you have a fine airplane. Passengers like the large Cessnas for their generous leg room and, it bears repeating, an excellent view.

It’s possible to pay over $200,000 for a mint-condition used Centurion—Cessna doesn’t make new Centurions right now—but some well-maintained 210s are also being sold for as little as $50,000.

Piper began manufacturing the Piper Cub, a low-price, simple airplane so light and easy to fly that even Piper himself became a pilot—at the age of 60. From an abandoned silk factory in Lock Haven, Piper’s company grew into a maker of inexpensive airplanes—they cost only $1,325, and didn’t increase in price for many years—that stood apart from Cessnas, and the most obvious distinction was where Piper chose to place the wings.

You Take the High Wing, and I’ll Take the Low Wing…

Aside from the Cub and its cousins, the Pacer and TriPacer, Pipers became known for their low-wing design, which some pilots prefer to the high-wing design of most of Cessna’s small models. There is a distinct difference in the flying characteristics of the two planes that becomes starkly noticeable particularly during landing. For the most part, the preference for the low-wing scheme doesn’t go beyond cosmetics. Still, some pilots like sitting on top of the wing instead of dangling below it.

The location of the wing can be important to a pilot. For example, some pilots, often young ones who are just beginning their careers as professionals, take jobs flying along gas and oil pipelines in remote stretches of desert or forest looking for telltale signs of leaks. To do the job really well, they need to be able to look straight downward, which is where high wings make the job a lot easier. Other pilots count animals, something that helps fish and wildlife officials regulate populations. Wildlife pilots often fly very low while passengers count animals like moose, antelopes, even schools of fish and pods of whales, for hours on end. That job is a lot easier if the airplane wing isn’t blocking the view.

My preference is for high-wing Cessnas, and I have a particular fondness for the classic lines and easy-going flying characteristics of the Cessna 170. For one thing, I find high-wing Cessnas easier to get into and out of. Piper’s low wing sometimes makes for tricky footing when stepping on the wing—always the right wing—to reach the door, and an awkward step down into the cockpit. High-wing Cessnas can be entered from both sides of the cockpit—and exited from both sides, too, in case of emergency—and are as comfortable to get into as a two-door sedan.

What’s more, I like the visibility Cessna’s high wing gives me, not only during cruise flight, but when approaching the airport. In a low-wing Piper, and any low-wing airplane for that matter, the wings block my view of the airport during some phases of the landing approach, which I find a nuisance.

While Clyde Cessna and the Kansas company he created were becoming synonymous, Bill Piper was keeping pace. Piper, a former oil man from Pennsylvania, unwittingly backed a tiny local airplane company when his business partner pledged a few hundred dollars on his behalf. When the company collapsed as the Great Depression deepened, Piper bought the company for $761 in the bankruptcy auction and found himself in the airplane business. And he didn’t even know how to fly!

Piper, who was scarcely ever called anything but “Mr. Piper,” knew how to get all 100 pennies worth out of a dollar, which goes a long way toward explaining his success in a business that bankrupted dozens of others. He never owned more than one car at a time, and if his family took it on a long trip, he preferred to walk to town and back to his home near the Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, airport rather than pay for another vehicle.

He was also unflappable. When a spark ignited some rags in 1937, Piper’s entire factory burned to the ground. Bill shrugged it off, saying, “At least we’ll get some publicity out of it.”

What is it about Cessna airplanes that makes them so beloved? I suppose part of the answer lies in how simply Cessna airplanes are designed. Pull up the cowling on a Cessna 152 trainer, for example, and you’ll see an engine as uncomplicated as any engine larger than a riding lawnmower’s. But that little engine puts out enough horsepower to carry the plane a few hundred miles at a hop or a few dozen times around the airfield (which is how most student pilots learn to fly).

Turbulence

Clyde Cessna undeniably changed the character of general aviation by manufacturing planer that were iafer than any made before. But in a cruel irony, Ceuna watched a cl ore friend die horribly in an air racing acci­dent in 1933 flying a plane Ceuna himself had designed. Cessna lost his love for flying on that day, though not his love for building airplanes, and from then on did all he could to avoid get­ting into an airplane.

If the exterior is simple and functional, the interior of most small Cessna airplanes is positively Spartan. Seats are thin-cushioned and, except for sliding closer or farther away from the instrument panel, nonadjustable. The air vents are no more than big hollow tubes that suck outdoor air into the cockpit. In short, most of the smaller Cessnas are made for short flights or pilots who don’t mind a little punishment. Only when you get into the larger, more expensive models do you start to enjoy real comfort.

