Page 33 - Index

co-pilot side. And parts for that equip- ment are almost impossible to find. An- other sign of age is the fuel control pan- el. Lots of tiny switches with the same white cover and located on the center console such that in order to make any changes, you must take your eyes off the instrument panel for an inordinate amount of time. Plus, you have to be very careful about what changes you make because hitting a couple wrong ones can easily result in the engines shut- ting down due to fuel starvation. Then of course there is the solitary fuel gauge with its rotating selector to tell you how much is in each of the five tanks. Even old piston twin Cessna’s have more fuel gauges than that.
Another quick sign of age is the re- quired paper performance charts. In a jet aircraft, the speeds for takeoff, ap- proach and landing all vary with the aircraft’s weight, runway condition and temperature. Aircraft of more modern vintage have computer systems onboard to calculate these numbers. But those like our old 35’s vintage just has a bunch of charts and tables, all in very small print from which the pilots need to glean the appropriate information. Typically, it is pretty simple because we create our own smaller versions of the tables for the most common conditions. But depart slightly from those, and it is time to dig out the long-eroded 4-inch-thick flight manual and turn to the pages in the back, which often seem thinner than those of an old bible.
Back in the cabin, refurbished uphol- stery may give passengers a false sense that the airplane is not that old, but there are strong hints to the contrary – like when the only baggage area is behind the aft cabin seat. This means every- thing must be boarded through the cabin door and hauled aft along the narrow corridor. The rear seatback then needs to be tilted forward by releasing a hid- den handle that is old engineering even by the standards of a 1955 Chevy. Once all of the baggage and passengers are boarded, then the cabin door itself has to be closed with a most cumbersome locking procedure. It involves lifting the heavy lower door via a T-handle, bringing down the upper one, running a small electric motor controlled tightening de- vice, then throwing the door handle into
the locked position and finally running the locking devices motor backward to release that lock. Pilots avoid being the last to board simply because of the door closing challenge.
And you better hope that after closing the door, none of your passengers decide
they need to make a bathroom trip for the remainder of the four-hour flight. Not an option in these old “plumbing free” jets. Astute passengers know about this and cut back on fluid intake the night before. For the less sophisticated passen- gers, the pilots learn to discreetly have a couple of old plastic coffee containers
October 2018
TWIN & TURBINE • 31