Not
exactly on point, but this story may give a further insight into Dick's perspective on the world. Coincidentally, the story involves Dick's Caravan and water.
A recent edition of a flying-related magazine contains a story about a ferry flight of Dick's Caravan from the US back to Australia. All the preliminaries to the flight went well, then this:
I [the ferry pilot] lifted off at around 3000 feet, climbing at 100 foot a minute, began a gentle left turn then boom! I had a red light staring me in the face saying 'beta'. Damn – if the prop goes into beta then it is going to be cold dunking here, and a quick one too! For those that don't know what beta does, it is used after landing to twist the propellers into a flatter position thereby acting as a brake. [Then follows a description of the ferry pilot's ensuing mental turmoil and options assessment] Meanwhile, I ran my head around the prop governing system and decided that it had to be physically put into 'beta'. I would keep going … must be a micro switch.
[On arrival at Honolulu] I immediately rang Dick and asked if he knew about this Beta light. He confirmed that he did, that it was a micro switch and had forgotten to tell me about it. …
I wonder how many of you welcome those kinds of surprises, and encourage your colleagues to make their own judgment about putting things on paper.
An interesting aside: the story made some very good points about the difficulty in getting insurance for these kinds of flights. I wonder what the insurance company would have done if the pilot had decided to return to the departure aerodrome, but the aircraft had been damaged as a result difficulties in manoeuvring or landing at MTOW times 2.
Finally, I note that the ferry tanks all have "Dick Smith Foods" labels on them. A message from Dick's PA: Dick says thanks for me tanks, Aussie taxpayers!