Page 9 - Dec23T

cozy and purposeful, with a metal instrument panel, sturdy switches, and dials – more sports car-like than the Navajo. The mid-wing design placed the engines at eye level. On hot evenings, I would open the top of the clamshell entry door while taxiing, and the spinning prop would be mere feet from my face. Electric nosewheel steering activated by a panel-mounted rocker switch and some differential braking took some practice getting to the runway. When cleared for takeoff and bringing up the power levers, those Lycoming IO-540s would come alive, and it was off to the races. Al- though the 600s we operated were normally aspirated and nonpressurized, it was always a fast climb out, and I would quickly settle into a 200-knot cruise speed. Since I was flying in such a small radius, it became an exercise in checklists, navigating, frequency changes, ATIS and preparing for the next arrival and approach. I was doing it all alone in the darkness with a bag of NOS Charts and a kneeboard as my only companions. In the summertime, my workload also included manning the radar and Stormscope while avoid- ing thunderstorms. Come wintertime; it was keeping the windshield clear with my hot plate while activating the leading edge boots as necessary and flinching every time the heated props would fling ice into the fuselage. Needless to say, I was a busy young man, and as the months went on, I fell into a satisfying high-level routine that became a point of pride.
As I became more proficient, I was able to relax and take in the enjoyment of flying this little speed machine. It was, without a doubt, a pilot’s airplane. When I first started nighttime check hauling, a wise and experienced aviator suggested that to avoid nodding off during the long nights, I should hand fly the airplane – and hand fly I did. The Aerostar was an excellent platform for hand flying, and I can count on one hand the number of times I used the autopilot in the 18 months I flew checks.
When Ted Smith designed the Aerostar in the 1960s, he envisioned the series to become pressurized and eventu- ally powered by wing-mounted turbojet engines. With this forward-looking vision, Mr. Smith designed some very robust systems around a sleek airframe. Rather than using pulleys and cables for the flight controls, Smith used torque tubes, which provided a smooth, jet-like feel and made it one of the best f lying airplanes I’ve ever f lown. I could consis- tently grease on my landings, not because of my superior skill but because I had such fine elevator control designed into the aircraft.
Now is a good time to address the myth that the Aerostar is dangerous. The fact is that when flown by the book, it was as safe as any of its competitors. The trick was to be thoroughly knowledgeable of the POH and fly it as certi- fied. Ted Smith designed it to fly in the flight levels leaving contrails, so it had higher wing loading than its contempo- raries. This high wing loading made it handle turbulence better, but the downside was that it was less forgiving at slow speeds with a more pronounced stall entry. Being vigilant whenever the aircraft was below 100 knots on takeoff or landing became critical. When there was enough runway,
Preferred
https://factorydirect.com
Factory Direct
https://factorydirect.com
December 2023 / TWIN & TURBINE • 7