Working aviator

As the season progress, the natural order of renewal followed.  Spring gave way to summer.  The rains slowly subsided, winds calmed and colour returned to the country side.  The sun was a constant companion and warmth returned to the air.  The airplanes and their pilots grew busier as well.  It seemed that the machines flew constantly given that the flight line was almost always empty during the day, with only black patches of oil betraying the fact that an airplane had been in the tie-down at all.  The Flying Club enjoyed a more-or-less constant stream of students.  A few instructors moved on to other jobs, new ones appeared and students shuffled around.  Rockcliffe's song was one of pistons hammering away on take-off and wings whispering as they glided down the final approach for landing.  It might be the echo of history or the inherent promise in one learning to fly, but there's something about that place that just makes it stand out.
Against this background, my professional flying career developed.  As I said, it had never been on my radar as a viable option - and, to be honest, it really wasn't viable - but I revelled in it.  My uniform consisted of a blue company polo shirt, sun faded and oil stained cargo shorts that had once been brown, a tattered twill belt and a pair of holed loafers.  I wore my old, sweat, oil and dirt encrusted RCAF ball cap with pride.  My skin glistened in the sun and under the film of sweat and oil and my clothes smelled of sunscreen and avgas.  I walked the ramp until I wore out the soles of my shoes. I lost weight.  Not only did I fly, but I pushed airplanes around, gassed them up, replenished oil and, on occasion, rooted around behind and under seats to reattach belts or coax a flat battery back to life.

Steely-eyed and far too serious.  My first flying job in April 2010 as a Class 2 Aerobatics Instructor on the Burkhart Grob G115C.  Go Pack. (Photo Courtesy: Jason Burles)

The full-time aerobatic instructor pilot hamming it up, summer 2015.  (Photo courtesy: Ernie Szelepcsenyi)

We were so far from the "glamorous" pilot life of starched shirts and shoulder boards that my compatriots pined for.  It's true that I smelled and was, generally speaking and more than most, filthy.  At the very least, however, I was happy.
It was not unusual for me to teach a lesson in the Super D and then jump into the Smith for a quick flight.  The two airplanes, while both taildraggers, could not be more different.
The Super Decathlon traces it's lineage all the way back to the venerable Aeronca Champ.  The Champ, while introduced just after the close of the Second World War, first flew more than a year before the armistice.  In a 5-year production run, more than 10 thousand were produced in a number of variants.  It taught an entire generation of pilots how to fly. In fact, the Flying Club's original fleet was nearly entirely comprised of the plucky tailwheel trainers and it's rumored that the remains of one still lie at the bottom of the Ottawa River, just off the airport. The Champ, like the line of trainers it is responsible for (the Citabria and Decathlon among them), remains a popular general aviation aircraft today.
In a pack of mules, the Super D is a thoroughbred.  The Club's Super D pilots are a tight knit bunch and, almost to an individual, extremely protective of "their" airplane.  Newcomers are regarded with a measure of suspicion until judged that they "get it."  It's nothing personal.

Returning from an aerobatic dual flight.  I'm in the back seat in the orange sweatshirt and Matt McCuaig is up front.  (Photo courtesy: Chuck Clark)

Tailwheel airplanes usually expose a weak pilot but the Decathlon is such a good-natured, pussycat of an airplane that it tolerates an unfair amount of abuse before running out of patience.  Today, most pilots, the author included, are trained on aircraft with a tricycle landing gear; that is to say, two main wheels and a smaller wheel under the nose.  This configuration was, at inception, marketed as "Land-O-Matic" - implying that the airplane can land itself.  While not entirely true, one can land a tricycle airplane with very little interference from the pilot by simply smashing it into the ground at any degree of crab and, after a certain amount of squealing from the tires, have it right itself and roll merrily along.  This is thanks to clever engineers having arranged the centre of gravity to be ahead of the main wheels.  If the aircraft does not touch down in line with its direction of travel, Sir Isaac Newton, dead now for nearly 400 years, takes corrective action and pulls the airplane into line again.
Taildraggers, however, have the centre of gravity behind the main wheels.  Therefore, when the aircraft touches down at an angle, the centre of gravity tries to pull the tail around.  If unchecked, this swing can become a ground loop - or worse.  So, these machines require a firm hand, some measure of attention and functioning feet. 

Didn't believe me?  Here's proof.  (Courtesy: Cessna)

I was fortunate to have learned this early on in my flying career - at my father's insistence.  With barely 80 hours, I checked out on a cute little Citabria near Newmarket.  Once the tail came up, I was hooked.

