Second Cessna 170A - N9776A, and Cessna 172 Seaplanes
After our round trip to California in the spring of 1970 I flew in the Musketeer, a Cessna 172, and a Piper PA28. Two years after the California flight I was invited to join the Pleasant Pond Flying Club in Augusta as part owner of a Cessna 170A, registered as N9776A. I flew mostly that for 21 years; nearly half my flying hours were in it, 706 out of 1499. Marge and I had many wonderful flights in it that I won't detail here, but a few need mentioning.
Our first memorable flight in "76 Alpha" was to Prince Edward Island to see another total eclipse of the sun, July 10, 1972. We stayed in a B&B operated by Mr. and Mrs. Prowse, who were proud that in 1959 Queen Elizabeth had had tea with them at their prize-winning farm.
Near the eclipse path we were eating lunch at an airport restaurant with very cheap lobsters and very slow service. I realized we couldn't finish eating in time, so we bagged the lobsters, ran to the plane, made a quick takeoff, and arrived at the eclipse path with seconds to spare. Our eclipse experience the next few minutes was quite like what we had experienced about two years earlier over Nantucket. However, this time we didn't use a camera, so experienced and remember a lot more because we just concentrated on the sensual experience, not recording it.
After the spectacle we banked towards Moncton, New Brunswick, where we ate our lobsters on the grass beside the plane with dark IFR clouds approaching. The next day we met an African American professional musician and amateur astronomer returning from the eclipse in his more elegant plane than ours. We and "Roger" took off for Bangor but communicated as he graduallly passed us. I remember acknowledging his transmissions with, "Roger, Roger". We said goodbye USA customs at the big international airport in Bangor.
On June 21, 1981 there was a dedication ceremony in Northfield MA for the First American Youth Hostel and the founders of American Youth Hostels, Monroe and Isabel Smith, my daughter Carol's grandparents, my friends and former in-laws. She urged that I attend with her, though there were good reasons not to. I finally complied, hurriedly leaving Augusta in N9776A with less than full tanks, a small electrical problem, and marginal weather. At Northfield I landed on what seemed the only usable pasture. As I descended on final over the trees I saw they were deceptively high because they were on a tall bluff, so I steepened my descent with a brief forward slip, and ended my ground roll with a ground loop just short of the Connecticut River. That's a quick reversal of direction done accidentally or by stomping on a single brake, which if done too abruptly can damage a wing as it contacts the ground. Then I knew this was the field where Monroe pancaked his 170A in 1950, photos of which are earlier in this blog.
In 1975 we flew 76A to New Orleans. We remember: Hiking to Le Conte Lodge on the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina. A superb meal at the elegant Commanders Palace, oysters to dessert for just $9 each. Waiting for the fog to clear at a little airport near Savannah, where the FBO convinced me that every pilot should be trained to recover immediately if his airplane is flipped upside down at low altitude, and the friendly priest who was building his own plane. Flying north along the Carolina offshore islands, and being shocked at the ugly sprawl on them. Landing where powered flight began, the monument at Kitty Hawk, NC. Our longest hop in 76A, from Allentown PA to Augusta ME, with the gas gauge needles bouncing on Empty.
We landed at several islands off the coast of Maine: Islesboro, Deer Isle, Swan's (pictured), Matinicus (very short, grass), Marshall's (very rocky patch), Isle au Haut, Canada's Grand Manan (rocky, twice).
February 15, 1981 Marge and I flew to a landing on the frozen but nearly snow-free lake on Isle au Haut, one of the furthest offshore of Maine islands.
We sailed to it on our 1968 honeymoon, have canoed to it 3 times, camped, and hiked all of its mapped trails. Marge slipped on ice on this hike and pulled a muscle, so we were late returning to 76A. The engine started reluctantly. By the time we took off it was as black as it gets. As the plane rose I carefully avoided the tall dark pines on each side of the narrow pond. We crossed a lot of cold black ocean before the relative comfort of land, and landed at our base in Augusta.
