Darcy Philips finished the work on Dave Michelin's Lake amphibian and delivered it to The Flying Circus. The seaplane looked great. It had new paint, windows, interior, instruments and radios. The electrics, hydraulics and engine had been overhauled. According to Dave's instructions to the paint shop, the vertical fin sported a caricature of a tooth with wings. The caption, "The Tooth Ferry" was painted on the rudder. The bill for all the work had come to $70,000.
I spoke to Darcy before he flew back to Derry with one of our Cherokees for an inspection.
"How's it fly now?" I asked enthusiastically.
"Like a whale," he replied.
"Come on, Darcy," I said with a nervous laugh, "Michelin is paying you all that money to fix his airplane and all you can say is that it flies 'like a whale'?"
Darcy drew an impatient breath and said, "If you took an ugly boat, added wings, pontoons and wheels, placed the Statue of Liberty on top and powered it with a 180-horsepower engine pointed backwards, how do you think it would fly?"
"I don't know."
"Like a whale."
"Why did you fix it if it wasn't going to fly any better?"
"Because your customer told me to. Everything works and the airplane looks good but it still flies like a whale."
Darcy departed, leaving me to face Dave on my own. We were scheduled to fly that afternoon. He was in the office when I returned from a lesson with another student. He was holding court on our couch armed with a box of jelly donuts and his bag of weak jokes. His bloodhound Whiskey lay on the floor.
"Why do they name an army knife after a country that hasn't been to war in 500 years?"
"I don't know," Leanne replied.
"Beats me too," Dave said, biting into a rhubarb-cream delight. The donut left a powered sugar ring around his mouth.
"Hey," he said to me between chews, "the airplane looks great! I can't wait to fly it!"
"Just remember Dave, a lot of the overhaul money was spent on things like paint and radios. They won't make the airplane perform any better."
Dave wasn't listening. "I bet she really goes!"
He was going to find out the hard way. "Well, let's try it and see," I said.
"I'll just go to the washroom first," the overweight dentist said, heaving himself off the couch. "You check it over and we'll be right out."
Whiskey followed him to the washroom. I signed the log sheet and went outside.
Illustration by Francois Bougie
"Pull back!" I bellowed into the headset as we barreled down the runway on the takeoff.
"I am!" Dave yelled back.
There was no panic in his shout but there was in mine. The Lake was approaching the 2,000-foot mark on the 5,000-foot runway. We were well beyond the airplane's published rotation point.
"Pull harder!" I barked.
The rpm and manifold pressure gauges indicated we were getting maximum power but the flying boat seemed to be accelerating poorly. At 2,500 feet of runway I was about to call an abort when the nosewheel started to rise.
"Don't let it come up too high!" I yelled.
Dave relaxed some of his back pressure. We rolled along the runway with the nose up for another 1,000 feet. The airspeed indicator advanced slowly. The main wheels finally lifted off. We were flying.
The Lake paused in ground effect. The end of the runway flashed by. I reached over and selected the landing gear lever "up". I could visualize the wheels slowly retracting into the wings and the hull. The "gear up" light came on as we scraped over the fence.
The takeoff seemed all too familiar. I couldn't see any performance gains from Dave's $70,000 renovations. I looked over at him. He was hunched over the control wheel and grinning from ear to ear.
"She's a lot better!" he whooped. "We're really flying!"
It was a $70,000 thing to say.
"I'll turn a bit to miss the trees," he offered.
"Good idea," I yelled in reply.
Whiskey watched ahead as we skimmed over the corn. He was sitting on the rear seats with his front legs on the floor and his head resting on our seat backs. We circled the Circus Airport three times at full power before reaching 2,500 feet. Then we headed to the practice area on the other side of the city. By the time we reached 3,500 feet, we had been airborne ten minutes. My ears were ringing and my head was pounding from the noise.
"Level off," I yelled.
Dave reduced the power but anything less than 25 inches of manifold pressure and 2500 rpm produced a descent.
Our plan had been to review all of the exercises on the Private Pilot Flight Test. It didn't take long. The Lake's lack of performance simplified everything. Dave had been holding the best rate of climb speed throughout our climbs, descents and turns so we had already covered exercises one to eleven. That left stalls, circuits, forced approaches and navigation.
We had done a briefing on stalls. When we were ready, Dave moved the prop lever to full fine and reduced the manifold pressure with the throttle. With less thrust from the high-mounted engine, the Lake pitched its nose up. The airspeed dropped. The airplane started to descend. Dave raised the nose further. The gear-up horn sounded and the descent increased. Dave pulled the control wheel all the way back. The Lake stayed in a nose up attitude. It was rock solid. There was no buffet, pitch or wing drop. The rate of descent was the only clue that we were stalled.
"It won't stall," Dave yelled over the blaring horn.
I pointed to the vertical speed indicator. It read 1,500 feet per minute, down.
"Oh!" Dave exclaimed.
He pitched the nose down. Whiskey's ears and jowls floated up in momentary zero gravity. The rate of descent pegged at 2,000 feet per minute. Dave added power. The nose tucked down further. The new windshield was filled with green fields and no sky. Our ten minutes worth of altitude was gone. Dave pulled back on the control wheel and leveled off. I wondered if donut-filled bloodhounds got airsick.
"Shall I do another one?" Dave asked.
I shook my head back and forth. "There aren't enough hours in the day to climb back up," I replied. "Let's go to the airport and fly some circuits."
