Dream Aircraft

by Schiff, Barry

  There is an aura about this airplane. You cannot fly it without drifting into thoughts of yesteryear and trying to imagine what it was like to occupy that seat over the Atlantic in 1927. It is like flying through the pages of history.

  When Lindbergh began tracking along the 3,610-sm, great-circle route to Paris, he was only 25 years old and had logged fewer than 1,800 hours (including 32 flights in the Spirit).

  “A slim, tall, bashful, smiling American boy is somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where no lone human being has ever before ventured.” (Will Rogers)

  “Modern man realized that nobody had ever subjected himself to so extreme a test of human courage and capability.” (Scott Berg)

  “A certain amount of danger is essential to the quality of life.” (Lindbergh)

  Although the front seat of the replica is equipped with standard instrumentation, Lindbergh flew instruments using only a turn indicator, a bubble-type inclinometer, an airspeed indicator, and an altimeter mounted on a plywood panel.

  He also had an earth-inductor compass, a telltale sign of which are small, anemometer-like cups spinning about a mast atop the rear fuselage.

  The Spirit was given a huge wing, 46 feet of span and 7 of chord, to lift the 450-gallon fuel load. This was 10 feet longer than the M-2’s wing and increased roll damping dramatically. “The wing drops slowly. The ailerons on the Spirit aren’t as [effective] as those on the standard Ryan. Hall made them short to avoid overstressing the wing under full-load conditions. It’s good enough for a long-range airplane.” (Lindbergh)

  The author and actor James Stewart (right) in front of one of the replicas built for the motion picture, The Spirit of St. Louis, (1955). © Barry Schiff

  The ailerons are heavy, relatively unresponsive, and create considerable adverse yaw. It helps to have a well-developed forearm and responsive feet.

  The control stick is as long as a baseball bat, too tall, I thought, and I tended to grip it low. As my first flight wore on, however, I noticed that my right hand kept inching higher on the stick to gain the leverage needed to combat large control forces.

  Considering the larger wing, Hall was dissatisfied with the stability that the small tail surfaces of the M-2 would provide. Larger surfaces would improve stability but increase drag and production time. Lindbergh opted to retain the smaller tail surfaces.

  “It’s clear that stability is not a strong point with the Spirit, but we didn’t design the plane for stability. We decided to use the standard tail surfaces to...gain...range.” (Lindbergh)

  Lindbergh was a master of understatement. The aircraft is dynamically and statically unstable. “It is one of the worst flying airplanes I’ve ever flown,” says Robert “Hoot” Gibson, former space shuttle commander. “It’s a challenge to keep the airplane going straight and make it do what you want.”

  “The Spirit is too unstable to fly well on instruments. It is high-strung, and balanced on a pinpoint. If I relax pressure on stick or rudder for an instant, the nose veers off course.” (Lindbergh)

  You can say that again. After entering a normal turn and neutralizing the controls, you soon notice that although the airplane remains banked, the nose suddenly stops moving across the horizon, and you are in a perfect sideslip.

  The rudder and elevator are easier to operate but require constant attention to keep the aircraft on an even keel. The nose hunts left and right, and porpoises like a whale. It is a high-workload airplane that never allows you to relax.

  Lindbergh was “thankful we didn’t make the Spirit stable. The very instability which makes it difficult to fly blind or hold an accurate course at night now guards me against excessive errors.” He credits the instability with keeping him awake and alive.

  You can fly it with fingertips in smooth air, but the slightest zephyr causes the Spirit to take off on its own. Get a grip, because you’ll need it. The Spirit has a mind of its own and is a handful.

  Despite its idiosyncrasies and rude manners, one nevertheless discovers a growing affection and appreciation for the machine.