On October 6, 1984 I was overdue to fly from Augusta to Bowdoinham for a required biennial check ride. I knew the plane so well that I confidently and quickly zipped through the pre-flight check list. That included removing all "gust locks", which immobilize otherwise moveable control surfaces: ailerons, flaps, elevators and rudder. As I paused to enter the plane I glanced around and could see no gust locks still attached. I took off, turned left for Bowdoinham, and suddenly felt that the controls seemed too stiff. Something was wrong, so I headed back for a landing, using the gentlest of pressure on the controls. It was instinctive that on final approach, descending to the pavement ahead, I engaged the flaps and slacked off the power a bit, which as usual made the descent a little steeper without changing the elevators, which I didn't realize I couldn't change anyway. About five feet above touchdown I abruptly idled the engine as usual: a huge mistake. The plane dove, so I pulled back on the yoke with all my might, which had absolutely no effect. The wheels hit the pavement hard, which caused a big bounce, followed by smaller ones as the plane slowed to a normal taxi. I got out and found there was a single gust lock on the opposite elevator, not in view as I made my final visual check. Barry Schiff, a professional "pilot's pilot" whose articles on aviation are universally respected, wrote about flight control failure in the 11/1977 AOPA Pilot magazine, "The most serious such problem is the loss of elevator control. The prospects of a successful landing are poor". Indeed, had the dive started from 1000' altitude instead of 5' the results would have been quite different. The controls now freed, I flew to Bowdoinham for the test of my competency. Ralph Purinton, the FBO there, was as good-natured as he was overweight, as we squeezed into his J-3 Cub. When we levelled off he told me do a steep 360. As I completed a perfect turn the plane was buffeted by running into its own wake. He said something like, "Dick, you don't need any more testing. Take it back and land". I never told him that nobody should take his own or somebody else's skills for granted, and that I had almost killed myself and 76A that morning.
One noon in Augusta I took up 3 friends from our offices to demonstrate a spin, starting at 3000' altitude Only later did I find that spins in the Cessna 170A required empty back seats. After 2 rotations I did what was usually necessary to come out of the spin, but that only made it worse. As the spinning earth in front of us approached, I had to think fast. The weight in the back seat was keeping the "angle of attack" in the stalling position, so I pushed the throttle in and the nose further down, until both wings "caught" and I came out of the descent. I never did another spin, with or without passengers.
Three times in 1987-8 I used 76A to maintain our trail assignment on Bigelow mountain. I would drive from our Brunswick home to Bowdoinham, the base for 76A at the time, fly to the airport near Sugarloaf mountain, hitchhike to the Appalachian Trail crossing south of Stratton, climb up 2 miles with bucksaw and clippers to our trail beginning at Cranberry Pond, clear obstacles up over Cranberry Peak, with its beautiful view of Flagstaff Lake and other mountains, and down to Stratton, hitch or hire a ride back to the airport, climb in all sweaty and dirty, and return to the unlit Bowdoinham field just in time. This saved a couple hours over driving, was interesting, but was too complicated to repeat a fourth time.
January 16, 1989, the day before my 64th birthday, I took 76A to an appointment at Northeast Airmotive at the Portland airport to have an encoding altimeter, a safety device, installed. The mechanics diverted to work on a plane from the Canadian Arctic, and consequently finished 76A hours later than promised. It was near dusk on that winter day when I left just ahead of approaching dark IFR weather, for the short flight back to Bowdoinham, where 76A was then based. Near Brunswick, a few minutes from landing, approaching cars on the highway below had their lights on, and it looked black ahead. I had to make a quick decision, because in 5 minutes I could be safely on the ground at Bowdoinham, or dead. So I turned back to Portland, but it looked just as bad in that direction. I came upon a long undulating field in Freeport, and skimmed its tall weeds at a slow 75 mph and full flaps, looking for a level spot. There was none, so just 6 seconds before I would have hit the tree wall ahead, I touched down. The 4' tall weeds gently slowed my landing like on an aircraft carrier. Later I measured my landing run, shown by deflected weeds and dirt marks, as 290' long, ending 300' short of the trees at the end of the field. As I taxied back on a frozen tractor path towards the houses and road at the other end of the field, I saw a line of about 8 lighted vehicles approaching through the weeds: ordinary cars, an ambulance, police cars. We all came to a stop head on. The drivers stayed seated in their vehicles with their headlights on me, blocking my path, so I got out. Although I was walking and talking, I was asked a very strange question: "Are you all right ?". It seems that a nearby homeowner with a CB radio had dialed 911 and reported an airplane crash. One of the cars contained TV reporters, so there was much media coverage of the event. The next day I started my takeoff run on a homeowners lawn, continued on a short stretch of weeds we flattened with our car, and returned 76A to Bowdoinham. Although I had just demonstrated my skill as a pilot, an FAA employee required that I demonstrate my ability to land at Portland, far simpler than the short undulating dark pasture in Freeport.
