Strike one

[Kip Powick]

Strike One..

Memories of an Instructor

by

DK “Kip” Powick

“I can’t do it”.

“Why not?”

“I forgot that I have a dental appointment in 20 minutes, so I’d appreciate it if you would do it”

“Has he been briefed ?”

“Yeah, I gave him about 30 minutes but I don’t think he really needed all the basic stuff, this guy just came off Voodoos.”

“But you did brief him on what he is supposed to do?”

“Jeeese, I just told you I did ! Will you do the flight?”

I had just come down from a flight and really didn’t feel like doing another, I wasn’t scheduled for it, I had never flown with this fellow but Laurie was a good guy and perhaps some day I might need his help.

“Ok, let me look at his ‘Progress Book’ and I’ll take him up.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate that. I owe you”, he said as he tossed the fellows ‘Progress Book’ at me and slipped out the door.

I flipped through the fellow’s book, he didn’t seem to be having any problems and most of his flights were rated at 8 or 9 out of a possible 10, with respect to over all flying proficiency and general handling. This would be his fourth Clear Hood flight, with another two to go before he moved into the “instructional phase” of the Qualified Flying Instructor course. It was our job, at the Flying Instructors School, to do an all around workup with each qualified pilot who was going to become a Flight Instructor and assess the entire spectrum of his flying ability prior to him commencing the “Instructional” phase. The candidate had to be proficient in all Clear Hood / Instrument flying aspects of his particular aircraft type before we could start to teach the instructional techniques that he could use with student pilots.

I went out to the lounge and introduced myself to “Bob” and advised him that Laurie had a dental appointment and that I would be doing the flight. I went and signed out the aircraft, picked up my parachute, popped my helmet on as we walked out into the warm Manitoba afternoon sun and looked for our T33. The external check was completed and I climbed in the front seat as all of Bob’s Clear Hood flying was to be done out of the back seat as part of his introduction to the art of instructing on the T33.

Engine start, preflight, taxi and take-off were all well handled and there was no doubt that Bob possessed good hands and feet and he was exceptionally smooth with the aircraft. We climbed to 20,000 feet, did a few stalls, and some ‘yank and bank’, high ‘G’ turns with emphasis on maintaining altitude and airspeed. I had him do ‘twizzles’ , changing vertical speed, maintaining airspeed, changing airspeed, increasing/ decreasing bank and rolling out on headings with little reference to the instruments as we slowly climbed to 25,000 feet. An intentional spin with full recovery followed and we were down to empty tip tanks and it was time for the ‘grunt and groan’ exercise. I took control and asked Bob to brief me on his entry speeds, aircraft attitudes and exit speeds that we would be experiencing when he did his Vertical Roll. As we descended he gave a comprehensive and very accurate briefing as to what he would be doing during the aerobatic maneuver.

The vertical roll in a T33 is not a difficult maneuver…as long as one keeps ahead of the aircraft and knows exactly what to do if the maneuver starts to turn sour.

Normally the maneuver would be started at 5000 feet but most of us cheated and dropped to 3000 feet, the minimum altitude for commencing an aerobatic maneuver, as the lower starting altitude gave us a bit denser air for the pull and roll off the top at the completion of the Vertical Roll. We were in a shallow dive just pushing past 400 knots when I gave control to Bob and asked him to start the exercise when he felt he was ready. I tightened up my stomach muscles in anticipation of the impending 4 G pull-up, my mind totally relaxed as Bob had certainly demonstrated he could handle the T33. I watched as the he lined the aircraft up with a Section line on the ground and nose came up, G loading started and then suddenly I slipped into darkness as the G load exceeded 6 G for a moment. My vision snapped back and I realized we were pointing straight up and Bob was about to start rolling. A bit abrupt with the pull-up but we were vertical.

The trick in a vertical roll is to get the aircraft pointing straight up, and from the back seat it is really quite easy, as one can use the leading edges of the wing as a “level” on the horizon and the tip tanks make excellent vertical “posts” against the horizon when looking out either side of the canopy. Other than Bob being a bit aggressive and using a bit too much G on the initial pull-up things were looking quite good…..I relaxed again,

Now we were hurtling skyward with the aircraft pointed straight up and Bob commenced his roll. At this point the aircraft just has to be rolled through 360 degrees while maintaining its vertical axis. We had started the pull-up in line with a section line and as the section lines on the prairies run at 90 degrees to one another one just has to maintains the vertical axis, look out one side and counts section lines as they pass during rotation. When the fourth section line appears, rotation is stopped and one merely pulls back, becomes inverted, does a roll off the top, and is back to normal flight….in theory.