The Cessna’s instruments are simple, with few distractions to divert a pilot’s attention. The planes are highly responsive to a pilot’s control, and are more forgiving than a parish priest. That doesn’t mean pilots don’t have to be skilled to fly them safely; it does mean they are inherently stable and prone to giving pilots second chances. From their sturdy landing gear capable of shrugging off a student pilot’s bouncy landing to a wing design that goes easy on pilots who fly too slow, the Cessna is a big – hearted plane in a small, plain-Jane package.

Perhaps my favorite feature of most of the Cessnas is the front window that you can open during flight. Granted, the roar of the 100-plus mile-per-hour wind brings any cockpit small talk to a halt, but under the punishing sun of the southwestern United States, where I did most of my student flying, cooling in the breeze beat shooting the breeze any day.

d 140s were great training planes. But a need developed for slightly larger planes with more seating capacity; after learning how to fly, pilots wanted to take the whole family along. The graceful Cessna 170, sort of a flying station wagon, filled that need perfectly when it was introduced in 1947, and as the years passed, the company built models that became larger, faster, and more refined. Perhaps the culmination of these efforts is the high-powered Caravan, a single-engine workhorse that is simultaneously so brawny and graceful that some pilots swear it can carry anything that will fit inside.

To say the least, the Cessna company has thrived. Not only is Cessna the unchallenged champion in terms of the number of small, mostly single-engine airplanes that have rolled off its assembly lines—assembly lines that have been owned by Textron since 1992—but the company has also become one of the most prolific producers of small-business jets.

Cessna was a self-taught pilot who, like the Wright brothers, had to learn the basics of piloting the hard way, often crashing until he figured out how to land safely. He first flew in 1911, and soon was thrilling audiences around Wichita with his air-circus hijinks.

But the long time Clyde had taken to learn how to fly meant more than a few cracked-up homemade planes. If there was one thing Cessna longed for, it was an airplane that was strong and durable and could withstand the early struggles of beginner pilots.

In fact, if Clyde Cessna had been a better pilot and had not subjected his planes to so much abuse, Cessna airplanes might not have become the most popular airplanes ever made.

From the time he built his beloved Silver Wings airplane in 1913, Cessna gradually developed larger and more sophisticated designs that were known for their sturdy construction.

Flight schools beat a path to Wichita after World War II to buy up scores of the all-but-indestructible little planes that Clyde made. Airplanes with pedestrian names like Model 120 and Model 140 transformed post-war America into a nation of pilots. It seemed that everybody in the country either was a pilot or had a friend who was.

Clyde Cessna rates as one of the most eccentric airplane builders to ever turn a wrench. Cessna, who turned to aviation at the age of 31, trudged around his shop in threadbare old clothes and a shapeless fedora that made him look more like a panhandling drifter than the creator of the modern spirit of general aviation. In a plane he built himself in 1913, he would fly around on his errands. Whether it was going to the store or going to church on Sunday, Clyde Cessna did it by air.

He was absent-minded, too. In June 1917, he opened a flight school that quickly enrolled five students at a price of $400. But Cessna was so preoccupied with building his planes that he forgot to show up to teach the lessons, and all five students quit in a rage and sued Cessna for their money back.

Cessna, a gangly former car salesman, revolutionized the design and construction of airplanes by hiding the strength-giving parts inside his airplanes’ wings, imbuing them with a graceful appearance. Where other designers had placed supporting struts and braces on the outside of the airplane, he created structural parts that would provide strength from the inside, reducing the number of exterior supporting struts and wires from a dozen to just two. But graceful though Clyde’s planes were, they became known as bullishly strong, amazingly light, and quick to forgive the ham-handed pilot.

Sport flying, that part of noncommercial, nonmilitary aviation that we do just for fun, is becoming safer every day. Gone is the era when flying an airplane was so risky that insurance companies wouldn’t even write a policy for a pilot. Improvements to navigation equipment and safety-conscious plane building continue to make flying one of the safest ways you can choose to get from point A to point B. Flying has become so safe, in fact, that some say the statistics favor flying over driving or boating. As far as sport aviation goes, I won’t go quite that far, but it may be true that airline flying is the safest means of transportation ever devised.

To demonstrate the improvement in flight safety, lets look at the numbers. Excluding airline statistics, military flying, and helicopters—in other words, looking only at fixed-wing general aviation—1997 (the latest year for which I have complete statistics) was the safest year ever. In 1997, there were 1,858 general aviation accidents, of which only 356 involved a fatality. That number might appear high, but it looks a whole lot better when you realize that general aviation pilots flew more than 25 million hours of cockpit time. It appears that better pilot training and superior technology is only going to improve on 1997’s record.

