AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2011 - 66

The good news is that the brakes are not strong or grabby and you don’t have to worry about causing a nose-over.
Pushing the throttle of the Pratt & Whitney radial unleashes a thundering crescendo of power that urged the lightly loaded Bellanca to climb eagerly into the warm Hawaiian trade winds. The airplane is loud, and noisecancelling headsets are a must, which makes one wonder how pioneer pilots ever managed to salvage any of their hearing. The airplane is noisy from the outside, too. Hawaiian Airlines produced a video that shows one of its new Airbus A330-200s flying slowly past the divingat-full-power Bellanca. The Airbus pilots reported that they could actually hear the Bellanca from inside their soundproofed cockpit. (The Hawaiian Airlines’ logo emblazoned on the tails of their jetliners is called Pualani, a female name that loosely translated means “flower of the sky.”) Although the Bellanca has six seats, it rarely is flown with that many people because this can cause the pilot to run out of nose-down trim. The trim crank is on the cockpit ceiling and is reminiscent of the trim handle found in some of the older Piper aircraft in which you always had to first think about which way to turn the handle. There was nothing intuitive about it. Dunkerley advised me to “just crank it, and if that happens to be in the wrong direction, quickly trim it the other way.” (When looking up at the cockpit ceiling, a clockwise rotation of the handle provides nose-up trim, and vice versa.) There is no placard to offer assistance as there are in Piper aircraft. Even when in trim, stick forces in the Bellanca are heavier than in a Stearman but the airplane exhibits about as much adverse yaw. Adroit use of rudder is needed to prevent slipping and skidding. The Pacemaker also is a bit slow to respond in roll, probably because of the significant roll damping imposed by its large wings. The Bellanca’s nose doesn’t pitch down much during a stall. The airplane simply descends in a relatively
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nose-high, mushing attitude while the control stick is held fully aft. There is some rolling tendency, but the rudder easily keeps this in check. The recommended method of approach for landing is to come in high and with the nose down. A flat, nosehigh, power-on approach makes it difficult to see over the nose, and a slip is needed to keep the runway in sight. Dunkerley recommends 80 mph on final and 70 mph over the fence. Following my offshore air work near Koko Head Crater, we flew to Kalaeloa, a joint-use airport on the south shore of Oahu where I had an opportunity to make a series of stop-and-go landings. General aviation pilots have been allowed to use this Coast Guard facility ever since Ford Island was closed as an airport in 1999. We then returned to Honolulu International where I observed with renewed amazement the ability of air traffic controllers there to seamlessly blend an extraordinary mix of traffic. At any given time there can be students in the traffic pattern, military fighters, an incessant stream of airline traffic, and perhaps a fatigued GA pilot approaching the airport at the end of a long and lonely ferry flight from California. The Bellanca is now used to take aloft every Hawaiian Airlines’ employee and retiree who so desires. “This is a very popular program. So far, the Bellanca has given rides to almost 500 of our people, and they are encouraged to invite family members and friends to come along,” Dunkerley says. Some employees never know before their flights that their captain might be the company CEO. “I enjoy operating some of these sightseeing flights. It is a genuine privilege for me to take our people for rides over Oahu.” He then adds, “We don’t just celebrate history here; we fly it.” Visit the author’s website (www.barry schiff.com).

66 • MAY

2011

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2011

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