![]() |
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#17
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Dudley Henriques wrote in
: Bertie the Bunyip wrote: Dudley Henriques wrote in : Every now and then at some of our shows I'd get a chance to sit down and jaw awhile with the Formula 1 race pilots. Steve Whittman was at a few of these ("war stories" gab sessions) Steve had some amazing stuff from the "old days", and would have us all laughing like idiots telling us about flying some of the old planes. I actually got a taste of what he was talking about when I flew a Cassutt race plane one afternoon. Actually, you don't really FLY a Cassutt, you WEAR a Cassutt :-) Even the Pitts wasn't as sensitive on the controls as that beast. But it was great fun and I caught on quickly after it scared the s**t out of me on take off. I rotated and went to 100 feet before I could ease off the tiny bit of back pressure I had used to do that :-)) In my opinion, the guys who flew those early planes were REAL pilots!! :-)) You were lucky to have met him. I'd seen him at Oshkosh and sun n fun a few times, but wasn't part ofthe elite that got to meet him. Elite? Not THIS bunch!! More like us being us covered from head to foot with engine oil and hydraulic fluid and all of dying for a cold coke with Whittman the only guy there with enough loose change for the battered old coke machine in the back of the hangar:-)) You know what i mean... Any of those things had to be a handful. the fuselage area, even on the inline engined ones, was vast ahead of the CG and the tail surfaces tiny. Add that to some fairly sensitive wings and pilots with fairly limited experience in low performance airplanes and it's a wonder that any of them survived! Lots didn't, of course. Bertie Yeah, true enough. Even Whittman came to a tragic end after all he had accomplished and done. I seem to recall hearing both he and his wife died when the fabric failed on their Tailwind some years back. Yes, hard to believe that such an experienced builder could make such an elementery mistake. He was using some sort of tight weave nylon covering, and , as you did with cotton in the past, just doped it onto the wood sheeted wing of his tailwind. It bubbled up in flight, not having properly adhered to the surface. this happened to a friend of my father's in a Cessna Bobcat many years ago. His son and he made a repair and then went flying as soon as the dope dried. They were alarmed to see a large bubble forming in the upper surface of the wing as they motored along. They got away with it though.. Bertie |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Best Pilot Watch for $100? | Jay Honeck | Piloting | 28 | November 18th 07 08:51 AM |
Watch out for the FBI . . . | Rich S.[_1_] | Home Built | 9 | June 23rd 07 02:42 PM |
Pilot watch not a real EB6 | BillJosephson | Piloting | 12 | March 18th 07 04:16 AM |
Looking for a watch... | Darrel Toepfer | Rotorcraft | 1 | November 8th 04 09:42 PM |
AOPA ZULU Time Pilot watch on eBay | Cecil E. Chapman | Products | 0 | October 13th 03 06:40 PM |