Sam said, > "Moral of the story............... Fly a tri-gear."
I don't know if flying a tri-gear is the moral of the story, however it surely does make ground handling more comfortable since you can see things better and are sitting in a level, more natural, attitude. I was amazed the first time I flew a KR tri-gear (Jim Morehead's plane) how effortless it was to handle on the ground and to land. I think once a person is comfortable with conventional gear, all landings - whether tri-gear or not - are made exactly the same. Stick full back, as close to the stall as possible. Full attention to the rudder. Tailwheel or tri-gear, exactly the same procedure. Having a nose gear should make landings uneventful and a pleasure . . . instead of the white-knuckle experience it is for most people who are doing their first landings in a tailwheel KR. Still though, tri-gear landings go bad. Guys hit their nose gears on touchdown and bend or break them . . . a consequence of coming in much too fast and trying to force the plane onto the runway. Tailwheel training should help/prevent that from ever happening. If I were ruler of the world I would make it mandatory that pilots do their first few hours in a conventional gear aircraft. They would from then on instinctively land whatever plane they might be flying as if it had a tailwheel. I think I would also mandate (as ruler of the world) that all student pilots get at least a couple hours in a glider. Re Jim's plane, as effortless as it was to land, he and his instructor still wound up off the runway upside down - at the very same airport where I had done the first flights with his plane. Jim had utterly no feel for flying. Some people don't. Some people shouldn't. Jim some of us may not know, has passed away. Not as a result of flipping his KR but rather a result of allowing a surgeon to do a knee replacement while Jim had a slight infection on his arm. The surgeon didn't want to change his schedule and dismissed the arm infection as inconsequential. Minor infection or not, once the surgical procedure was done the infection headed straight for the knee incisions and turned into MRSA which prevented the procedure from ever healing. Jim and his wife Rae went through several years of what was one horror after another as the doctors tried to get rid of the infection and get the new knee to heal. They even re-did the replacement with another knee, with no success. They removed the knee replacements completely in a last-ditch effort to give Jim at least some freedom of movement . . .tried to get the upper leg bone to bond with the lower leg bone. That would have left Jim walking like Chester on Gunsmoke, but even that wouldn't heal. I'm mentioning this to remind any and all of us to never do any surgical procedure if there is the slightest infection anywhere in/on the body. Jim was one of the healthiest-looking guys you can imagine. He was slender and without any bad habits - no hypertension, no diabetes, no nothing . . . just a calm, healthy guy who let a doctor do something that should have been postponed. Rae was equally healthy and was an energetic, optimistic woman who only allowed healthy food in the house. (I stayed with them for three days). Taking care of Jim once the trouble started had worn her down to a shadow of who she once was. Jim and Rae drove from Cameron Park to McMinnville for our fly-in and they barely resembled the healthy people I had met several years earlier when we did the first flights on his beautifully-built KR. Sorry to bring this bit of misfortune into this conversation but perhaps mentioning what happened to Jim, and how it happened, may save someone on the list from making a similar mistake . . . a reminder of how easy it can be to turn our world utterly upside down and over. In this case the mistake was being too nice. They didn't want to inconvenience the surgeon. This is also a reminder that hospitals and clinics and all places which cater to people with medical problems are ground zero for virus' and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Mike KSEE ____________________________________________________________ Sponsored by https://www.newser.com/?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_taglines_more Former Top Aide to LaPierre Rips NRA http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5f5165fa282465f954c9st04vuc1 Market Just Had Its Worst Day in Weeks http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5f5165fa2348665f954c9st04vuc2 'Green Drone' Drops Hundreds of Bags of Pot on City http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5f5165fa447f665f954c9st04vuc3 _______________________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. Please see LIST RULES and KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html. see http://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet_list.krnet.org to change options. To UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to [email protected]