  Lindbergh carried a driftmeter that could be placed into brackets on one window to determine wind drift at sunrise and mid-ocean. But he never used it because of instability and fatigue. “So simple. So impossible. Why did I ever think I could fly the Spirit straight while I lean out to look into the eyepiece of a drift indicator?” (Lindbergh)

  Using windows that were stored behind him would have smoothed airflow along the fuselage, but he never used them either. “They’d interfere with the crystal clarity of communion with water, land, and sky [and] insulate me from a strength I’ll need before my flight is done, and which, for some reason, cannot penetrate their thin transparency. Fumes drift through the fuselage, and drift away.” (Lindbergh)

  The wicker porch seat is hard and uncomfortable. Lindbergh used an air cushion. “It’s been expanding as I climb to altitude. I open the valve for a few seconds, to lower my position and make sure the fabric won’t burst.” (Lindbergh)

  The rudder pedals are too close and prevent me from stretching my legs. It must have been worse for Lindbergh, who was taller.

  It becomes increasingly difficult for me to comprehend how Lindbergh could take off after being awake for 24 hours and then fly this airplane into the unknown for 33-1/2 hours.

  The huge wing was designed to carry such a heavy load that it was difficult to stall in our lightly loaded configuration. When the nose does drop slowly at 35 mph, it takes only the slightest release of back pressure to recover.

  The only way to keep the runway in sight during a landing approach is to make a slipping turn from base to final and hold the slip until just before touchdown. In the meantime, your head is craned to one side and into the relative wind blowing through the open side window. During the flare for either a three-point or wheel landing, there is only limited peripheral vision upon which to rely.

  “I slip down on the final glide, nose high and left wing low—that gives me perfect forward vision. Then I straighten out just before my wheels touch.” (Lindbergh)

  Wheel landings seem easier than full-stall landings, but you don’t always know what type of landing you are going to make until it happens. Daubner says that “you have to be willing to take what you get.”

  A wicker chair offered Lindbergh little creature comfort during his 33 ½-hour flight to Paris.

  The wheels and fuselage rumble on rollout, and you pray that nothing gets in your way because there is no way that you are going to see and avoid it.

  “He took off as an unknown boy from rural Minnesota and landed 33-1/2 hours later [6-1/2 hours less than Lindbergh had anticipated] as the most famous man on Earth and sent the world into an unprecedented frenzy.” (National Geographic)

  “The Spirit of St. Louis is a wonderful plane. It’s like a living creature, gliding along smoothly, happily, as though a successful flight means as much to it as to me, as though we shared our experiences together, each feeling beauty, life, and death as keenly, each dependent on the other’s loyalty. We have made this flight across the ocean, not I or it.” (Lindbergh)

  Although a single-place airplane, Lindbergh managed 21 passenger flights that included carrying Henry Ford and his mother, Evangeline Lindbergh. Its final and 174th flight was made on April 4, 1928 after accumulating 489 hours of flight time.

  The Spirit of St. Louis was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1928 and has been on permanent display ever since (now in the National Air and Space Museum).

  In her book, Slim, by Slim Keith, wife of motion picture producer, Leland Hayward, Keith observed Lindbergh sitting in the cockpit of the Spirit in the Smithsonian prior to filming Hayward’s movie, The Spirit of St. Louis. “Lindbergh had noticed that the primer was out of place, said to himself that ‘it shouldn’t be this way,’ and pushed the knob in with a noticeably tender caress
of a gesture.”

  Paraphrasing aviation writer Jack Cox, “It is difficult for us, 75 years and a cultural lifetime removed from the event, to fathom the impact of Lindbergh’s flight. Nothing else in our lifetime, including the first trip to the moon, so profoundly impressed the world. Nothing so dramatically and so instantly changed the course of history.”

  Lunar astronauts also are in awe of what Lindbergh accomplished. Neil Armstrong said that “[he] flew through miserable weather and stretched the science and art of navigation to find Le Bourget. We could see our destination throughout our entire voyage.”

  Similar to questions posed to astronauts, England’s King George asked in 1927, “Now tell me, Captain Lindbergh. There is one thing I long to know. How did you pee?”