The 1997 figures also look very encouraging when you compare them to 1982, when 3,233 general aviation accidents occurred in the course of flying more than 29.6 million flight hours. That year, 591 ofthose flying accidents were fatal.

Ask a pilot if flying is safe, and he’ll probably say something glib like, “The most dangerous part of any flight is the drive to the airport.” The fact is that flying has its share of danger, just as driving does. If you run out of gas when you’re driving, safety is as close as the side of the road, whereas a pilot who is a mile or more above the ground must perform some very skilled flying if he’s going to land safely. By the same token, when you’re flying you’re not in danger of a drunk driver crossing the median and colliding with you.

Y es, there’s a certain amount of risk in flying. But if you decide that you have an irresistible passion for it, you can feel good about the fact that it’s getting safer to do it all the time.

In This Chapter

► Sport flying: safer than ever before

► Aviation’s popularity: "taking off"

► Plane makers Cessna and Piper make flying affordable and safe

► Manufacturers Beechcraft and Mooney add flash and speed

► The Oshkosh experience

Sport flying is booming. Airplane makers are speeding up their assembly lines, more people are getting their pilot certificates, and pilots are flying more hours now than they have in years. The figures make it pretty clear that the upsurge in flying activity is only going to accelerate. And for those of us who love nothing more than a busy airfield, that’s good news.

Sport flying owes its popularity to two innovators who saw flying not as a daredevil sport but as a recreational pastime: Clyde Cessna and Bill Piper. Thanks to the companies they built and their vision for sport aviation, flying continues to become safer and more affordable.

From Lindbergh’s flight in 1927 through the 1930s, when Earhart set record after record amid thick newspaper, radio, and newsreel coverage, the American public grew fond of the idea of traveling adventurously by airline. Airlines began to spring up and prosper, thanks in part to companies that operated cheaply and efficiently, but also because of the passenger-pampering luxury some of them offered.

As manufacturers like Boeing and Ford began to sense the birth of a new industry, airplanes metamorphosed into lumbering, ear-splitting luxury suites with wings. Food rivaling that offered in the finest restaurants was served to nattily dressed travelers who reclined in thick-cushioned comfort. They departed from exotic locations in the

South Pacific and the Spanish Main of South America in flying ships that bore names like The Bermuda Clipper and the Clipper Evening Star. Passengers sipped wine or, in the case of Western Airlines, champagne, while attractive stewardesses prepared cozy sleeping compartments for the fatiguing flights. Modern jet travel, even in the firstclass compartment, can’t hold a candle to the luxury offered in the golden age of the airlines.

One of the favorites of passengers, pilots, and airline executives alike was the Douglas DC-3, which made its inaugural flight in 1935. Before then, flying long distances was an experience that tested the mettle—and the patience—of even the most hardy traveler.

Passengers loved the DC-3’s roominess and speed, which for the first time made flying comfortable. Pilots found the plane stable and easy to fly, or as pilots say, “honest.” Most importantly for the growing industry, airline executives appreciated the DC-3’s reliability and low operating cost. DC-3s were strong and reliable, meaning they cost less to repair. And their low cost meant that tickets were affordable, attracting more passengers. To this day, the 65-year-old “Grande Dame of the Skies” is working just as hard as she did in her heyday.

As airlines began to really rake in the profits, Boeing was the one that became most synonymous with air travel. Though Boeing didn’t build the first commercial jet, its four-engine 707 is remembered as the airliner that connected America’s east and west coasts, and helped coin the word “nonstop.” For the first time, passengers could, without fear, board a plane in New York and step off in San Francisco or London a few hours later.

Such aviation feats would have been hard to imagine without Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. Though they never worked together, their influence on the American public was as strong as if they had coordinated their promotion of aviation.

Because the flying exploits of Lindbergh and Earhart took them around the world, American travelers for the first time began to think of the distant continents as places that could be reached by air, and not only by the slow-moving ocean vessels.

And thanks to radio, their flights, and particularly Earhart’s, were adventures that Americans could follow in their living rooms. For the first time, water-cooler talk in steno pools and factory floors around the country centered on American aviators breaking flying records in faraway places.

The Least You Need to Know

> Charles Lindbergh worked hard to learn to fly and applied his skill to winning the lucrative Orteig prize.

>- Amelia Earhart was a better women’s advocate than pilot, and her disappear­ance might well have resulted from poor flying judgment

>- The Douglas DC-3 ushered in the airline industry.

>* The airlines owed much of their success to the exploits of Lindbergh and Earhart, who fired the imaginations of a nation erf would-be adventurers.