FIRST FLIGHT IN A CLASSIC AIRPLANE

 

They don't build airplanes the way they used to.

          Those beautiful airplanes out of the past are

          a joy to fly.

 

 

 

 

 

     Did you ever have one of those days when your dream came true but you weren't ready for it?  You just didn't expect it would be that day.  This is the story about a young pilot named

Cary Ambler and how impressed he was when I invited him to take a flight with me in an old Beech 18.  A few months later I gave him a job as a copilot in a Beechcraft King Air 200.

     Cary is five feet, ten inches tall and weighs one‑hundred‑sixty pounds.  His hair is blonde with just a touch of gold.  He has pale blue eyes the color of Paul Newman's.  His smile charms everyone he meets.  Matter of fact, Cary's good looks could have landed him a part in the movies.  His brush with show business was playing drums with a rock group when he was younger. 

     The day we rode in my Beech 18, Cary was in his mid‑twenties and wanted badly to be a professional pilot.  Today he is a couple of years older and is president of East Coast Flight Services at Easton, Maryland.  He operates a fleet of turboprop and jet aircraft, a mix of King Air, Citation and Falcon-jets.

     Easton airport is ideally situated to serve his customer base, which comes from Wall Street, plus the Beltway Crowd in nearby Washington, DC, many of whom have weekend mansions on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

     The day Cary had his first flight in what he considered a "real airplane," he was holding down a full-time job flying single‑engine airplanes at Easton, Maryland.  Like most pilots he was bored with giving flying lessons and making a few charter flights to nearby cities.  He dreamed of doing something more exciting and looked into the future as a professional aviator. 

     When Cary had his thrilling first flight in a classic airplane I was flying a "round‑motor," tail‑dragging, very nice lady of an airplane out of Baltimore, Maryland.  We called them

"round motors," because nine cylinders are placed in a circle around the crankshaft. 

     My Beech 18 had the call-sign N62TP.  It had been delivered new to the Texas Power and Light Company, way back when this was a prestige airplane for a corporation to own.  Then it had club seating for executive travel.  I operated it for Mountain Air Cargo, which had their corporate headquarters at a private airport near Charlotte, North Carolina.  N62TP had been modified with double‑wide cargo doors and a small hatch for the pilot to enter the cockpit by climbing up and over the wing.

     Beechcraft developed these twin‑engine, tail dragging, all‑metal airplanes in the 1930s, when most airplanes had small tail-wheels in the back.  In its day this was the queen of the fleet for executive travel.  All the large corporations used them.

     The Beechcraft Model 18 was used extensively until the early 1960s.  Every young person who ever hung around airports dreamed of the day he would get a chance to fly one.  It is still a joy to pilot this classic airplane.

     After jets and turboprops took over the executive fleet in corporations these grand old Beech 18s were busted to the role of hauling night freight.  I could carry twenty‑five hundred

pounds of freight safely in the airplane.

     I got a call to pick up a piece of heavy cargo at Lynchburg, Virginia.  "Let's invite another pilot to go with us," I said to the hardworking airplane sitting on the ramp.  "What do you say,

Beech 18?"  That is what I called her.  She answered me with a sigh.

     I could hear that sigh, and every other sound she made.  Live around a Beech 18.  You'll swear it talks to you and you better learn to listen.  It can keep you out of trouble.

     When I was alerted for the flight that day I called Cary Ambler.  He lived in Easton, Maryland, and was delighted at the invitation. 

     I told Cary, "Some cargo at Lynchburg, Virginia.  It is needed by a company in Baltimore."

     "On my way," was all he said.

     Cary made the trip from Easton to Baltimore‑Washington International airport in exactly one hour.  He had been waiting for a ride in a Beech 18 since he first started learning to fly.

     I had known Cary Ambler for ten years and had watched him work around Easton airport trading manual labor for flying time.

     Cary was extremely pleased when I put him in the left seat. This was a much larger and more complex airplane than he had ever flown before. And it had a tail wheel.  He still wasn't breathing

normally.

     "It'll fly," I assured him.

     Cary had flown Citabrias which also have a tail wheel.  That was good experience and I assured him all "tail dragger" airplanes act the same.  They'll swap ends on you if they get the chance. 

     On the other hand, multi‑engine, tail wheel airplanes enjoy the advantage of asymmetrical power for taxiing.  You can nudge them left and right with the two throttles.  Besides that, the

brakes and large tires on a Beech 18 are very effective during ground operations.

     Starting procedures for a Beech 18 are a little different from what Cary had been using for horizontally opposed engines.  Some old‑time aviators look down on those engines arguing in

favor of the circular arrangement.  To me it makes little difference.  Read the check list and they all work fine.     Starting horizontally opposed engines seems simpler than the Beech 18.  You just turn the key as you do in your automobile.

