Flying with Tres

Well, all I can say is “Wow!” Tres wanted to fly the Super Cub yesterday afternoon to get current after being in Kuwait for almost a year. He needed a Flight Review as well. We headed over to a nearby grass runway that I use for training and asked him to do a three point landing. That’s when the fun began. The approach was great, speed was right, flaps set, carb heat on. As he entered the flare, I noticed the airplane was still 10 feet in the air. I waited for the synapses to fire in his brain and the correction to happen. As we lost energy, still at 10 feet with no obvious awareness from the PIC, I mildly suggested “ADD POWER NOW!”. Belatedly, doing his best imitation of Ray Charles, he recognized that we were still well above the surface of the cow pasture, rapidly running out of airspeed and ideas. Slowly the power came up, the airplane began to settle and then hung on the edge of a stall before finally giving up in exasperation and falling a couple of feet to the earth. “Well, that was certainly interesting.” I commented. The expression on his face was priceless. Think of a rooster looking at a card trick.

We reset the flaps, checked that all the parts were still attached and took off for another try. What followed were 6 excellent landings. While he thinks it was that he never really lost the touch, I believe it was superior instruction, but whatever, he had the Super Cub dialed in. We decided to return to Burnet for a couple of short field landings. Once again thinking all was right with the world, our young instructor totally confuses an Air Ambulance helicopter pilot by reporting that we were nearby when, in fact, we were about 20 miles away at a different airport. Oh Well, welcome home Tres!