Miles apart

Today started out slow, but then I ended up having 4 trips to do. They were the usual run up the coast, except all but one were pax flights, which is unusual. I guess perhaps its people going back home from the long weekend.

The last bit of the afternoon was a little interesting because myself and another pilot flying a Navajo for the other operator up here was also doing trips up and down the coast, so we were kind of following each other around. Rather he started out following me and then it ended up I was following him because a Navajo is faster then a Cherokee 6. I play soccer with the pilot on an indoor soccer team. At one point I was ready to take off and was waiting for him to touch down and clear the runway, and when he taxied by me we gave each other a wave and he keyed the mic and said, "see you at soccer tonight" over the radio as he taxied by.

It just struck me as strange. Here we were, across a 90 mile stretch of wilderness from where we both live, and yet we're in the same place, at the same time, and just give each other the wave as if there's nothing out of the ordinary. In reality there really ISN'T anything out of the ordinary, we both do this everyday all day, but the concept of us being so far away in the middle of nowhere and it being normal to see someone you know there is just odd, lol. We treat 100 miles of wilderness as if its just a block away from where we live and we're just nod to each other as if we're strolling down to the corner store. What a strange reality when you really think about. Maybe my job gives me too much time to think, lol.

On another note yesterday on the holiday monday I took two trips south to the same place, one in the Cherokee, the other in the Twin Comanche. They are two so very different airplanes. In the Cherokee on takeoff, when you rotate, you really have to almost coax it off the ground. Rotation speed is 70 mph, and at that point when you ease back on the controls, the nose will come off, and then gradually a couple seconds later the main wheels will haul themselves off the ground.

The Comanche is quite different, in that once you reach rotation speed (Vr), its ready to fly and just a touch back on the controls and it will leap into the air. It caught me by surprise after I've been getting used to flying the Cherokee. I imagine this may be due to the different Vr speeds. Vr for the Comanche is 80-90 mph (depending on the weight), not because its not ready to fly until that speed, but because we don't want it coming off the ground too far below Vmc (minimum controllable airspeed with one engine inop). That's because if we were below Vmc and we lost an engine, we'd lose control of the airplane, so we wait until we're closer to Vmc before we leave the ground. That's multi-engine procedure. The Cherokee is only a single, so we rotate at 70 mph, which is just at the point when the airplane is ready to fly, since there is no Vmc. The Comanche wouldn't probably leap off the ground so readily if we rotated at a more comparable airspeed that we rotate at in the Cherokee.

Another difference is that in the climbout in the Cherokee it needs immediate nose up trim, without which you find you're pulling fairly firmly back on the controls to maintain Vy (best rate of climb speed). The Comanche requires immediate nose down trim after liftoff otherwise you find yourself pushing firmly against the controls to maintain Vy.

The biggest difference between the airplanes however, is the landing. The Cherokee is a breeze to land. You can just float it down, and it flares nicely until the airspeed bleeds off enough and it kisses the ground. I attribute this to the high camber wing, and the long fuselage which gives lots of space between the nose gear and the main gear. The Comanche isn't so friendly. If you flare at too high an airspeed or too aggressively, you'll balloon up until the airspeed bleeds off and then you come plummetting back down to earth. To little of a flare and you'll come in on the nose gear. Its tricky to find the sweet spot of airspeed that allows a controllable sink rate and doesn't cause the airplane to balloon. In short I'd describe landing the Cherokee to floating it down to the runway, whereas in the Comanche you have to fly it down. I found I'm quite out of practice in the Comanche technique.

Its also interesting because in the past I've gone far longer between flights in the Comanche then I just did on monday, and still been as sharp as ever because I haven't flown any other type of aircraft. Whereas in this case I last flew the Comanche only a couple weeks ago but I'm as rusty as ever because in the meantime I've been becoming accustomed to the Cherokee style of flying. Its interesting how different airplane types screw with your proficiency. I would also add that I found it easier to go from flying the Comanche to the Cherokee, then the other way around. I greased the landing in my first checkout flight in the Cherokee, but even with 200 hrs in the Comanche and it only having been 2 weeks since I flew it last I find myself rusty.