  Courtesy Jawed Karim

  During the Roaring Twenties, a significant number of small manufacturers appeared to build aircraft designed to replace the aging trainers left over from the Great War. One of these was the Lincoln Aircraft Company of Lincoln, Nebraska. The company was founded by Ray Page and produced a popular line of aircraft. One was the Lincoln PT-K, so called because it is a Page Trainer with a Kinner engine. (The previous model, the PT, was equipped with a Curtiss OX-5 engine.)

  John W. Cook was one of many who received their aerial baptism in a PT-K. He made his first solo in one at Blythe, California before World War II and eventually became a pilot for TWA. He is remembered, along with his friend, Robert Timm, for having established in 1958 and 1959 an endurance record of 64 days, 22 hours, and 19 minutes in a Cessna 172. (Ground-to-air refueling was accomplished by handing a fuel hose to one of the pilots as the pair flew low and slow over a pickup truck.)

  As he neared retirement, Captain Cook’s sense of nostalgia inspired him to locate and purchase the rag, tube, and wood PT-K in which he had first taken to sky.

  Cook located the aircraft but was dismayed at what he found. The PT-K was a basket case, a beleaguered machine that would never again fly unless someone was willing to undertake a complete restoration. Cook accepted the challenge and dedicated himself to resuscitating the biplane. Unfortunately, he died long before the project had been completed.

  In the meantime, Dr. Rick Martin, a 2,000-hour private pilot and emergency-room physician at the St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in Henderson, Nevada, had an itch to rebuild an airplane even though he had never done that before. He wanted to learn what makes an airplane tick from the inside out. Martin was inspired by his close friend, Joe Maridon, who had rebuilt a Waco UPF-7 that he uses to sell biplane rides over Las Vegas.

  Maridon had learned from an advertising flier that John Cook’s widow wanted to sell her husband’s Lincoln PT-K. It was not long before he and Martin were in the Cook garage studying a project that obviously had a long way to go and would require a great deal of work. But Martin liked the idea of buying “a piece of history that could be brought to life while learning about airplane building in the process.”

  It took Martin 4 years to rebuild his PT-K, and he is quick to acknowledge that he had a great deal of help in the process. He is particularly grateful to Al Ball, Dwight Baumberger, Ron Kodimer, Joe and Betty Maridon, Norm Mayer, John McIntyre, Paul Seright, and Dawn Wagenknecht for sharing their labor and expertise.

  The airplane is emblazoned in its original colors and many believe that it is better than when new in 1930. It would have made Captain Cook proud.

  The 1930 Lincoln PT-K originally sold for $3,865, a princely price in those days. Although Martin paid $22,500 for the project, he has no idea what the airplane is worth today, although he has turned down an offer of $200,000.

  The PT-K has a long, thin fuselage, not unlike earlier trainers such as the Curtiss JN-4D Jenny. Its most distinctive visual features are the unusual shape of its vertical stabilizer and its wire-spoke wheels. (The Goodrich tires are borrowed from a Model A Ford.)

  Anyone about to fly a PT-K should wear overalls and gloves because of the preflight servicing required. The rocker arms of the 100-hp, 5-cylinder, Kinner K-5 radial engine must be greased before every flight, and the wheel bearings must be greased before every other flight.

  One then switches from a grease gun to a can of Marvel Mystery Oil, which must be added to the fuel and engine oil. It also must be squirted liberally into the valve guides before every flight.

  The single, 28.5-gallon fuel tank is between the engine and the front cockpit. The PT-K has a maximum-allowable gross weight of 1,767 pounds, an empty weight of 1,200 pounds, and a useful load of 567 pounds. A small baggage area behind the rear seat is limited to 50 pounds, but this must be reduced by the weight of any parachutes being worn.

  The front of the “all-weather” cowling has 5 teardrop shaped openings, one in front of each cylinder. The original cowling was equipped with cockpit-controlled shutters that restricted airflow through the openings to keep the engine warm on cold days. Martin has yet to build the shutters, but he is not in a hurry given the desert climate of southern Nevada.

  A critical preflight item is thrusting a hand through an access door on the left side of the cowling and opening a valve in the oil line leading from the oil tank to the engine. Oil supply usually is turned off after each flight to prevent oil drainage from the tank into the lower cylinders.

