Pardon my interruption, but I wanted to say a few words about Mr. Phillips:
My introduction to power-on stalls took place in 1976 during my second flying lesson. My flight instructor, a fine gentleman with 28,000+ P.I.C. hours, had asked me to climb to 4,000 feet and maintain level cruise at that altitude. As I was taking in the wonder of it all, my instructor placed his left hand on my right knee and began to lightly guide that hand toward my meat and two veg! Oh NO! I am trapped above the Earth with no ‘chute! What I failed to realize was that while he distracted me, my instructor had been applying increasing back pressure to his control yoke. We were in an ever-steepening climb.
Just as his hand reached my upper thigh, our wing lost lift and our 152 surrendered to the inexorable force of gravity. We plummeted two hundred feet and made a gentle recovery. My instructor said: “One day, you’ll be flying along with a pretty girl who will put her hand on your thigh just like I did. Pay attention to the aircraft; not her! Remember:
Pull Back to go
Up,
Pull further Back to go
DOWN!”
We were just inland of the Atlantic Ocean, cruising nearly a mile above a large cattle farm. He asked me to initiate a stall, and, against all instincts for self-preservation, I did. Pre-stall buffet shook the aircraft as the stall warning horn blared. We stalled. The windshield was full of green pasture and a number of brown Golden Guernsey cows who seemed not the least bit interested at our less-than-spectacular aerobatic exhibition. My instructor laughed and said: “See? Pull back to make the cows smaller. Pull further back to see the cows getting bigger!”
Though I never knew Dave Phillips, every time I saw his moniker it made me smile, for it caused a flood of clear and pleasant memories. May his cows vanish to tiny points of spectral starlight, but when he wants a gulp of fresh milk may he alight softly by their warm sides....
- Ed
