Hangar9 Piper Pawnee Maiden Flight, Thursday, May 17th, 2012 and a follow-up flight the following day.

By Mark J. Sullivan

 I got this Piper Pawnee from a fellow AMA pilot that lives up in Fort Collins, CO. last Tuesday May 15th, 2012, and got it back here and set up with a 2.4ghz Spektrum AR8000 reciever and flying it with a brand new Spektrum DX7S Transmitter.

Hangar9 Piper Pawnee with an .82 Saito 4 Stroke engine.

 I had Cloyce Mann do the honors of the Maiden flight to trim it out for me, and once he got it settled down some he then handed the radio over to me to try my hand at it some too. What a docile, easy turning flyer it is turning out to be. 

 Cloyce and I both did some low passes, and Mark Putzer got these incredibly great pictures taken of the flight for me.

Cloyce Mann manning the sticks.

What a great looking plane!!!

Next thing we know  it seems like a very awful long flight time and I hand Cloyce back the radio for him to set up his landing approaches and feel that out some for me, so I can learn and observe from a good pilot. 

 Cloyce does the usual......."One more time around" kind of a pass and gets out around to the North and  East end area of the pattern, and right then runs out of fuel, as he got lined up for a low but fast approach.

Now he is committed to land, and has too much speed to bleed off without much headwind to slow it down, and he does a terrific job of a great dead-stick landing not knowing what to expect one way or the other, even tho he had to carry it along the runway as long as he dared to, to bleed off the speed first.

 He finallllllly was able to set down at the West end of the runway heading West towards the tank fence and got it stopped about 12 feet shy of the fence-line without a problem......Thats why he is the seasoned pro and I'm just learning and observing yet still....

Another picture of Mark Putzer's great photography and handiwork!!!

All's well that ends well.....a spectacular Maiden Flight !!!

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Now it is the next morning, Friday, May 18th, 2012 and I am itching for another flight on the Pawnee yet still, so I load up and head to the field about 9AM, and Bill Worthen is there already flying his Ugly Stick, with his usual great success of course.

I prepare the Pawnee and asked Bill to stand by for assistance, in case I need some trimming done, and off we go. It flies extremely well without much of any need for trimming and then time to land.....and I plunked it in a bit harder than it should be done....and learn that it needs a tick of power but not speed to land it smoothly.

Now more flying for Dennis Sporing and Bill Worthen, on Dennis' Telemaster trainer airplane buddy- boxed up, while I check things out on the Pawnee. Of course things are good to go so I simply refuel and fly again....with Bill and Dennis nearby just in case....this time the landing wasn't so bad thankfully.

 Back to the pits and refuel and run another tank of fuel through the engine to help break it in more on the flight stand....so I decide to fly it another time again after Bill and Dennis complete his flying lesson on the buddy box.

Off we go yet again with Bill and Dennis assisting nearby and guess what ?.....as I take off and am trying to gain good altitude and turning onto the outbound leg.....the engine dies and I have to do a tight turn around and a hard, steep nose-dive back to the runway, and flare it out and grease it in.......go figure tho..... a greased landing without power, and when the engine was running I plunk it in hard....GRRRRRR!!!......it is OK though.......no harm and no foul.

Refuel and try it again after Bill had to depart to head back home, and the Pawnee flies like a very docile plane....you just have to carry a click of power, rather than ground speed and it lands like a feather floating down out of the sky.

I had to stop then because I figured I'd used up my daily allotment of luck for one day, and Dennis and I packed up for home.

Someday I hope to be able to do  high climbing stall, rudder-turns and lowwwwwww passes down the runway with the sprayers dusting the crops!!!......HAHAHA!!!