Aw! Come on honey! Give it a try!
My wife and I were on a flight to Amarillo, from El Paso. The weather was perfect, very little turbulence, and we enjoyed the scenery of the wide open spaces. That is until I decided my wife should learn a little about flying, just in case I had a heart attack, or something. I said;
'Honey, why don't you take the wheel for a little bit?'
She said, sarcastically;
'Why, you tired?'
I said;
'What would you do if I passed out, or had a heart attack?'
She said, off hand, as if she were answering a child;
'We'd both probably die in the crash!'
After stirring that reply around a bit I said;
'It really ain't that hard to learn how to fly this little bitty thing!'
She said;
'How come it took you so long to learn then?'
I stewed over that remark for awhile, then using my best coaxing tone of voice, said;
'Aw, come on honey, try it for little ole me, huh - - huh?'
I knew if I continued with this wheedling long enough she'd finally give in, so I asked again;
'Aw sweety-pie, give it a try. You just might save us both some day.
Huh - - - huh
For awhile she didn't say anything, but I could see I was getting on her nerves and she'd have to give in to get a little peace and quiet. So she finally said;
'Oh, ok, anything to shut you up for a minute!'
Although she didn't have flyitis like I did, and as most of the people I hang around with have, she did appreciate the saving of travel time an airplane could provide. During the several years we had been married she had quite a few hours of right seat time accumulated, flitting about from place to place with me. And she was slowly getting to the point where she could tolerate a bit of turbulence, without turning my right leg black and blue, from gripping it so hard. So, when she relented (I knew she would) I told her to 'Grab the wheel' of the Taylorcraft and 'kind of feel it out!' She did the usual white-knuckle-grip on the wheel and froze. After a few minutes I told her,
'Relax! Don't grip the wheel so hard!'
She let go, saying sharply,
'If you don't like the way I'm doing it, then do it yourself!'
I said, ever-so-patiently,
'Gee honey, you're doing ok, but if you relax your grip
you'll have better control
We flew along for a few minutes then I asked her again, 'Try it again hon!' and let her take the wheel. This time she concentrated on gripping the wheel lightly and before long she was trying very gently swaying movements, and shallow up and downs. When I figured she had built up some confidence, and having scanned the sky for other traffic, I said 'Try a turn to the left!' Now, she had flown with me long enough to know that when you turned the wheel you also stepped on the rudder, and on my instructions she turned, and stepped; hard! T-crafts aren't the fastest turning planes built, but she certainly proved that on occasion they will respond, sharply. Surprised, I grabbed the wheel and pulled throttle, slowly recovering from the split-ess she'd put us into. Climbing back up to altitude, and heading, I made the remark;
'That was just a - wee - bit - too much turning.'
I then proceeded to show her how it was done. After a couple of shallow turns, right, then left, I asked her if she was alright now. She said;
'I was just beginning to enjoy it. You sure I should try it again?'
I said;
'Sure honey! Just remember, not so hard on the turns.'
So she tried it again, this time doing pretty good; uncoordinated turns, but pretty good.
About this time she looked like she was becoming comfortable, and we were approaching Loveland, N.M., where we planned to set down for fuel. I said;
'Were coming up on the airport ahead so put your hand
on the throttle, easy like
After telling her to pull the throttle out a little bit and keep the wings level I saw she was starting to get confidence. So I kept on praising her and coaxing her with instructions. I could see there was no traffic at the airport so I told her to try for a straight-in-approach, all the while remembering an incident a couple of months before.
These friends of mine had a nice 150 they flew around in on weekends and had asked me if I'd take their 14 year old boy up in it. They'ed been planning on getting him into flight school during summer vacation and wanted me to see how he took to flying. The couple both were fairly new pilots and seldom had the courage to take anyone aloft, especially their only son. Well anyway; I got the boy belted in the left seat, fastened my belt, showed him how to do the preflight, then talked him through start up. He was sharp. He had the engine purring nicely as I nonchalantly told him how to get us out to the end of the runway. Like I said, the kid was sharp, I didn't ever have to touch the controls. He responded as if he knew what I was going to say. After the mag check I coaxed him out to the center of the runway and explained what to do for takeoff. He followed my cues to the letter. It was a better takeoff then either of his parents had ever made. Oh! He made the usual over-control mistakes but he learned fast. After showing him some maneuvers I let him have the controls again and talked him through the landing. It was a beaut! One of those wheel kissers that sound so nice. And, I never laid a hand on the controls, though I was ready to grab hold if needed.
I had this in mind as we descended to the Loveland airport, hoping I could talk her down as easy as the kid had done. I knew this would really give her a big moral boost if she put it down the first time, without any help. So, I kept on with the easy chatter, saying things like;
'Just a bit more power now, lower the nose a smidgeon.'
Things of that nature seemed easy for her to handle and she was doing fairly well. Oh! She still had a habit of keeping the nose a bit high, but I kept on praising her, with;
'Hey, that's great! Push the nose down a bit though.'
I could see the wind-sock now and what little wind we had was slightly off the right wing. As we got closer she instinctively crabbed into the wind to keep lined up on the runway. I figured this was going to be another of those kissy-kissy wheel squeakers because she seemed to have everything going fairly smooth. I had planned on taking the controls as we flared, if needed, but hoped she'd put it down by herself. But, I forgot how busy things get at the moment of flare-out, and I really had to force myself not to grab the wheel too soon. I wish I had though, as it turned out.
As we came in over the threshold she instinctively knew it was time to line up with the runway, and did a good job of it too. She lowered the wing slightly, against the wind, and had me convinced that she would set it down nice and smooth. However, she started to flare too high and before I could push the yoke forward we had lost to much speed and the T-craft stalled. The wheel bungee's took a terrific beating as the wheels slammed into the runway and the bird sprang back into the air. By this time I had my hands full trying to feed in just enough power and at the same time keep the nose down. But, my wife was really excited by now and refused to let go of her wheel. Her instincts told her to pull the wheel up, which she did as hard as she could, and trying to overcome this was futile (and you know I can't yell or scream anymore because of the accident with my throat). Anyway, we smashed against the runway again, but this time we didn't bounce. The force of gravity, very little forward airspeed, and fortune came all together at that moment to wreck my pride-and-joy. The bungee's snapped, which forced the wheels up against the wing struts, which bent the wings down, which isn't at all good for any airplane. The shock to us was no worse then jumping from a table, especially since we'd braced for the crash, but the plane came to a noisy stop, and amid the rubbish in the middle of the runway I turned to my wife and said;
'Well, we're landed and we ain't dead. - - -
That was a pretty good approach though
She finally forced her hands from the wheel, turned to me and slapped my face. She then proceeded to give me a few choice words. All these years I thought I'd been married to a lady, but from what she told me then, it sounded like she'ed been driving trucks for the past 20 years. To this day I'm afraid to ever mention to her taking the wheel again, and whenever were on a flight to somewhere and I even consider it in my mind she immediately turns to look at me with; 'Don't even think it... ' in her eyes.