Posted on April 6, 2012 by Kerry McCauleyZero Gravity There are an infinite number of lessons a pilot can learn about flying airplanes. Some of them are basic and covered by his or her instructor in flight school, some can be picked up hanging around the airport and some are learned the hard way. If you’re lucky you can survive the hard ones and live to pass them on to others. I’ve never been one to follow rules if I can get away with breaking them. I guess I’ve always thought that most rules were made to keep people that weren’t as good as I was from hurting themselves. After I made my first solo my instructor told me that I was cleared to fly by myself even if he wasn’t at the airport so long as I remained in the pattern. Well me being me the first thing I did was go out the next day when my instructor wasn’t there, hop in the mighty Cessna 152 and take off for the wild blue yonder. I was sure that the restriction to remain in the pattern was a good idea for most new pilots but rather silly for a great pilot such as myself. I flew about ten miles away from the airport and proceeded to let my inner fighter pilot out. I did steep turns, stalls and wing overs. I was finally free to fly like I always knew I could. Having a blast and wanting more I decided to push the nose over hard and do a little zero gravity. Things went well for about two seconds until I floated out of my seat and into the yoke. I did have my seat belt on but had it very loose not thinking about the ramifications of zero gravity. With my chest resting on the yoke I was unable to pull out of the dive and the ground started coming up fast. In a panic Thinking quickly I pushed myself away from the yoke with one hand and pulled out of the dive with the other. A little shaken and thoroughly humbled I flew back to the airport just a little more experienced than when I left. I thought I’d learned the main lesson about doing zero gravity in an airplane, always tighten your seat belt first, until years later when a mechanic told me about a plane that had crashed after a loose nut in the belly had become jammed in the elevator cable after doing the maneuver. Since then I’ve found a lot of loose screws, nuts and all kinds of junk in the belly of planes I’ve worked on. Yesterday while cleaning under the floor boards of Black Betty I found so much loose junk that I was amazed that nothing had ever gotten jammed in the maze of cables and pulleys that ran under there. All that being said doing zero gravity can still be a lot of fun. Share this:FacebookRedditTwitterTumblrPinterestEmail
