What My CFI Did To Me !!!
The other night I was watching Charlie Rose on PBS. He was interviewing someone who wrote about JFK, Jr. being killed in 1999 crash. I don’t think the guy knew much about airplanes from the story he was telling. However, it did remind me of 18 August 1951. That was the day my Flight Instructor suggested we go up and do some spins, so I would know how to recover from one. (I had soloed after six hours and this was after eight hours of dual and solo.) We had to put on parachutes and I was shown how to check the pins, to be sure they weren’t bent. (I didn’t know I’d be wearing the same kind of chute a couple of years later in Korea, and checking the pins when both engines quit on a C-46 over the Sea of Japan. That’s another story.)
I remember my Flight Instructor asking the Seaplane Base owner about how fast you’d have to dive to restart an engine. At the time, it was just two Flight Instructors talking. I didn’t think anything of it. Anyway, we went to the dock and got into the Piper J3-C65 on floats. I sat in front and he sat in back. We climbed to about 2,000 feet above the Connecticut River in Agawam , MA. The instructor showed me how to put the plane into a sharp stall and just as we fell through, he kicked in hard right rudder. We went into a spin to the right. After about three full spins, he then released pressure on the stick and neutralized the rudder. The spin stopped and he pulled out of the dive.
Now it was my turn. I climbed back up to about 2,000 feet and followed his instructions and we went into a spin to the right. But then, something happened during the second spin. The windmill out front stopped. It was just a piece of wood, straight up and down, not moving. The ground was spinning (an illusion, of course). Then the instructor yelled he had the controls. I took my feet off the rudders and put my hands in the air to show it was his plane. He stopped the spin. He then told me to watch the Air Speed Indicator and tell him the speed when the engine restarted.
At about 90 MPH indicated, the prop kicked over once. Between 95-105 MPH, the prop kicked over a few more times. Then between 105 and 110 MPH the engine restarted. [Max CAS for the J3, in a dive, is 122 MPH] He started to pull out of the dive and yelled for me to take the controls. I couldn’t move !!! As I tried to lift my feet to the rudders and my hand to the stick, I realized we were probably pulling two or three Gs. Finally, I took control and pulled out of the dive. I landed and docked the aircraft. When we got out, the instructor told the owner/instructor the speed when the engine restarted. {Know where the engine switch is in a J3 ? It’s in the wing root above and between the front and rear seat. Without my knowledge, the instructor had reached up and shut the engine off.}
That’s what my CFI did to me. It was a real thrill ! Or maybe it’s actually what my CFI did for me. Did I mention I was a twenty year old at the time ? I was thinking of the old war movies where planes used to go into “tailspins”. Back then, I had really done what I used to see in movies. Here it is almost sixty years later and I can still “see” that motionless wooden prop just hanging there.
By Philip J. Visconti