     The Beech 18, however, with round motors takes a little longer to start.  First you engage the starter and count three propeller blades moving past the top of the cowling.  Then you push the primer button and count one, two, three more propeller blades while fuel is being dispensed into the carburetor. 

     Let six more blades go past then turn on the magnetos.  You keep the engine turning while you're doing those things.  Both hands and your eyes are busy.  Your reward will be a sound seldom heard by pilots who fly horizontally opposed engines.

     While teaching Cary Ambler the Beech 18 starting procedures, I told him about the time a starter failed on the left engine of my Beech 18.  It happened at an airport way out in West Virginia.

     Nobody was around that day except the man at the gas pump.  All was not lost, because I had seen a small tractor in good working order sitting nearby.  It was used for cutting grass and

towing airplanes.  We had us a plan, a neat one.  Beech 18 airplanes have two kinds of propellers, Hamilton Standards with two‑blades and Hartzells with three blades.  My airplane N62TP had Hamilton propellers with a neat little spinner shaped just right.  I could start the engine like a lawnmower.  All I needed was to get that engine turning over, any way I could.

     The man at the gas pump scratched his head when I started wrapping a cargo tie‑down strap around the propeller spinner.  I hooked the cargo strap to his tractor and motioned for the man to

drive. 

     Away went the tractor in a straight line out beyond the wing tip.  The driver never looked back.  He shook his head and kept on driving until he was behind the hangar.  I am sure he thought something was about to blow up. 

     As the tractor started forward I began counting propeller blades as they turned past the cowling.  I pushed the primer button and counted some more blades then waited until the cargo strap fell free.  I turned on the magnetos and found a very happy engine.  It burped gently and started.

     Cary Ambler smiled and nodded.

    The Beech 18 check list and run‑up took longer than Cary expected.  Most time‑consuming was heating each engine's eight gallons of oil to operating temperature before we could pass it through the oil‑coolers. 

     Waiting for all that oil to get warm was new to Cary.  When the oil was flowing smoothly through the oil‑coolers, propellers and magnetos were checked in the usual way.

     Feathering buttons for the round motors was something new to Cary.  Two large buttons are mounted along the rim above the instrument panel.  They look as big as tennis balls.

     Manifold heat for radial engines is similar to carburetor heat in the horizontally opposed engine but with one big difference.  I told Cary the story about a Beech 18 taking off from Baltimore one very snowy night.  The pilot lost one engine, then the other, and finally managed a very nice off‑airport landing in nearly zero‑zero conditions. 

     That Beech 18 pilot was called a hero for his landing in the snowstorm but had made a common mistake.  What got him in trouble was waiting to use manifold heat until after his engines began showing symptoms of intake icing.  He may have learned that procedure with horizontally opposed engines.

      This heroic, crash‑landing pilot had been handed off to Departure Control when his first engine quit cold.  Just stopped. No warning.  Only then did he apply manifold heat to both

engines.  It was too late.  Ice cubes the size of softballs had already formed in both carburetor air intakes.

     Moreover, the poor pilot in this icing story withheld information from Air Traffic Control.  He forgot that you always tell them your problems.  They can help.

     He did not confess.  Instead, he lied.  He said, "They want me back at the ramp." 

     That is a common ploy used by freight pilots, with no passengers watching them work.  Just fib a little, go back and land and try to sort out the engine problems later.

     Alas, this was a very bad night with lots of traffic stacked up because of the snowstorm.  Consequently he was sent way down south of the airport to take his place in line behind all the

scheduled airliners and other deserving airplanes waiting to use the runway.  Engine inlet icing stayed bad and continued to worsen on his Beech 18.

     Our hero pilot flying the Beech 18 on one engine that snowy night was not using proper ice‑flight techniques.  And his problems soon got much worse.  Just as he nailed the localizer

and started down the glide-slope his second and only remaining engine quit too.  That was a very lonely feeling.

     Flying a silent airplane with only the wind to keep him company this very worried pilot broke out of the overcast at one hundred feet altitude.  His alert, intense gaze fell upon a major, four‑lane street.

     "Thanks, Lord," was all he said, retracted the landing gear and prepared to slide.  He did slide and kept on sliding down the right side of the street late at night.  Things were going along just fine until he came to the intersection of another street. 

     The light had just turned red and a slow‑moving pickup truck pulled into his path but not for very long at all.  Our sliding pilot reports the pickup truck driver looked in his rearview mirror and swerved slightly.  Then his eyes got very large and he put the pedal to the metal.  The truck won the race but the driver will never again believe everything he sees on a foggy,

wet, snowy night.

     That hero‑pilot could have employed a different engine‑operating technique and totally avoided all his hair‑raising adventure.  When the outside air temperature is near freezing,

some round‑motor pilots do it this way.  They taxi into position, apply full manifold heat, wait until carburetor temperature rises and then start the takeoff roll. 

