IT IS a truth of aviation that the satisfaction- quotient of most pilots is much affected by the last one foot of any flight. Grease the landing on – quiet smug glow. Thump it on in workmanlike manner, and “Oh well, it’s just another flight”. Actually bounce the arrival and an inner Gremlin scrapes a claw across your flying pride, the length of the scratch being directly related to the height of the bounce. There are exceptions to this, of course. Ask a fighter pilot for a greaser and he may take the trouble to explain that a positive union is the preferred option since one can thereafter concentrate on the slightly important matter of stopping the thing.
Put the same query to a carrier-borne pilot and he will just stare at you blankly. But for those of us in general aviation (GA), that last foot is important to our flying souls. Call it hubris if you will. It is a hubris I have been a slave to for 40 years. Perhaps I inflicted it on myself. Having taken 21 hours 35 minutes to go solo, almost entirely due to an embarrassing inability to place an aeroplane back on the ground with any exactitude, I determined that I would master the art of elegant landings. Eventually. As it happened my subsequent career lent itself to this endeavour. Glider-towing – you’re landing every five minutes. Instructing – you spend a notable proportion of your time teaching landings.
Aerobatics and display flying – there ain’t no such thing as a long sortie, so you’re constantly landing. With all this practice even a wombat must perforce acquire some small skill – especially if you burn with shame at the memory of your early record, and as a result suffer from a certain fixation in the matter. In time I came to flatter myself that my landings had acquired surety and even perhaps a tiny touch of style. Well – most of the time….. The trouble with pride in aviation is that you can be very sure that every now and then some evil genie will pop up and urinate all over it.
“JUST SAVING ON THE TYRE WEAR.”
This Caribbean night is a place of great beauty. The stars are a million diamonds in black velvet, and the island below is almost ethereal under the full moon. My three tourist joy-riders are suitably impressed. This is my fourth joy-ride of the night. I am sweaty, tired, and bored out of my skull. “We’ll be landing in a couple of minutes. I hope you’ve enjoyed the tour.” “We sure have. It all looks kinda magical from up here.” Good. This kind of customer-satisfaction sometimes extends to a tip for the pilot…. However, now we come to my bit of satisfaction. I glide the Cherokee down finals and take pleasure in pulling the flaps down so smoothly there is not a ripple felt in the cabin. Into the flare over the numbers….
And then, just before touchdown, ease on power again so that we do not actually land but instead float in the groundcushion a foot above the runway. This runway is very long, and if I were to really land on the numbers we would face a tedious taxi to the high-speed turnoff half way down it. So this is my party trick. I add just enough power to stay in the air, then very g-e-n-t-l-y ease it off as we approach the turn-off.
If I get it right the eventual touchdown will be almost imperceptible, without even a squip from the tyres. I will then round off the whole ridiculous performance by dead-cutting the engine as we turn into the high-speed taxiway and rolling across the ramp and into my parking space with a conspicuously stationary propeller.
As a final flourish I will nonchalantly open the cockpit door a crack while this is going on in order to let in some fresh air. This exhibitionism is not so much a display of skill as a product of sheer boredom. If you fly the same bloody aeroplane off the same bloody runway day-in dayout, night-in night-out, then you become bloody bored.
So you develop party tricks. I am fully aware that this is not good airmanship, but the concentration involved assists my sanity. A party trick requires a one-liner to egg the act. So as we rumble down the runway twelve inches above the surface I assume my best English drawl. “Just saving on the tyre wear, ha ha…..” As the blue lights of the turn-off come up I ease the power off. Ease it, ease it……then rudder smoothly into the highspeed taxiway. Pull the mixture into lean cut-off, then with studied languor reach up to un-dog the door….. At which point, halfway down the taxiway, the Cherokee finally tires of the game and flops down the last foot on to the tarmac like a sack of potatoes. I hadn’t actually landed at all….. There is no damage except for a trail of little white fragments following the Cherokee into its parking-space. These fragments are the remnants of my pride.
“WHAT DID YE DO THAT FOR?”
It is drizzling both outside and inside. Outside, because an Atlantic front is relieving itself over Western Ireland. Inside, because the Irish are wonderfully hospitable and following my lecture to a seminar last night were most generous in plying various beverages…...
Not that I am hung-over, of course. God forbid. But perhaps I might have a touch of ‘flu coming on as we reach Coonagh airfield, from whence my genial hosts are to fly me into Cork International to catch my London-bound schedule. Coonagh airfield…..
The last time I saw Coonagh was ten years ago. I was engaged to display at the Farranfore Air Show in Co Limerick, then rush off to Dublin to fly in their air show later.
The logistics, as always, ruled. I needed to depart Farranfore off-slot, re-fuel and re-smoke somewhere about mid-way, and proceed to Dublin with maximum dispatch. Looking at the map, Coonagh seemed the best bet. On the phone they said yes, they’d be pleased to provide both fuel and smoke oil. Yes, they’d be happy to turn me round quickly.
And yes, they had one short tarmac runway and one considerably longer grass runway. “I’ll take the grass,“ I said. “Dat’ll be foin,” Coonagh said. I arrived at Farranfore the night before the display. And in the evening a cheery gentleman said: “Oi hear ye’re off to Dublin after ye’ve flown here. Can ye make that in one, now, in that little Pitts?”
“No. I’m going into Coonagh to refuel.” “Coonagh, is it? Watching you land I’d have thought Coonagh wasn’t long enough, at all.”
“Apparently they’ve got a short tarmac runway and a longer grass one. I’ll take the grass.” “Ah. Dat’s what Sean there told you, was it? “Yes.”. “Ah. Well. Did Sean also mention that the hard runway is in the middle of the grass runway? What I mean is, how’s that little Pitts at jumping a three-inch lip between the grass and the hard?” I thought: “Oh hell.” The next day, approaching Coonagh, it was most evident that my cheery friend was right. Coonagh’s hard runway, spang in the middle of the grass, looked like a short, narrow bowling alley.
Being now long in the tooth landingwise, I slammed the Pitts down (and you need to be long in the tooth to slam a Pitts down, because they tend to retaliate) on the first few feet of the strip and hit the brakes with serious intent. We came to a final halt, the Pitts and I, about 10 feet from the far end. I let go of a rather old breath. Now, ten years on, the friendly CFI at Coonagh is showing me round the chariot which will comport me to Cork. It is a Rallye – one of those things which slightly resembles a Nissen hut and has flaps the size of Brittany and full-span slats which clunk open at the first sniff of high alpha.
“Ah, will you be liking to fly it around a few minutes afore we go?”
What with the incipient ‘flu the short answer is not much – but these are really nice people. I say: “That’s very kind.” So we get airborne, wingover a few times, and then I point it back at Coonagh’s runway, which looks just as tiny as my rather vivid memory of it. Flaps full down, slats hanging out, I approach at the minimum speed I can manage.
Beside me the CFI wriggles slightly. I plonk the Rallye on to the very end of the runway, stand on the brakes….. And stop in a faint smell of rubber within about 60 feet. A Rallye is not a Pitts. From here, now, the rest of Coonagh’s little runway stretches ahead like Heathrow. The very charming CFI massages his neck and then says in his soft brogue: “Bejasus – pwhat did ye do that for…..?” “Habit,” I can only say.
“Pure habit.
Sorry….”
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