By Mike Davenport, EAA 89102, Langley, British Columbia
Due to the pandemic, I have been spending a lot more time at home, and with time on my hands, I find myself rereading books purchased some time ago. Some of these are, not surprisingly, about flying. Several are about or by famous test pilots, and while I in my wildest dreams don’t put myself in that class, there are lessons to be learned from them.
Learning from the mistakes of others is still the wisest way. After all, it has been said many times that we won’t live long enough to make them all ourselves. This is particularly true about flying.
One recurring theme in each test pilot’s story is about the amount of time they spent doing cockpit checks, learning the locations of all the switches, levers, and controls, and where and what each warning light was and what it did. Each of these people who lived long enough to write a book about their experiences did these checks each and every time that they got into a new airplane.
Pilots as a group tend to be pretty confident people, and some of us are reluctant to take advice on what we know about flying. I include myself in that group, although as my hair has gotten grayer (whiter), I do tend to at least listen more.
Case in point: With less than 70 hours total time and a ton of unearned self-confidence, I undertook to solo-fly a new-to-me aircraft with just a half-hour circuit check. Now I knew this little airplane pretty well, or thought I did. After all, I had helped to build the original. This was the kit prototype of a two-seat Quickie, a canard-configured composite aircraft powered by a Revmaster 64-hp engine. Being the second prototype — the original was destroyed in a crash following a prop failure — some things were changing, and one of those was the installation of a trim system. A controllable trim tab was installed on the vertical stabilizer, controlled by a Vernier cable installed in the center of the instrument panel. Remember, this was a canard-configured aircraft, and while the elevators were located on the front wing/canard, the small “T Tail” trim tab would be on the fin, and thus more effective due to the long moment arm.
My checkride was as a passenger seated on the right side while the owner pilot told me what he was doing. I had very little stick time during that half-hour ride, but I didn’t see that as a problem, as after all, I had helped build the thing. The main instruction that I remember was during landing — if I bounced it, the thing to do was sit there with the stick full back and ride it out. It would bounce three times and settle down.
My takeoff was notable for its lack of finesse as I overcontrolled to the extreme, with too much back stick, and then overcorrected with too much forward stick, almost ending the flight right there. However, I was able to get it sorted out and into a stable climb. By the time I had settled down from the excitement of the takeoff, I was halfway to Bakersfield over Lancaster. By the way, from that vantage point I could see Edwards Air Force Base, the place where all my heroes had flown.
I returned to Mojave and spent some time overhead getting more comfortable with the flight characteristics before attempting what was to be a touch-and-go. I intended to do three before ending the flight.
Mojave has a long runway, and as it was early morning, there was little to no wind to contend with. I set up a long final and had a good stabilized approach. On touchdown, I bounced it and, just like I was told, sat there with the stick back and bounced three times. All was well to this point.
I reached forward and shoved the throttle to full, but to my horror, the engine rpm did not pick up but the tail did.
My total flying time to date had been in Cessnas, where the throttle is located in the center of the panel. Muscle memory took over and by pushing that big white knob in the panel, I added full nose-down trim, not power. The throttle was located on the left-side panel. The inevitable result was a broken prop, which today hangs on my hangar wall as a reminder to do things different next time.
For more on the Quickie Q2, check out my book People, Places and Planes.