     No, the engines are not producing full power yet.  Wait a little longer.  Have patience.  During the takeoff roll reduce heat until manifold pressure begins to rise then reduce it just a little more for good measure.  By the time you have reached flying speed your engines will be producing full power.

     Cary spoke for the first time during my Beech 18 stories.  He said, "I get the impression that round‑motor flying in the old days required lots of knowledge and preparation by pilots."

     I agreed.  Old‑time pilots loved their "round‑motors," scorning horizontally‑opposed engines.  That group of pilots thought "flat motors" belonged in Volkswagen "Beetles," not airplanes.  Such was their loyalty to technology forever gone. 

     Both kinds of engines burn gasoline and have many levers to push and pull, mostly to keep from bending, breaking, or melting something.  Today's turboprop and jet pilots have only throttles to push.  If you do not allow overheating when first starting them turbines will work fine the rest of the day.

     Going through the checklist I showed Cary how to set flaps for takeoff.  I lowered the aileron on his side to full travel. Then I told Cary to set flaps to match the aileron. 

     Any more flaps would cause drag.  Any less was not as helpful as it could be.  The checklist requires flaps for takeoff but the flap position gauge is not all that reliable in airplanes of Beech 18 vintage.  Always look out the window to see where you put the flaps.  That way you will probably never try a full‑flap takeoff.  Those kinds are interesting.

     On the takeoff roll Beech 18 pilots know if the tail will come off the ground the airplane will fly no matter how heavy it is.  You might have to stay in ground effect, raise the gear and wait for a little more speed before climbing. 

     Beech 18s were designed to cruise at gross weight with one engine shut down and the propeller feathered.  They will even climb a little bit in that configuration, just a little.

     Because our Beech 18 was empty that day and we only had enough fuel for the trip to Lynchburg, Cary's takeoff was impressive.  I planned to buy fuel after we knew how much cargo

we had.

     "Let's practice our procedures," I suggested to Cary on the way to Lynchburg.  "Give me a steep turn to the right."

     Cary cranked it over past forty‑five degrees bank. 

     "Do a stall for me."

     The stick shaker began trembling as Cary applied more back pressure.

     I pulled the mixture on the right engine.  Down went the nose.  Back came the throttles and Cary leveled the wings.  Then he set the throttles to cruise once more and began sorting out

his engine failure procedures.

     "Dead foot.  Dead engine," he said as he pounded his right shoe up and down on the floor boards.  "Test it by reducing the right throttle."

     "Correct," I said and pushed the mixture back in.

     Cary climbed back to his altitude and resumed his heading for Lynchburg.  "I love this airplane.  What should we do now?" 

     "Notice how stable it is after you trim it?"

     "Very neat flying airplane.  I don't see an autopilot anyplace."

     I explained that airplanes used for freight commonly have no autopilots to save weight.  More cargo equals more revenue.

     "Tell you what.  Let's shut down an engine and restart it."  I pulled the mixture on the left engine.  "Feather it now."

     "Checklist," Cary requested and soon had it humming again.

     "Now I'll show you how to lower the landing gear in an emergency," I told him.

 

 

 

     "Be nice to know how that works." 

     "Kick that lever there on the floor.  The landing gear will fall free," I instructed him.

     "Swoosh.  Thunk!"  Down the landing gear went.

     "Now crank it down some more.  Until the light comes on. That's all there is to it."

     I reminded Cary, "The tail wheel has to be locked for all takeoffs and landings.  If it is free to swivel, an interesting landing might be in the pilot's future."

     We went through the entire checklist twice allowing Cary to shut down first one engine then the other.  I went over all systems with him step by step pointing out where everything was

installed and how it worked.

     Probably because he was excited from learning interesting things about a wonderful airplane Cary did not double‑check the tail wheel before making his first landing in a Beech 18 at

Lynchburg that day. 

     It happened so fast I could do nothing but hang on and ride. Cary was busy giving a demonstration to the friendly folks in Lynchburg Control Tower.  He showed them how to make a complete circle in the grass beside the runway.

     I grinned at Cary.  "You aim to tell me you planned to do exactly that?  By the way, the rest of your landing was perfect."

     The Control Tower called, "Ahh . . . say . . . Beech 18.  Y'all having trouble out there?  Need anything?"

     "Well . . ., "  Cary paused and took a deep breath.  "No, sir.  I'd say things are just about normal for my first ride in a Beech 18." 

     Cary let out a little breath and suggested, "But I could use a towel."

     The man in the Control Tower chuckled.  "Roger.  To wipe away some tears, I suppose."

     "Yes, sir.  And besides.  There's something wet all over my seat."  Cary laughed.

     The Control Tower had seen it all.  Been there.  Done that. "Know what you mean.  You're cleared to taxi.  And the truck with your cargo is waiting."

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