"Good stuff," he said.
The Lake's brick-like performance had not dampened his enthusiasm.
We approached the airport at 1,000 feet above ground.
"Simulate a forced approach," I yelled. "When you think you're close enough to the runway to glide from this altitude, reduce the power."
"Okay."
On the base leg, the air traffic controller cleared us for a stop and go landing with a backtrack in between. Dave was a quick study. He continued in cruise flight with the power on. He turned on the final leg a mile back. We were still at 1,000 feet. The beginning of the runway disappeared under the low sloping nose of the airplane. I looked at Dave.
Illustration by Francois Bougie
"I can't miss with this baby," he said with a grin.
We were too high and tight to make the runway with any other airplane. Dave cut the power. The nose pitched up, the speed dropped and the "gear up" horn blared. He pushed the nose down until we were pointed at the beginning of the runway and lowered the landing gear. From outside, it must have look like we had been shot.
"Everything okay there, Delta Uniform Delta?" the controller asked.
Dave punched the microphone button on his control wheel.
"Just fine," he replied. Then he said to me, "I'm going to win every spot landing contest I can find with this thing!"
Dave held enough airspeed to allow him to flare out without power. As soon as he pulled the nose up, the Lake dropped on the runway - on the numbers. We were stopped before the 1,000-foot mark.
While taxiing back to the beginning of the runway, I said, "Let's try a short field takeoff: half flap and full power before brake release."
"Okay."
Dave extended the flaps and applied full fine pitch and maximum power. He looked at me. I gave him the nod. He released the brakes. The roar of the engine promised thrust but the Lake was accelerating as quickly as a three-legged horse.
At the 2,000-foot mark, all three wheels were still on the ground. At 2,500 feet down the runway, the nosewheel started to rise.
"Remember, don't let it come up too high!" I yelled.
I looked at the airspeed. We were going slower at this point of the takeoff than before but we were lifting off at the same distance along the runway. One thousand feet later we were airborne but the Lake refused to climb. The end of the runway flashed by. I reached over and selected the landing gear lever "up". The "gear up" light came on just as we flew over the fence.
"Hey, that was better," Dave yelled enthusiastically. "I'll turn a bit to miss the trees."
The man was an optimist.
We didn't bother to climb to 1,000 feet to circle around for the landing. I told Dave to ask the controller for a full stop.
"Try a short field landing with full flap," I said.
"Okay."
On the base leg, Dave reduced the power. The nose pitched up and the speed dropped. He lowered the flap, extended the landing gear and pushed the nose down. He had to reapply nearly full power to make it to the runway. We crossed the edge of the asphalt at less than five feet up. Dave cut the power. The nose pitched up and the airplane dropped on the numbers. Dave pulled the control wheel back and applied the brakes. We stopped by the 1,000-foot mark.
"That's great!" Dave boomed.
"Taxi in," I said. "We have one more thing to do before we fly up north for water landings."
"What's that?"
"You'll see."
We parked on The Flying Circus ramp and shut down. Dave hauled Whiskey over the edge of the Lake's doorsill. I pushed the whale into the hangar. In the office, I went to the closet and pulled out our cargo scales while Leanne filled in Dave's bill. One of the requirements for The Flying Circus charter licence was to have a baggage scale. Ours came from Henry and Leanne's bathroom.
"What's that for?" Dave asked. He was already suspicious.
"I have a theory about why the Tooth Ferry's performance is so marginal," I said.
I placed the scale on the floor and climbed on.
"Two hundred and five pounds. Now you said that you weighed 235. With a 1700-pound empty weight, three quarters fuel at 180 pounds and 80 pounds for the dog that would put the Lake at a gross weight of 2,400 pounds. The airplane should perform better than it does. How about checking your weight?"
"Well I might be a little more," he said. He stepped back to distance himself from the scales. "But I was planning to start a diet."
"Me too," I said. "I'll challenge you. I'll bet that I can lose more weight in a month than you can but to start the contest, you have to get on the scales."
"What's the bet?" he asked with a chuckle.
"I don't know," I said. "We'll think of something."
"I belong to the Rotary Club," Dave offered. "The loser goes in the dunk tank at the Rotary Charity Fair next month."
"You're on," I said extending my hand.
Dave stepped forward and shook my hand.
"We'll start with today's weight," I said.
I held his handshake and tried to pull him to the scale. He wouldn't budge. With his free hand he reached down and picked the scale up.
"We'll let Leanne be the official judge," he said with a grin, "on the condition that she doesn't tell anyone the numbers."
He walked around the end of the flight desk, placed the scale beside Leanne's chair and climbed on. Leanne bent down to read the number. When she came up, her eyes were a lot bigger.
"Remember," Dave said to her, "this is our secret."
"How much, Leanne?" I asked.
"I can't tell you," she answered firmly.
"That's my girl," Dave boomed.
"Well, the number must have been under 300 pounds," I declared.
Leanne gave me a negative stare.
"Just as I thought," I said, "over 300 pounds. When you said 235, you meant 335. The dog probably goes 100 more pounds and the aircraft empty weight is out-of-date. We've been flying the Lake well over gross. I'll book you a trip up north for next week to finish your checkout but in the meantime it's carrots, cabbage and water for you and Whiskey."
"Whiskey and I don't like carrots," Dave said in a wounded voice.
"That's even better. Just chew them for a while and then spit them out."