With Super Decathlon C-GKXD at CYRO (Photo Courtesy: AR Photography)

When the Decathlon joined the line, I checked out in the back seat because that's where the instructor sits.  It's an infernal pit of exquisite design - robbing the pilot of any forward view and giving him or her the basic tools of stick, rudder and throttle.  There is also a seatbelt should the aforementioned not keep one out of trouble.  In order to survive, one learns to take-off and land using peripheral vision.  One also acquires an ear and hand for what certain speeds and attitudes sound and feel like.
By the end of my first season in the back, I was comfortable.  Mid-way through my second season, the front seat just felt odd.
All this to say, I love the Super D and am almost eerily relaxed flying and teaching acro in it.  I know her every nuance and tendency, rib and stitch, nut and bolt.  I understand the language she speaks and when I'm away for a while, I worry about her well-being.  Because of this love, I subconsciously - and sometimes, I'll admit, unfairly - hold others to the same standard.

Demo-ing a hammerhead in KXD.  Richard Himbault is up front while I fly from the back.  Rich is one of the nicest and most enthusiastic pilots I've flown with - and a good stick too.  (Author's collection)

"Right rudder, right rudder, right rudder!"  my voice, fighting the roar of the engine.
The airplane, at a comically slow pace, wanders for the left edge of the runway.
"Move your feet!" I jockey the pedals.
"Stick forward," my voice again.
Feeble response from the front seat.
"Stick forward!" Louder now.
"More?"
"Yes, more."
"Why?"  I know they say there are no stupid questions.  They're wrong.
The airplane lurches into the air, sideways naturally, and behind the power of the 180 horsepower Lycoming, flies out of ground effect a little earlier than it should.
"That's why," I have to stifle a laugh.
"Oh," comes the bewildered reply.
"Fly the damned airplane," I say gently, softening the bite of my words.  "Don't hang onto it like you're walking the family dog."
In the air, she flies like most other airplanes of her class do - except it's louder and draftier in the cockpit.  When it comes to aerobatics, she does every basic maneuver fairly well and is forgiving enough to handle some ham-handedness from the neophyte. 
The landings are, for a tail dragger, largely non-eventful.  The airplane has a fair amount of drag and isn't a great glider so getting it down isn't a problem - even given the absence of flaps.  That's usually one of the first things people notice when they walk up to the airplane.
"Oh," they say, genuinely surprised.  "No flaps."
"Nope," I reply, cheerfully.  "You don't need them."

Power Flying Scholarship 2002, Eastern Region, English Flight, Les Cedres QC.  I'm in the back row, 5th from the right.  Chuck is to my right.  The aircraft is Cessna 172 C-FSEX.  Only a few of us ever got to fly it and only at the end of the course, but we had to have it in the flight photograph.  (Photo courtesy: EVVRE)

It wasn't that long ago, however, that I might have asked the same thing.  When I was doing my license, one of my classmates had a flap failure returning from a solo cross country.  I was in the old lounge studying when a pack of blue flight suits rushed by the door. 
"What's up?"  I called out.
One of them poked their head in and said, "Chuck's flaps don't work.  He's been flying around for the last hour to burn off gas.  We're going out to watch him crash."
I know how it sounds, but it underscores my point.
I drove out in the company van with our instructor, who was talking him down on a handheld radio.  We parked on the grass taxiway, a few hundred feet past the threshold.
"Cedars Traffic, Zulu-Sierra-Zulu, turning final for runway 25," Chuck's voice, normally thin, sounded thinner.  He was tired - having flown from Cedars to St-Jean and then overflying Cornwall on his way to Gatineau before returning to Cedars and droning around for another hour.  While not explicitly articulated, the goal was to lighten his fuel load and correspondingly reduce his chances of bursting into flames if the landing ended in a crash.  Again, it sounds like overkill, but we were students and, at the time, Chuck was solo and may have had 35 or 40 hours of total flight experience.  He sounded scared.  Hell, I was scared.
"Okay, Chuck," Nigel began.  "Keep the speed up, fly 70."
It was nearly dusk.  I could just make out the outline of the little 152, a green and red smudge at each wingtip, landing light blazing.  I watched it come down the approach.  He looked fast but Chuck was doing a nice job.
As ZSZ crossed the threshold, Nigel raised the radio again.
"Start your flare now, Chuck," he began.  "Keep it straight, hold it off, keep holding it off...good..."
ZSZ raced by about two feet off the runway, silent except for the whistle of the slipstream.  He floated till midfield and then the wings gave up and ZSZ sagged onto the runway.  No crash, no fire, no death.  A non-event.
Years later, Chuck recalled that he wasn't at all frightened by the prospect of landing an airplane without flaps.  Rather, his concern lay with the malfunctioning electric flap motor and its less than ideal location below one of the fuel tanks.  A few days after the incident, the maintenance guys showed him the flap motor.  It had slagged and there was clear evidence that the unit had been gleefully throwing sparks.
A year later, ZSZ would be written off by a student pilot practising take-offs and landings on a calm day.  After a series of bounces that would make an out of control elevator feel like one of those tea-cup rides at the community fair, her nose gear gave out and the rest of the airplane followed.  So much for "Land-O-Matic."

