Having been through this preliminary patter, and flying at 2,000ft, I agreed with K. on a space we could land in, asking him to note with very particular care precisely what our position was, in terms of our height, airspeed, course and exact point above the ground. I then closed the throttle and carried on to demonstrate the perfect (or as perfect as my skills could make it) descent and approach. We then climbed back again to exactly where I had closed the throttle, flying at exactly the same height, airspeed and all the rest, and once again closed the throttle with K. at the controls. He did as he had been shown – surplus airspeed into height, instrument check, correct gliding speed and S-turns towards the leeward side of the field we had chosen. He undershot by miles! No way could he have made it over the hedge of that particular landing spot.


‘Never mind.’ I told him. ‘Back up to the same spot and try again.’ He did, and again he undershot by the same margin as the last time. ‘Right’, I said, ‘Let me show you once more. And we climbed again to exactly the same altitude and the same location, I closed the throttle, and showed how easy it was to reach the field in the proper way. K. tried a third time. He undershot. ‘Let’s give it up for today,’ I said. ‘Things may be better tomorrow’. A subdued K. was a most attentive pupil for some time after that experience. So, how was it done? The Harvard has a variable pitch propeller, which means that the propeller blades can be turned so that their leading edges face more into the wind in ‘coarse’ pitch, and are flatter to the wind in ‘fine’ pitch. Take-offs are done in fine pitch, so that the engine can rotate the propeller


at maximum revolutions whilst forward speed is low, and cruising is achieved at coarser pitch as speed builds up. Fine pitch has to be selected by the pilot not only for take-off but for the last bit of the landing approach, so that if the engine has to be opened up suddenly to climb away and make another approach, the maximum revs on the engine are available for full power to be delivered to the propeller. However, on the gliding descent for a forced landing, it is essential to achieve the lowest rate of descent and the longest possible glide, so coarse pitch is chosen to present the least possible air resistance from the unpowered propeller. Just before the final landing approach, fine pitch must be selected before the throttle is opened to climb away again. What I had done was quite simple. K. had properly selected coarse pitch at the beginning of his descents. Unknown to him, I had then carefully pulled back the pitch control to ‘fine’, leaving it there until just before he would himself have selected ‘fine’ for the climb away. With pitch in fine from 2,000 feet down, K. had no chance whatsoever of duplicating the gliding descents I had made in coarse pitch. I never told him.


I have called this pupil ‘K’ for a good reason. Gwelo, with its white civil 67


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