Actually, Mark, I think the few minutes I spent
getting my Gliders Endorsement back in 1964 helped a bit - even though a long
time ago. At least that convinced no engine didn't mean you immediately
fell out of the sky {:>). But, even back then long before my rotary and
experimental aircraft days, I was - lets say being
flight challenged.
The last day of my glider training, I was running late
getting to the air field and they were due to haul the glider back to its
distant homebase. I arrived just as they were preparing to disassembly it
for trailering back. The instructor was not happy at all about having to
delay the process (I guess after a week in Cordell OK, he wanted to get back to
Mama).
In any case, he told me not to bother pre-flighting the
glider and to hop in and we would hook up the tow plane and launch. Well,
we did - got up to a bit above pattern altitude and cut loose. Well, the
instructor in the back seat berated me all around the pattern about using too
much rudder. So I knew he was not going to endorse my glider rating.
So sweating and a bit disappointed, I managed to "rudder" the glider onto final
approach. As we rolled out several people were running toward
us.
It turns out the aileron locks had been installed (and not
doing a preflight we obiviously missed them) and so I had flown the glider
without ailerons and that was why I had to use so much rudder to get some
bank. I was later told that had I let the wings get sufficiently low,
there was no way the rudder could have pulled the wings back level!!
The somewhat shaken instructor decided that if I could fly
a glider without ailerons - then I merited my glider endorsement.
Did I ever tell you about the engine-out
landing I experience one flight before my scheduled solo - or about
the tailwheel falling off as I taxied out for my 1st solo flight - remind
me to tell you sometime {:>)
Ed
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2011 9:17 AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Cooling of the BIG IRON
Ed,
Oh, so that's where you learned your excellent engine-out glide skills.
Mark
On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:38 PM, Ed Anderson
<eanderson@carolina.rr.com>
wrote:
Ah, Yes,
Many a take off in the B-52 fortress ( and one in the KC-135
tanker) on a Hot Oklahoma day took a lot of water being injected into the
engines to give sufficient thrust to get airborne. In fact, failure of
the water injection system on certain hot days required aborting the take
off.
Ed
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 9:07 PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Cooling of the BIG IRON
Well done Mr. Anderson.
That 50/50 mixture was also ingested by big radials in military power for
cooling and anti detonation.
Same for early pure jets where it was added to add mass to the exhaust
flow on take off.
Lynn E. Hanover
I came across a study looking at ways to cool aircraft
racing engines (for the BIG iron), makes some interesting reading as they
look at EVERY way to cool a race engine including sacrificial boiling off
(phase change) of an expendable liquid as well as spray bar cooling,
etc.