For an aircraft to earn your trust,it takes a long,long time and many situations before you really do feel a connection to that aircraft. Many hours,difficult airfields and shall we say marginal weather conditions before an airmen feels a seemless connection between man and machine......this natural feeling slowly dieing, in the modern age as the romance of true flight and the skills associated with the pilotage of a hand crafted machine through the endless expanse above changes forever more. This is all traded in for advanced systems,automation and the ever lengthening checklist. All in the name of safety and efficiency but none the less, killing off the essence of being an aviator.
Today, an aircrafts idiosyncrasies are seen as a threat. Instead of something to be aware of and to learn to handle, aircraft ideas and plans are engineered away from something interesting into something mundane and "pilot friendly". This is sad because it takes away from the art involved with making a flying machine. Heart and soul of an aeroplane are traded in for good handling qualities,safe design and efficiency. Aircraft are all different but it is the older dis-continued models,the aircraft that pilots respect and fear that really become part of you once you have known them long enough. Not the aeroclub C172 or Piper 140 or the modern airliners of today. What impresses me in flying is not how big your career is but pure,un-filtered flight skills,that is what matters most,a 5 year old can land a 747 or A319,its been proven but go back to real flying and that's when you see who the real pilots are.
These old tricky aircraft become like an old friend......initially awkward like a first dance with a pretty lady,you stand on her toes and she doesn't like it and shows you why but as time goes by you become close......calculated and fluid in intent.....she learns to like you and you figure out all her intangibles......you don't become man and machine but instead you become one form of function, call it airborne poetry. The aircraft becomes part of you and that's when your adventures begin together. You walk up to her on the ramp or strip,calm and confident in your abilities to control her. This is where the truly passionate aviator's heart warms at the sight of his aeroplane(although most of the time not his, he firmly believes so)and he feels an attachment to it. Caliced hands move softly over classic lines and a warm smile flickers on the pilots face. The smell of avgas or Jet fuel drawn strong into the nose with one smiling breath. The sense of familiar touch,sight and smell bringing a difficult to explain joy to a pilots soul. This to me is the love of flying,the love of aircraft and the greatest career available on the planet we call home.
I have flown a couple aircraft types and although I am fairly new to the industry and still young. In 2013 I had the opportunity to fly an aircraft that I had a little romance with. Memories of flying it warm my heart and it is the first aircraft I really truly do miss to fly. Dis-liked by many but loved by some. Pretty and gracious in function,not form. But an old aircraft that I bonded with, Many thousands of miles flown and majority of Mozambique covered from dingy delta swamps to the green and blue eden of offshore islands. She is worthy of a place on this blog and many believe one of the finest aircraft to ever come out of piper's factory. Awkward to fly and with some strange flight characterisitcs like running out of aileron authority with a forward COG on landing and off axis controls in the cockpit to tip tanks with weight limits for landing. She is an odd-ball, a mix of a couple different piper designs thrown into one.....to achieve incredible weight carrying capability,decent turn of speed,passenger comfort and above all one of the finest handling aircraft still gracing the skys today. She is an absolute honey and I will long to fly her always......welcome to the lovely Piper Cherokee 6.