  Also, engine oil must be warm before engine start, which means that it must be preheated prior to starting in cold weather.

  After stepping onto the lower wing, lowering myself through the 24-by-42 inch cockpit entrance, and settling into the bucket seat, I was delighted to discover that the cockpit is comfortable and roomy even for someone of my sizeable proportions.

  Martin’s PT-K is equipped with a Bloxham Safety Stick to resolve any problem caused by a student freezing on the controls. The instructor pulls a cable that disconnects the student’s control stick from the flight-control system and leaves the stick free and harmless in the student’s hand. “Surprise!” There have been times when I would love to have had a Bloxham Safety Wheel, had there been such a thing.

  According to aviation historian Joseph P. Juptner, an instructor accomplished the same result during the days of the Jenny by conking the student on the head with a fire extinguisher, but this was frowned upon and considered primitive.

  It was uncertain when the PT-K was originally built whether the aviation industry would decide that the pilot should operate the control stick with his right hand and the throttle with his left, or vice versa. So that it could be flown either way, the PT-K was equipped with two throttles in each cockpit, one on the right and one on the left. That’s right; the PT-K has four interconnected throttles. Take your pick. Also, the throttles are not gripped conventionally. That is, they are not held with an overhand (palm down) grip. The throttles extend down from their pivot points and are operated with an underhand grip (palm up). This initially feels awkward, but adaptation comes quickly and easily.

  The PT-K is equipped with neither a starter nor an electrical system, so the fixed-pitch propeller must be turned by hand. The first step requires turning it a few times to ensure that oil has not leaked into the bottom cylinders and formed a hydraulic lock.

  The engine is then primed 4-6 times, and the throttle is pumped 2-4 times or until fuel drips from the carburetor. Although this is undesirable with modern engines, such a “wet start” is standard for the Kinner K-5. After applying pressure to the mechanical heel brakes (rear cockpit only), the pilot is ready to start.

  The wood propeller is flicked easily and the engine starts with a delightful crackling sound that seems to echo from the past. This is when the pilot finds out if he has been sufficiently liberal about oiling the valve guides. Unless the windshields become coated with oil and grease after engine start, the pilot did not use enough of the stuff. This is not a good time to stick one’s head out of the cockpit and into the propwash (or should I say, oil wash?).

  CIGAR (controls
, instruments, gasoline, attitude, and runup) serves as a thorough checklist because there is nothing else to do. You never set the altimeter because there is no way to correct a non-sensitive altimeter. (The single hand of the altimeter makes one revolution every 10,000 feet and obviously is not very accurate.)

  A sufficiently high oil temperature is critical for takeoff. The engine is not considered warm or safe enough for takeoff unless a full-power, static runup can be performed without oil pressure exceeding 180 psi. If it appears that oil pressure will exceed this value before reaching full power, retard the throttle and wait for the oil to warm further. (Engine oil is changed every 10 hours.)

  There is nothing remarkable about taking off in a PT-K as long as one is attentive to directional control. With a 10-mph headwind, the aircraft reportedly can lift off in 6 seconds after a roll of only 100 feet. Climb performance, though, is anemic. One reason that the airplane had little inclination to ascend during my checkout was an ambient temperature of 100 degrees F (a density altitude at the North Las Vegas Airport of 5,270 feet). It was impossible to reach pattern altitude within the confines of the traffic pattern.

  The ailerons (two on each wing) are heavy and respond poorly. Sealing the unusually large aileron gaps probably would enhance roll rate and give the PT-K’s climb rate a kick in the rudder.

  The airplane is not easy to fly; you have to work at it. Particularly disconcerting is that the PT-K approaches being neutrally stable about all axes. If a wing goes down, the nose yaws, or the nose dips, the condition is likely to persist until corrective action is taken.

  But one should not complain about the PT-K’s handling qualities. According to Maridon, “Designers [of that era] were more concerned that the airplane would actually fly than how it would fly.”