As many of you know, my “learn to fly airplane” funds have all but dried up, but my desire to test my fate is as strong as ever. So when I found out Kevin’s plane was returning from the shop with some refurbished parts and he was planning on “taking it through the ringer” to make sure it worked properly, I couldn’t help but volunteer to go up with him.
So sure enough, he took me up in his Piper Warrior while he tossed it around like the Boise State Broncos football team just tossed around the poor Idaho Vandals backup quarterback last weekend (sorry! Couldn’t help it… I do root for the Vandals, just not for this game).
Turns out Kevin, who is a British Air Force trained pilot who was learning how to fly fast fighters before getting hurt in a rugby game, can do things to his Warrior that aren’t in the early stages of the “how to fly” syllabus. Here are just a few maneuvers he pulled off:
Kidney Turn: Aptly named because he banks so hard under full power that my internal organs felt as if they were somewhere in my knees.
Driveway Landing: Forget short field landings, Kevin put the plane down and pulled off the runway over a total distance of about six inches. And he did so at about 75 miles per hour when the wheels hit. This guy could make a decent living parallel parking airliners along busy city streets.
The Slip of Death: You probably remember me talking about learning slips a few posts ago, but Kevin proved that they have some serious practical applications. Turns out they are really handy when you’re about 1,500 feet above the runway by the time you’ve flown over the numbers on the final approach. This guy dropped altitude faster than Michael Richard’s popularity after his infamous stand-up comedy scandal.
But the best part about the entire flight: I got to fly in the left seat, just like the real pilot. Kevin flew from the right. Here’s why he chose to fly from the usual “co-pilot” seat:
- He’s a flight instructor, so he spends more time in the right seat anyway.
- He’s British, so he’s used to flying/driving from the opposite side.
- If we wrecked, it would look like I was the one who was flying. (I might have made that one up, but it makes sense…)
All in all, it was a great experience to see and feel how a really experience pilot can handle an airplane. This guy wasn’t just pulling off difficult maneuvers with ease, he made “normal” flight seem so effortless.
Why Was The Plane Repaired?
Aircraft engines are required to get full inspections at regular intervals, which keeps them in top condition and pads the wallets of flight mechanics. During the process they freshened up the spark plugs, fixed some compression problems and adjusted the timing.
Now the Piper Warrior pulls with more power than Kevin remembers it ever having. And that’s with a combined passenger load of about 500 pounds between him and I. Not too shabby.
The Warrior Runs On Automotive Gasoline.
Yes, you read that right. Kevin’s Piper Warrior was retrofitted some time ago to run fine on automotive gasoline – which runs about $1 per gallon less than aviation gas. He’s never tried it until this test flight, though. So he filled up one tank full of av gas, the other with 89-octane petroleum gasoline (no ethanol) and it ran fine. It even made the engines smell like a car engine rather than… well whatever piston plane engine’s smell like.
Granted this was just a ride-along flight, and didn’t count as instruction or hours I could log, but it was fun getting back in the plane. It’s been about two weeks since I’ve been flying and it was nice just to get back into a plane. Hopefully I’ll be find little ride-along trips like this more often.