Marge and I enjoyed landing on Seawall Beach, frozen Rainbow Lake beside the Appalachian Trail sector that we maintained near Katahdin, and many pastures and airports in northern New England. Our favorite was Franconia, NH, where we went several times. The routine was to go a day after the passage of a cold front, so the air was clear but not turbulent. We'd aim for very prominent Mt. Washington, enjoying the spectacular view as we passed the summit and the trails around it that we knew so well, then descend at 500 feet per minute towards Franconia. We'd land on its grass strip, park across the road from Franconia Inn, and enjoy an elegant breakfast. Afterwards, we'd take off to the north, reverse direction, fly through the narrow top of Franconia Notch looking upward for a quick view of the Old Man of the Mountains, then fly west over 3000' high Kancamagus Notch, and return to Maine. Once when we flew through the latter Notch 500' above it, two fighter jets passed underneath us in the opposite direction at maybe 500 mph. From when we first saw them to when we last saw them took only a few seconds, but it certainly left a vivid memory. This photo is looking west to the Mt. Washington summit.
In the 1980s we made a flew flights in Florida in rented planes.
* Palatka to sleepy Cedar Key (northwest of Ocala) twice.
* Homestead to Keys, round trip without landing.
* Pompano: Pitts Special with Randy Gagne, champion stunt pilot who later was killed doing that.
Learned the snap roll, which is abrupt recovery from an unexpected inverted position, advised 10 years earlier by the FBO near Savannah. In Pompano we toured the Goodyear Blimp in its hangar.
In 1989 we flew to the Cessna 170 convention at New Haven, CT. There we met Nancy Tiers, who arrived in her 170 and had soloed in 1928, and Ed Cassagneres, who knew Lindbergh.
Once Bob Davis, another Club member, and I flew that route too soon after a cold front passed. As we approached Mt. Washington the air became steadily more turbulent, until I wondered if the giant hand would shake the wings off, and temporarily wished I had never learned to fly. Air passing over an obstacle like a mountain ridge acts just like a stream passing over a rock: smooth on the upwind side and very turbulent on the downstream side. As we passed over the ridge the turbulence suddenly stopped and we were ascending at 2000' a minute even with engine idled and the nose depressed. Our return by a different route was downwind and much smoother.
Margery's mother used to spend all day on buses to go from Augusta to visit friends in her former home town of Princeton, on the Canadian border. She had been reluctant to even fly commercial planes to Florida, but when she found she could reach Princeton in just over an hour in 76A, she was convinced. On more than one of those several flights I looked back and found her asleep. She died at 93, shortly after 76A was sold.
As the years passed the other club members flew 76A less, while Bob Davis and I flew it more and more. I did more and more of its maintenance (minor maintenance, shoveling snow, changing oil, cleaning, getting inspections, etc.), and did all the paperwork. Membership decreased to 5, the minimum allowed for members to get "non-owners insurance", cheaper than owner's insurance. Finally a majority of 3 realized they were getting too old to fly, so Bob and I were outvoted, and I sold the plane for the club in April 1993.
When Marge and I made our first drive to Alaska by Toyota in 1996 we visited 76A in Minnesota. It was a great nostalgic visit to an old friend as its new owner let me fly the plane with him, and on the return find its home base when he couldn't.
