daily scratchpad

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As I reread the 'I Was Glorious' post I see that it was somewhat misleading. I do indeed have many photographs from my flying days, only none of me doing my flight instructor job. Also, most of the photos are of poor quality. This one was probably taken by Kootch. I am inside the airplane doing the 'pre-start checklist.' One of my friends from Honeywell (I am still working for Honeywell) stands behind the right wing. His first name was, 'Don.' Kootch and I and the kids used to go over to Don's house and fly kites - 'controllable kites.' The airplane tail number is 9666W. We called it, 'nine-triple-six-risky' for some reason, probably related to the '666' in the tail number and the fact that it had rear seats. Most of the trainers had only seats for the instructor and student, and weight was less a problem with them. But it was possible to overload 666Whiskey with full fuel and heavy passengers on a hot day at Denver's altitude. More than one airplane ended up in the gully at the far end of runway 30 after having taken off overloaded on a hot day. Passengers aren't usually aware of such dangers.

I recall one incident of possible over-awareness: It was some sort of national holiday related to airplanes. Cole's Aviation was offering short airplane rides to the general public, and I was flying the Arrow, which is a retractable-gear version of the cherokee. I think it had a 200 hp engine. My passengers were a woman and her two children. It was a hot day. Before takeoff I explained to her that one of the safety features of this airplane was the 'gear warning' horn: if you got too slow the airplane assumed you were about to land, and if the gear was still retracted a loud horn sounded in the cockpit and a bright yellow light began blinking on the instrument panel. I further explained that shortly after takeoff I would retract the gear so that we could gain speed and altitude faster, and that the horn would sound and the yellow light would blink, but not to worry. She nodded as if she had understood.