08 November 2011

Flying the Super Cub

Ever heard of Kyle Franklin, aka Ben Whabnoski? C’mon, the dude with the drunk pilot routine... Go and paste the following link, or Google "Kyle Franklin, drunk pilot" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QESHF6bBk6E

After watching that video, I thought “Is it really possible for a Super Cub to do that?”
On the weekend, I got my answer.

I’ve had the opportunity to fly the Piper Super Cub twice, I’ve also flown the Piper Cub, and Tiger Moth, and out of those three, I liked the Tiger Moth the best. I think the Super Cub was my least favourite, and I never really appreciated it. Until last weekend when I did a conversion on to it.

It’s quite a big machine, roomy interior, 150hp engine up front, beautiful metal propeller, long sturdy legs (undercarriage), and big wings with big flaps. It’s a workhorse, and oh so lovely.

The first part of my conversion consisted of a history of the Piper Cub’s. Then identifying the differences between the Cub and Super Cub. And then a quick breakdown of the different models of Super Cubs. I was then given the Super Cub’s poh (pilot’s operating handbook), and told to study it.

Study what? It consisted of about 40 pages. Performance graphs? Who cares about take-off and landing distances? Weight and balance envelopes, what are those?! Google is normally my friend, but I still struggled to find more material on the aircraft. So I read what I had, and prayed I would remember all of it.

Not much later, the day came to fly it. The aircraft’s owner was my instructor, and he did what he does almost every time I fly with him; he said “I’m not here. Do what you think you’re supposed to do.” Now, I can’t describe how nervous I was about potentially breaking this man’s pride and joy.

Everything went fine until the run-ups. The mag-selector is old, and it’s difficult to feel the indents as you change mags. And sparky over here turned the handle just a bit too far, so instead of switching from the right mag to the left mag, I skipped left and went straight to OFF. While the engine was running at 1800rpm. The backfire scared the pants off of me, and I wished the earth would open up and swallow me.

That mistake meant I was kicking myself for the rest of the flight (circuits), which meant that I flew like an idiot. I was upset, I was angry, I was scared of the aircraft; I like to think that I’m relatively good at flying, but that day, I really screwed up.

But things changed with my second flight...

Before starting, I fiddled with the mag-selector and got a feel for it; I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice!

The plan: short-field take-offs, stop-and-go’s, upper air work, and circuits.

Now, when they say short-field take-off, they really do mean short. Full flap, full power, release brakes. All you have to do is keep it on the black; the plane will fly when it wants to fly (it normally leaves the ground 150-200ft or 45-60m from the starting point). And when it does fly, it climbs like a homesick angel.

The circuits were a mix of one notch of flaps, full flaps, wheelers and three-point landings. I found wheelers to be the easiest, whereas with the Cubby, it’s easier to do a three-pointer.

For the upper air work, we started with slow flight. Which progressed to slow flight with full flaps. Then stalls. Then steep turns with and without flaps. And we also did an incipient spin.

Because I was scared of the plane, my instructor showed me exactly what it could do... It’s more than happy to bumble along with full flaps, throttle about 1/4 open, and the speed below 40mph (the markings on the airspeed indicator stop at 40mph). It was so incredibly stable, even though there was a fair amount of turbulence; just try and maintain altitude, as soon as it nears the stall, lower the nose a bit. Rinse and repeat.

And stalling was a dream; not violent, little to no wing drop, and very easy and fast recovery with minimum height loss.

Then he had fun and did things like throwing it into a steep turn with the greatest of ease, forces sucking you into the (incredibly comfortable) seat. Climbing without a problem, letting it mush along with very little forward speed. And if he ever did something that the aircraft didn’t like; it would give him a warning before biting. Throughout all of this, I couldn’t stop laughing. I found the performance of this aircraft so amazing.

After that, we went back to Stellenbosch, and I was feeling good. I managed a simulated engine failure, and after landing my instructor told me to vacate the runway, which I found odd because he said we would do some more circuits. I thought it might be because my PTT (push to talk) had popped out and lodged itself between the floor and fuselage (so I couldn’t transmit on the radio). So imagine my surprise when I looked to my right and saw that my instructor had climbed out of the plane and was standing on the taxi-way.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ I thought to myself. ‘This is the second time an instructor has jumped out like that. The first time was when I was sent on my very first solo. Could that mean...’ My thoughts were interrupted by a “So, would you like to do some solo circuits?”

YES!

So with the PTT replaced, instructor walking back to the hangar, and with no one sitting behind me, I taxi’d to the holding point of runway 01 while telling myself “Don’t break the plane, don’t break the plane, this is amazing, don’t break the plane!”

I kept things simple and did what I knew best; a standard flapless take-off (which was almost as short as the short-field take-off), a three-point landing with full flaps. A wheeler with one notch of flaps. And then another wheeler, also with one notch of flaps (I was going to do a flapless, but I forgot the approach speed...)

It’s true what they say; “The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world. It can just barely kill you.” - Max Stanley. It’s so stable, and so responsive, and if you fly the speeds and respect the plane and listen to it when it starts getting unhappy, you’ll be amazed at what you can do (I’d love to try the trick where they land on the left wheel, then change to the right, then left again :) )

There are very few things that are as satisfying as the bump and squeak of the main gear coming into contact with the runway, followed by the frantic pushing of rudder medals to keep the nose pointing in one direction, the speed decreasing, the tail slowly dropping, and the little bounce as the tail wheel settles on the ground.

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