The Adventures of a Lifetime Student Pilot (Tale #2)
I lost touch with Frenchy after he went to the hospital with a perforated digestive tract.

Being a 17 year old student pilot and not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, I continued building my solo time at Entis Sky Ranch. This small single-sod-strip airport had been cut out of the tall Washington state forest near the town of Spanaway. One end of the strip had a farm fence and open fields beyond, but about 200 feet down the strip from that fence the runway had a nasty 5 foot drop before continuing on level ground to the other end, I would guess around 2500 feet, where it ended at a corn field cut through the tall trees for another few hundred feet.

Why do I bore you with these details? Stay tuned 'cause they play a part in future tales! One of the emergency rules drilled into our heads in ground-school was what to do if the engine quits and all you see below is forest. We were told to pick out two tall trees and glide between them! We saw that demonstrated recently, didn't we!

As you know, landing a tail-dragger requires a flair at near stall speed just before touch-down. Two-wheel landings were not allowed. Coining in clean-and-green over that fence was easy, but just about the time I had that T-Craft flaired for touch-down, that dang dip in the runway had me still too high in the sky. Only once did I fail to hit the throttle in time and grease her back onto the runway. That time she dropped hard on the left gear and limped like a gimp during taxi.

One day, a 19 year old "Airport Kid" asked me if I'd ever done any aerobatics. My answer was "no, not yet". This guy was my age and had more than enough time in his logbook to qualify for CFI but if my foggy memory serves me right, it seems that the age-factor was keeping Him from it. He offered to take me up in the PT- 19 and "wring her out" if I'd pay for the tach-time. I said okay and he signed us out and grabbed a seat-pack parachute out of the ready-room. Since he couldn’t't find the second chute, he assumed it had been left in the plane. It wasn't.

Undaunted, he tossed some cushions out of the front cockpit to me and we climbed in and lit the fire (didn't even kick a tire) he told me that we would not be doing spins, since the long nose on that PT-19 gave it a tendency to drop into a "flat-spin" which I am told, few pilots have been able to brag about.

Shortly after take-off we did our first snap-roll. Sitting down low in that bucket seat with no parachute pack under my butt and a ratty old seat-belt that I was unable to adjust, due to rust, gave me plenty of reason to trust. That was when my head hit the canopy. Fortunately the canopy latch held and I missed my first opportunity to do a free-fall without a parachute [but that's another story].

Well Folks, we wrung her out! Snap-rolls, loop-the-loop where all the dirt on the floor fills the canopy and your eyes, and every other maneuver except spins and hammerhead stalls. All in all, it was a thrilling experience. I felt no fear then [too young] but have yet to do it again. At age 73, it looks like I won't.

Ted Bender