Many have been the questions popped at Sky Writing. Some were answered on the spot and some were saved for a rainy day--like Sunday. A number so simple--the inquirer thought--they weren't worth asking. but this isn't so. No question in aviation is simple. Any question is worth asking. Here are some of them.

"Why are wrecks of big airplanes usually more severe than light airplanes of the two and three passenger kind," asks R.E.M.

Not always so! However, a big, heavy plane in trouble is always in more trouble than a light plane because it takes more speed to keep more weight in the air. As the heavy plane approaches the ground, as in a forced landing, it must do so fast enough to keep it flying until the last minute. This makes for a bigger boom when it hits, if the terrain is unfavorable. The pilot of a light plane could slow down to 25 or 30 miles per hour forward speed before it dropped in. The heavy aircraft would drop in at around 100 miles per hour or more, depending upon the ship.

 

"Am I too old to learn to fly an airplane? asks H.S.

Not at all. This depends upon your physical condition, rather than your age. I know youngsters who are ready to solo and have two years to wait yet until their sixteenth birthday to do it. At the same time, I once knew a doctor and his wife who flew their own plane and they were both past 70 years of age. Records are full of middle-aged men and women who fly. If you can pass an ordinary physical exam--heart, eyes, balance and hearing, you are in. As far as reaction time is concerned, flying the average private plane takes no more skill, no quicker reactions than driving a motor car in modern traffic. Once in the air, it takes much less.

"What does a pilot do when the motor of his airplane quits in the air. Does it fall?" R. B. asked that one and it's a natural thought.

A plane with a dead motor should not crash. The pilot picks the best spot within gliding range of his airplane and coasts into it. Any airplane coming in for a normal landing is essentially a glider. The only difference between the normal landing, while motor is idling and the forced landing, when the prop is not turning over, is that the plane will not glide quite as far and the pilot doesn't get a second chance. If the terrain is unfavorable, the pilot makes a landing that will guarantee his own safety, regardless of what happens to the plane.

I had a choice one time of attempting to glide over a row of high trees with a dead motor or landing in a lake. I knew I could walk or swim away from what was left after the plane went into the lake, whereas if I didn't make it over the trees both the airplane and I would be crow bait in the branches. I took the lake. The airplane made fish food, but I'm still here.

"Don't you ever get lost, flying across strange country?" This one came on a postcard from W. E. W. with another question I'll answer by mail. It would be nice to say that pilots never get lost, but it wouldn't be so. Don't you ever get lost on the ground,W. W.? Actually a pilot has a better break than the auto driver. The pilot can see from landmark to landmark most of the time. He has an aeronautical chart which shows him the definite pattern of rivers, highways, railroads, towns and terrain over which he is flying. No two towns in the world look identically alike from the air, when all their man-made and natural features are compared. Of course the pilot also has the benefit of airmarking over some towns like Warsaw and if he has a radio, he can quickly check his position by determining what quadrant of what beam he is in. Once he catches the identifying signal of the beam, his map will tell him the rest.

"I have heard pilots and navy men speak of dead reckoning. Isn't that rather haphazard for a means of navigation?"

To C. S.: Dead reckoning is a misleading name. It is actually a highly accurate and technical means of navigation, which however, requires some checking with visual objects to insure success. The pilot of an airplane, plotting a course from A to B, draws a diagram on a piece of paper, placing on it his intended course over the ground, a line representing the speed of his airplane in relation to the direction of the wind, figures his variation--the difference between the true north pole and the magnetic pole--and miraculously winds up with a compass heading to follow to his destination. If he follows that heading for the time which his diagram tells him it will take to get there, he should be there.

It might be interesting to note, that in our territory here, variation amounts to virtually nothing. In other words, a line drawn from the true north pole through the major magnetic pole, would extend southward through Indiana a few miles east of Warsaw. In some sections of the country, mostly west due to distance and in the southern mountains due to local disturbances, variation may run as high as 20 degrees. Makes figuring cock-eyed.

"Can I get connections by air from Warsaw to the major airlines, or from Warsaw to some town not served by regular airlines and how would I do this?" A lady who wanted to fly to Florida asked the question.

You can fly from Warsaw to any major air terminal or you can fly from Warsaw to any other point in the United States, whether it is served by an airline or not. You may phone any of Warsaw's three unscheduled carriers and they are licensed and competent to take you anywhere you want to go. They are: Strauss Skyways and Lowman Flying Service at Smith field, or Carlin Airways at Warsaw Municipal airport. They can take you all the way from right here.

Here is a question that occurred to almost everyone last week. The new combination plane and automobile that was so widely and briefly heralded recently ran out of gas and the pilot made it look like any other car that had hit a telephone pole. Why? Just remember this, as has been aptly pointed out editorially--maker can make fool-proof planes, but they can't make fool-proof pilots who forget to put in gasoline.

Do you have any questions relating to aviation? Send them in. If we can't answer them, we'll find some one who can.

A meeting of the Warsaw Aero club is scheduled for next Thursday night, 7:30 o'clock, in the Smith office at Smith field. Better be there to do some hangar flying. In this weather there has been little enough real flying.

Warsaw Daily Times, Mon. Dec. 8, 1947

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