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Editorial: Stick and Rudder
By Ed Downs
Does that title sound familiar? For many, the book, Stick and Rudder, written by Wolfgang Langewiesche, appears on nearly every bookshelf of aviators around the world. First published in 1944, this book became the quintessential word on the “art of flying,” stressing the need to develop well-understood skills to be used in controlling the aircraft. Those of us who teach Flight Instructor Refresher Clinics (FIRC’s) are hearing the term “stick and rudder” again, but not in reference to this classic book. This time it comes from the FAA, having added mandated content to approve FIRC curriculums that addresses the subject of “stick and rudder” skills, or more accurately, the lack of such skills. But let me take a step back and explain the issue at hand.
Every CFI must undergo classroom (or today, web-based) training once every 24 calendar months. The course undertaken is approved by the FAA and must contain a specific amount of FAA mandated content. Companies that conduct such courses maintain an FAA approved status, as do their instructors, like this writer. The program (class or web) MUST contain a minimum of 16 hours of actual training, and significant paperwork is involved. Failure to attend a FIRC every two years and pass two written exams means the CFI loses the privilege to instruct. Once a FIRC is missed, the CFI must attend a FIRC and take an FAA check ride to reinstate CFI privileges. Stop and think about it, how many other licensed professions (medical, legal?) have such requirements?
Contrails
Remembering Orion
By Steve Weaver
Steve and the flying school Citabria in 1969. (Courtesy of Steve Weaver)He walked through the office door at the airport on a hot July afternoon in 1969, looking like a farmer in his late fifties that had climbed down off his tractor and come directly to the airport. All of this turned out to be good detecting on my part, because that was exactly what he was and what he had been doing before he took a ride to see us.
Orion as it turned out had something bothering him, and it had been eating at him for almost twenty five years. He had returned from the big war, gotten married, raised a family and become a successful farmer and business man, but this little piece of his past was always there and it still nibbled away at the little secret spot where a person lives, even after all those years. He confessed to me that afternoon, sitting in the big armchair in my office, that he had washed out of the Army Air Corps flight training. Even after a generation, I could still see the regret and the shame in the faded brown eyes.