Goodspeed T. Beiler, GS to family and close friends, of which he could count on one paw, closed his eyes. The roar of the wind and engine faded away to a distance thrum, he just floated for a few blissful moments.
The harness over his shoulders pulled tight as the two seater Stearman 73 biplane started to drop. GS opened his eyes, gritted his teeth and with his left paw he yanked the control stick to the left while standing on the left rudder pedal, pushing it to the firewall. The aircraft’s nose pointed nearly straight up thousands of feet off the ground. With its wings fully stalled the bi-plane wanted to drop to the left due to the air dynamics of propeller and torque effect of the engine.
With the wings stalled, and the controls all jammed to the left, the aircraft rolled over on its left wings and the nose went from pointing nearly straight up to almost straight down, rolling around its vertical axes. From Goodspeed’s perspective, the world outside flipped on its head and started spin into a blur. He had the smallest of grins as he held the stick and rudder hard to the left as the plane corkscrewed towards the ground.
The aircraft spun in a counterclockwise corkscrew, looking like it was going to nosedive into the ground, then erupt in a fireball. Goodspeed, strapped in the cockpit, without a parachute, didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. He only raising an eyebrow when the fuel starved 9-cylinder Lycoming R680 radial engine stopped running due to the centrifugal forcethat pulled all the fuel to one side and unable to fuel the carburetors.
With the engine dead, GS pulled the throttle closed and let the flight controls come back to their neutral position. The spin slowed, the world outside and the rapidly approaching ground become not such a blur. GS put in a bit of opposite rudder to the spin and pulled back on the stick. The spin stopped completely and the nose of the aircraft went from nearly straight down to almost level with the horizon.
At less than 800 feet from the ground and still dropping, the propeller spun in the wind. GS reacted calmly, as if he was just practicing on the ground. He pushed the fuel mixture knob, located next to the throttle to full rich. Then he opened the throttle about 10%, pulled the choke and pressed the starter button on the mahogany dash. The propeller started to spin faster. The two-hundred ten horsepower engine coughed, sputtered, and fired to life. GS checked as the RPMs came up and the oil pressure read in the green.
He pushed the throttle forward, leveled off and turned toward the dirt and gravel runway. A few minutes later he touched down on the two front landing gear wheels with only the slightest of jolts. He taxied to the open hanger where two humans waited. One of them smoked a cigarette and was as relaxed as can be. The other human, the slenderred-haired aircraft salesman, was as white as a match stick and looked as if he was about to either have a heart attack, or spontaneously combust. GS taxied the Stearman to a stop next to them, then closed the throttle, pulled the mixture knob all the way back/lean until the engine stopped and switched off everything else off.
GS unbuckled his harness and lifted himself out of the cockpit, then leaned against the aircraft fuselage as he lit a cigarette of his own. The aircraft salesman’s face changed from white to scarlet. He charged towards Goodspeed, “ YOU FUCKING CRAZY MUTT I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN LET A … A DOG FLY ONE OF MY PLANES!! WHAT THE HELL YOU THINK YOURE DOING? WE DONT DO THAT BARN STORMING BS AROUND HERE! I’LL HAVE YOUR HIDE!!”
The salesman brought back a fist to punch the canine right in the nose. He was suddenly grabbed from behind by his shirt collar and his raised arm. Burt, an aviator in World War One, the “Great War”, and one of Goodspeed’s flight instructors and one of his very few friends, held the salesman back with little effort. Burt wasn’t a big human but he was strong and wiry, and was considered very handsome in his day. The burns that scarred the left side of his face and body from a fiery landing of his own during the war, only slightly diminished that.
Burt ignored the complaints and insults from the flailing salesman and held the man’s collar. Burt turned to GS, “ What do you think?” GS didn’t appear insulted by the salesman, casually took a drag off his cigarette then blew out the smoke. He looked at the aircraft, then nodded, tossed the cigarette away from the aircraft and walked towards Burt’s model A sedan.
Burt pushed the salesman forward causing him to stumble a few steps, but caught his balance and teetered a moment just narrowly avoiding a face plant into the dirt. The salesman turned angrily and was about to unleash another string of insults as Burt slapped a heavy envelope into the angry man’s right hand.
The salesman blinked a few times, looked down at the envelope, then back at Burt then back at the envelope. He opened it. The envelope was completely full of one-hundred dollar bills. His lips moved but no sound came out.
Burt paused and lit another cigarette before saying, “Have it fueled up and ready by tomorrow morning, send two extra engines to the address on the back..You think you can handle that?”
The slack-jawed salesman stared at the envelope. There was enough money there to easily cover the asking price of the aircraft and half as much again. He looked up and nodded. “Umm yes sir, we will have it ready first thing in the morning, full of fuel, washed, cleaned everything checked over and I’ll personally make sure we send two crate engines on the next train. Should be to you within a week or two.”
Burt simply nodded at Goodspeed, turned and walked to the car.
What a luxury airplane. It has a starter! Back in the old days you had to hand crank the prop and/or let the airstream do the job - if its windmilling its also gonna be running if it has compression, air and fuel, no biggie.
Then again, I'm pretty certain he'd have landed her fine even if the engine had not come back to life. All aircraft glide - even F16s have been landed engine out. But I'm not so certain it'd have been a sale then ;)
What a luxury airplane. It has a starter! Back in the old days you had to hand crank the prop and/or