Cessna 152 C-GZSZ, my solo plane and Chuck's mount for his flapless landing, shown here in August 2008 - five years after its unauthorized tail dragger conversion by nose wheel failure.  (Author's collection)

The Super D is an honest airplane and does exactly what you want it to do and smartly.  As long as you're patient with the flare and you follow the cardinal rule of keeping her straight, everything unfolds as it should.  In challenging conditions or on days when the pilot lets his attention lapse momentarily, the airplane will protest with enough obvious warning signs to alert all but the most incompetent aviator. 
As I said, I love the Super Decathlon and regard it as an old friend.  There's a tremendous amount of comfort, familiarity and trust between the airplane and I.  There must be, given the maneuvers we undertake together.  It didn't come instantly but rather, was built over hundreds of hours and many years.
I love the Smith too, as it truly is my airplane - and yet, it is a different kind of love.  The Smith challenges me, judges me, gives me a good swat if I don't do things just so.  It was a long time coming - dropping into the cockpit for the first time.  Every time I do, I think of everything, good or bad, triumphant or tragic, that had to happen to put me here - in this airplane and this moment.  And while that first landing resulted in an absolute cock-up, every minute since that baptism by fire has been something of a love affair.
Around the time Chuck made that flapless landing at Cedars, I fell in love all over again with biplanes.  My dad's Smith had faded into my deep memory - her button nose poking out from behind the mountains of rubbish that collect in a teenager's mind over time.  Nigel and I had just landed at Gatineau in a Cessna 152 Aerobat.  We'd left Cedars perhaps two hours before, stopping in St. Jean-sur-Richelieu and overflying Cornwall before alighting here for gas and a stretch.
We were standing on the ramp, next to our mount - Nigel leaning back against his hands to loosen his back while I knotted my blue flight suit around my waist - when this tiny red devil of an airplane came blazing down the runway trailing a white wake of smoke.  Its approach was silent - only the flash of movement caught my eye.  Then, suddenly, as it drew abeam where we stood, there was a snarl and the airplane seemed to stand on her tail, bending the sky as she clawed upwards along the arc of a loop.  There was a mad tumble at the top, the aircraft whipping round smartly and flashing her wings in the summer sun.  Then down again she came, buzzing like an angry bee, and tore off across the tarmac again.
Nigel, shielding his eyes against the sun, let out a low whistle.
I stood there, rooted to the ground, awe struck. 
The little ship now followed a steep, angled approach - always turning until just over the numbers.  Then the airman balanced his ship on an invisible cushion of air and let her drop gently onto the runway, swinging the rudder this way and that as they rolled to a walking pace.  He taxied off, spun in a circle and fired off a burst of smoke-oil.  It roiled up, teased by the slowly turning biplane and fanned by her prop, until melting into the blue above.
It was a Pitts S-1 and it looked remarkably like my dad's Smith.  I spent the flight home thinking about all that time I spent pretending to fly it.
Twelve years later, it would no longer be a dream borne of a distant memory.
And in that way, the Smith provided a momentary escape from my newfound working life.  It was a throwback - a reminder of the days when Nigel sent me out on my own to hone my craft.  Everything was new and exciting.  No matter how many times I viewed a particular town from the air, I could always pick out something I'd missed.  The Smith managed to transform even basic maneuvers into something of an experience.  It gave you the oddest sensation, turning round in circles while feeling as though you and the airplane were precisely balance on the tip of a needle two thousand feet above the ground.  You felt every ripple in the air mass.  On smooth days, it felt just like gliding across a still lake in a small sailboat; on bumpy days, like running the gauntlet of flak on a balloon-busting mission over the Western Front. 
No matter what, however, the Smith always managed to put a smile on your face.  Each time I landed from a flight, only to resume my work on the airfield, I did so with an increasingly far-off look in my eye - not unlike my Dad's when he recalled his flying days in Foxtrot-Alpha-Mike.