Hey, Citabria, is this true?

[flakbait]

Instrument flying is an unnatural act probably punishable by God.
                                                          — Gordon Baxter

Just wondering  

Flakbait
A man standing in the shadows of giants

[Ozark]

LOL

[Ripsnort]

Who was one of the 'fathers' of instrument flying?

Clue, he also took a B26 on tour in Africa doing various stunts (such as low-level loops with one engine feathered, sorry guys, but according to this General, the flying coffin myth was  simply that, a myth) in front of the airmen to gain their confidence in the B26.

[JimBear]

Gen. James H.(Jimmy)Doolittle   comes to mind

[CavemanJ]

B26?  Thought Doolittle was a 25 driver?

or am I just confused again....

 

[JimBear]

Your not confused CavemanJ, its just that he is best known to alot of people for that particular mission.

"I should have suspected that Doolittle knew
more about the B-26 than he admitted when he said,
"It's just another airplane. Let's start it up and play
with it."
That is exactly what we did. We got in the air and
circled to 6,000 feet, remaining close enough
to the field to reach the runway if we had trouble.
But everything went smoothly.

Doolittle then shut down one of the engines,
feathered the propeller. He got the plane trimmed and
we did some flying on one engine, turning in both
directions, climbing, making steep banks. The
Marauder was a tame bird with Doolittle at the
controls.

Suddenly he put the plane into a dive, built up
excess speed, and put it into a perfect loop—all with
one engine dead. As we came to the bottom of the
loop, he took the dead propeller out of feather and it
started windmilling. When it was turning fast enough,
he flipped on the magnetos and restarted the engine
as we made a low pass over the airfield. We came
around in a normal manner, dropped the gear and the
flaps, and set the B-26 down smoothly on the runway.


The pilots and operations people who had been
watching us were impressed. The flight was an important
start toward convincing them that the B-26 was just
another airplane."

"borrowed" from Jimmy Doolittle



[This message has been edited by JimBear (edited 06-12-2000).]

[Ripsnort]

Thanks for the excerpt, Jim, didn't want to dig my Doolittle biography out.  

That should quell those who say the B26 should fly worse than it does, it *did* require a slightly higher landing speed, but other than that, it was a perfectly safe A/C with a bad reputation.