The Saturday Morning Post: More Adventures in Flying

The froward sweeping tail, is a unique to Mooney. 

In the early 1970s Republic Steel bought Mooney aircraft manufacturing.  No one really understood what a steel company was doing with a company that made aluminum airplanes, but the purchase infused a lot of cash into the company allowing expansion of the dealer network. 

The local airport in Michigan became a stocking dealer. The planes were sleek and fast with variable pitch propellers and retractable landing gear.  Dupont Lapeer airport quickly took delivery of several of them, and as was normal for them, added a couple of them to the rental line. 

To be able to rent them, a pilot needed to take a check ride with a qualified flight instructor.  The instructor was Don, a former air force pilot with literally thousands of hours of flight time in everything from tiny single engine, single passenger planes, to bombers, fighter jets, helicopters, and airliners.  He was the consummate pilots pilots.  If it could fly, Don knew how to do it well.  His standards were the highest around.  

I climbed in the back seat, my father and Don were in front and off we went.  It was a fun ride, very comfortable, a step up from what we normally flew.  On the proficiency checklist was manual deployment of the landing gear.  The gear was electric hydraulic, and the pilot needed to know what to do if the system failed.  Don pulled the circuit breaker and asked dad to manually put the landing gear down. 

Dad slowed to the appropriate speed, checked to make sure the hydraulic system was not working, then went looking for the manual crank. He looked, he asked Don, and Don said, I don't know, I have never flown this model. On other model, it is here on the floor, it is not there on this one. My father calmly said, David, hand me the owner's manual it is in the seat pocket behind Don.  Don could see the look of terror on my face and smiled and said, "relax, that is exactly what we should do." Don looked up the anwer, a crank just above the pilots left knee (a really awkward location.)  They cranked it down, cranked it up.  Pushed the circuit breaker back in, and tested it. Check ride complete, we returned to the airport ready to fly. 

When all else fails, read the instructions.