Cessna 172 Sea Planes
Marge and I were sad to see 76A go. It had been an important part of our lives. Then we realized this was an opportunity for a different kind of thrill: float planes. Three months after 76A went with its new owner to Minnesota I started training in Cessna 172 float planes at Twitchell's, an old family-run airport in Turner, near Lewiston. A float plane is a versatile compromise, meaning it's an inefficient plane and an inefficient boat. In both functions new skills are necessary, some counter-intuitive. For example, on water a float plane "wants" to weathervane so it points into the wind. If a pilot is taxiing on the water and wants to go downwind, he must first turn the "wrong" way and operate the ailerons in the "wrong" direction. After about 7 hours of instruction, I was ready for flight test certification. My instructor warned me the FAA examiner was tough, with no sense of humor, so I was nervous. The last part of the test was to demonstrate docking, which is safe but quite tricky. One has to judge the wind, aim diagonally for the dock, shut off the motor at just the right time, climb out on the left float, walk a cable from the left to the right float, and, as the plane neatly sidles up to the dock, jump to the dock to gently control and stop the plane. If not done just right, or the breeze changes, the powerless plane may either crash into the dock or come to a halt several feet short of it. Everything went right in the test near the end, when I forgot to leave my distance-vision glasses in the cockpit before I walked the cable, so I slipped on it and fell. Standing mortified in the cold muddy 4' deep water, I called out that maybe I could pass the test another time, but the famously dour examiner was laughing, and said, "If I get wet you flunk, but you got wet and you pass".
Twitchell's is one of the few FBOs in the world that will rent you a float plane after they teach you to fly one. That's mostly because it's easy to flip one upside down when landing or taking off, so insurance costs, and consequently rental costs, are high. At most other such FBOs the only options are to just brag about your rating or to buy a float plane.
Flying floats takes the pilot back to when the air was not congested, radios were not needed, and freedom prevailed. Float flying is beautiful; when one lands on a remote lake without camps and the engine roar ceases, the beauty and peace are never forgotten. Float planes are most common in Canada, and states with many lakes, principally Maine, Minnesota and Alaska.
All of my float instruction and solo practice before the examination had been on the "nursery", up and down the wide Androscoggin River, between the bridge and Twitchell's airport. My second flight after the test was distinctly different. I flew with Bob Davis over the ocean to the lake on Isle au Haut. We hiked a few miles before returning to Twitchell's.
Marge and I flew several times to 5-mile-long Rainbow Lake, where for several years we maintained 4 miles of the adjacent Appalachian Trail (AT), and where the only buildings were a grandfathered retreat for Webber Oil executives. Its caretakers became our long term friends. I flew there twice to maintain our section of AT, once with Bob Davis and once with a hiker named Amy. I flew twice to remove or bury a dump beside another stretch of AT, made several decades ago when hiker ethics didn't include "Carry In, Carry Out". Once my co-pilot and fellow dump picker was Bob Davis and once it was Alan Lukas.
After our last float flight, in June 1998, Marge and I didn't fly a small plane again for nearly 2 years.
Among other things, we kept busy for that time with these:
* My heart valve operation in 1998.
* Finishing my last 440 miles of Appalachian Trail, with Marge providing taxi service.
* Coping with the FAA. It requires that amateur pilots have a medical examination every 2 years. For me the interval was one year because of my prostate cancer surgery in 1996 and heart valve operation in 1998. The FAA doctors, who then earned lots less than those in private practice, said my spine might snap in flight because of the first, or I might drop dead in flight because of the second, which our doctors said was ridiculous. I had to have expensive tests that only the FAA said were necessary, and finally I was told I couldn't fly, period. Other pilots advised that the only way to get my license back was to go to Mecca, meaning FAA headquarters in Oklahoma City. So Marge and I did, on a side trip from visiting family near Denver.
We found the FAA extremely disorganized, with a backlog of several months. Although that building replaced the one that had been destroyed by terrorist Timothy McVeigh in 1995, we entered and wandered around corridors without seeing a single person, until we found the FAA office. We waited while a clerk went to find our file. An hour later she said she couldn't find it, to come back tomorrow. We returned. They had found "both" files, and said we could talk to the doctor in charge immediately. This was a doctor who had to approve medical applications of tens of thousands of pilots, but talked to us as if he could ignore them and the clutter in his office. He said I couldn't fly, then "happened" to find his unmailed hand-written letter that said yes I might, if I had more tests. All this was (1) an amazing lack of security, and (2) a doctor suddenly dealing with me while there were thousands of pilots waiting for him to process theirs. This was costing a lot of taxpayer, insurance company, and our dollars,. But I got to fly again.
Because of limitations in this BLOGGER, to see our final chapter, our 2000 flight from Maine to Alaska in our 3rd Cessna 170A, click on "older posts" below.
