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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 1123.PDF
49 I'T International, h 1962 Sixty-odd aircraft, mostly light, mostly modern. How many fit into John O'Hara's critical picture ? Too-Easy Trainers ARE THEY MAKING LIGHT-AIRCRAFT PILOTS LESS SKILFUL? By John O'Hara IF ever there was a pursuit that demanded one hundred per cent training from the very outset, that pursuit is flying. Few would deny this; it is fairly obvious that any contrivance which lifts itself off the ground and travels over earthbound people and things is a potential killer, and the man at the controls must be sufficiently well qualified to stop the potential becoming an actual. But today, in 1962, his qualifications are getting leaner. The reason, 1 believe, is that the standard of flying training is starting to go down. It is not doing so through any human shortfall —students are as intrinsically able as they ever were, and the in structors still just as skilful—but because certain new types of light aircraft are being used for training when they should not be. The whole question is one of equipment, and the growth of the personal- aeroplane market which has made a demand for such equipment unavoidable. Why should some small aircraft be any less suitable for instruc tional purposes than others'? It is a case of historical development. In the old days people's incomes were low, the cost of aircraft was high, and private flying was for the rich. Then the gap between the two started narrowing, and in countries where land distances were great—principally the USA—the real touring lightplane as we know it today began to be evolved and flown on a purely utilitarian basis, lor covering country conveniently. Then came the war, and we learned about real mass production: and at the end of it, just as happened in 1919, people everywhere looked back on what the aeroplane had proved it could do and began to forecast a terrific boom in personal flying, with light- planes for everybody. Things didn't turn out that way directly— tney rarely do; but, sure enough, after six or seven years business and personal incomes had climbed high enough to meet the air craft costs coming down, and the game was on. Meanwhile the sales staffs in America were working the market over. What were their conclusions? It's the old production story; the more you sell the more cheaply you can build, and before in vesting millions of dollars in tools and jigs it is only common sense to make sure the article appeals to the widest possible market. And what was the market? Just like for any other durable com modity—people. People of all ages and shapes, jobs and vocations, Tmtm8 '° geL aroun(i in handsome self-drive machines without difficulty and without risk, not caring a cent whether the ailerons were differential or whether the roll rate was 30 degrees per second, Provided they could step in, press a button and drive off in com fort. Understandably, they wanted easy flying, so the designers sought to make it easy for them. And in obliging their customers they dealt flying training the worst blow it has ever had. The type of general-aviation aircraft which has been evolved to satisfy this "everyman" market is pretty much standard over the whole range of manufacturers, and all, of course, are on sale in the UK. Now, with the wider re-entry into the export market of European lightplanes, engineered with traditional handling, more and more people are sampling their countries' own new products after being used to American types, and they like the change; they forget that nearly all the styling, and most of the more modern design features, are transatlantic. Indeed, the US flat engines are so good that the finest engine company in the world has had to start building them under licence; there was nothing else. So increasingly nowadays one reads handling accounts of new Euro pean light types which finish by saying how nice it is to meet with a real aeroplane again after putting up with those American A-to- B conveyances. Such criticisms are unfair, because that is exactly what owner- driver ships in the States are intended to be. Why, their designers argue, make it difficult ? Flying conditions over there are different from those to be found in Britain, say, or in Italy or Holland— the weather is more predictable, for one thing—and, after all, the Americans are building for a home market which wants automobile characteristics. If Mrs Wilmington, 55, whose ten thousand dollars are as good as anyone else's, wants to fly her own airplane over to the drugstore in the big city, she won't want to stall; it feels uncom fortable. So, limit the elevator response and shift the e.g. position a little forward so that stalling becomes impossible. If Cyrus S. Bland, president of a shoe concern, learned to fly on the wrong side of forty and is somewhat rough with the controls, then heavy them up and increase stability around all three axes at the same time. That way, they hope, he won't over-correct and initiate a dangerous attitude if he gets himself into turbulent cloud. And so we are left with a handsome, zippy-looking aircraft whose comfort and convenience are the admiration of the world, but with about as much self-expression as an athlete with his ankles tied together. In other words, its capabilities have been artificially masked in the interests of a quiet life. For straight-and-level flying in calm air this seems a justifiable policy. But in European eyes the answer to poor airmanship is not as simple as this; and a stability concept which seeks to codify every potential danger and avoid it by discouraging manoeuvre must result in an aeroplane which is both dull and heavy to handle. Besides, for the average experienced pilot doing normal flight patterns, the American "everyman" concept does not make for easier
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