Dream Panel

Chip, you are correct. Like many sons of the fifties and sixties soaring pilots, I have a couple of classic "Memphis" rate of climb indicators. One is still working fine in my late father's Open Cirrus sailplane here at Marfa. A prized instrument in its time and sought after by vintage sailplane restorers. For the "newbies", see the SSA "American Soaring Handbook", Chapter 7, page 18. Yes, it's out of print but a valuable resource and in some ways better than the current FAA Glider Flying Handbook as the ASH chapter topics were written by soaring pilots, not by non-pilot FAA "technical writers."

On Sunday, August 30, 2015 at 12:36:06 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Burt,

More accurately it's a Memphis rate of climb. And I still have one! Once in a while I think about popping it into the panel but I don't have room. You're the first person to mention a Memphis in at least 20 years.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

History lesson (Burt, correct me where appropriate; my memory is a little hazy this far back): My father also had two Memphis ROCs. The second one he found in the 60s in a V-tail Bonanza in the small town in Alabama where he had grown up. [I don't know where the Memphis instruments--referred to, I believe, because the manufacturer (Aircraft Indicators?) was located in that city--were installed but the early Bonanzas were a common location] He persuaded the owner to let him swap the Memphis for a brand new Kollsman ROC and she was happy to.

A club member in the Soaring Society of Dayton (predecessor of Caesar Creek) named Bill Coverdale (brother, IIRC, of Miles Coverdale, who was active in the SSA) quickly removed what he referred to as the "chokes" (restrictors) and, voila, a self-contained, sensitive rate of climb. The Memphis was the backup in many competition cockpits in those days.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

Yes Chip, that sounds right. Beech installed them in many Bonanza airplanes in the fifties. Back then, Bill Coverdale would bring his bright blue Ka-6 to my Dad's gliderport south of Miami, FLA, in the winter. He wrote an article, actually a letter to the editor as I recall, in SOARING about removing the restrictor from a "Memphis." A search of the magazine archives may be worthwhile to anyone interested.

His brother Miles Coverdale (often sporting a big bow tie) wrote many articles primarily on training and safety and was the "grandfather" perhaps of our current Soaring Safety Foundation, of which I am Trustee (which in the southern states, means a trusted prisoner!)

Like you and your Dad, I was lucky to meet, through my father Fritz Compton, many of the legends of soaring from that golden age and listen to the discussions of "how to" which they shared willingly at the single national "open" contest or at one of the regional events each summer.