I looked in the mirror and saw that Bob was looking to his right, slammed the control column to the right and started to count the section lines, out loud, “One, two”, and the rotation sped up, “…..three…..shoot…. was that ‘three’ that went by ??…or is the next one ‘three’…..ooops is that ‘four’?”. We had actually passed Section line number ‘five’ and were approaching number ‘six’, with the airspeed rapidly decreasing below that which was required for the normal exit maneuver when he realized his error and started to pull, roll, and, unfortunately grossly over control the aircraft. There was a loud ‘whoounk’ sound as the aircraft hammer-headed backwards, flipped over its tail and the rudders began slamming from stop to stop, Bob was stirring the control column like a madman attempting to churn butter as we flipped end over end, inverted for the most part and my attitude of complacency was instantly replaced with a modicum of fear.

I wasn’t sure what attitude we were in but the horror of our aircraft possibly being in a Low-Level Tumble seemed to be paramount in my mind. I yelled, “I have control !!!”, and saw the altimeter pass through 9000 feet and in a dark recess of my mind I seemed to recall that ejection was to be initiated at, or passing, 10000 feet if one was not in control of their aircraft at that so designated altitude.

At that moment a physical attribute I possess, but often curse, came into play as I was able to lock my vertically challenged legs straight ahead and managed to stop the rudders from pounding back and forth. I attempted to keep the control column centered and as we passed 6000 feet, was about to yell ‘Eject !!” when I felt the elevators “dig-in” and I knew we had airflow over the tail. I looked at the airspeed, 90 knots, with the aircraft nose lowered and finally right side up, we seemed to be floating earthward but were slowly picking up speed. I distinctly remember seeing the words “POOL” as grain elevator loomed larger with each passing moment. I slowly and gently eased the T-Bird’s nose to the horizon and applied full power as we slipped past the grain elevator at just under a 1000 feet, the speed slowly increasing through about 110 knots.

Silence permeated the cockpit, broken only by the pounding of my heart, throbbing in my ears.

“Uh,” I croaked, “that was not too good, Bob”.

“Want me to try another one?” he asked.

“Not today”, I muttered,” I think we’ll head for home and do a straight-in full stop. I’d like maintenance to look at the rudder and all the other flight controls…something might be out of whack……….. You have control”.

We flew back to the base, straight and level, and for the five minute ride I tried to put together what had happened and more importantly, ‘why it had happened?’. The approach and landing was a non-event, I briefed maintenance, had a long debrief with Bob, and made a notation in his Progress Book that the Vertical Roll exercise had to be redone. The next day maintenance advised me that they had completed a “overstress check “on the aircraft and nothing appeared damaged.

The more I thought about the incident the more one word kept rearing its ugly head, ‘Complacency’…my complacency in being lulled into a false sense of well being. I had failed to maintain an adequate watch on Bob’s maneuver because I felt he was a ‘really good driver’, not realizing that whether he was an ‘ace’ or not, he was still just a man flying a machine and like all of us, prone to making the occasional mistake, but in this case it could have been very costly.

This would not be my last incident where inattention almost turned to disaster, one other terrifying incident was soon to come but the two incidents that occurred while instructing created a baseline for my career in the airline industry, a baseline which was brought to the forefront during an approach into Toronto one dark and cloudy night.

Copyright. 2006 CopperTree. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten, or redistributed.

[GDR]

Speaking of memories Kip I just got may copy of of the "Airline Pilots of Canada" CD. I'm looking forward to going through it.

Thanks for all your efforts.

Greg

[handyman]

Funny, I had a similar experience in the Tutor which used 6g for the verticals not the 5g if I remember correctly in the T-33. At the point of recovery after the rolls the student got confused and selected idle/Speedbrakes. The AC entered what appeared to be an almost inverted unstable spin. Both the T-33 and CT-114 were great aircraft and would recover from almost everything!

Oh the fun days!