> > I had some really cool news the other day. They want me to train to be a tacco (tactical command, or possibly control, or something...) with the Air Patrol and move up to the wildly coveted front seat of the plane. This isn't based on any particular personal attributes of mine, except the fact that I have a radio operator's license, and they're short on people with those. Still, it made me feel really great that they would consider me for it.
> >
> > At the moment I'm an observer. My role is to be the person doing the actual looking, when we're out looking for somebody or something. Also I write down everything that happens, if anything does, with times and such, and do the navigation if the tacco is busy. Oh yeah, and I clean the windows before we take off. Big thrill ;-)
> >
> > The tacco is in charge of the whole flight, apart from the safety and handling of the aircraft, which is the pilot's responsibility. They do all the radio communications, mission planning and conduct, crew brief and debrief, navigation, plotting search patterns or whatever, dropping flares or dye markers, and all that kind of thing, plus doing all the paperwork before and after each flight.
> >
> > The main problem I have with this, though, is that I don't want to do this unless I can also learn at least partially how to fly the plane. (A Cessna 172. It has dual controls.) Every time I've flown, it's been me in the back seat, and a pilot and a tacco in the front seat, and all the taccos seem to have at least some flying time themselves. Most of them are guys in their 40s or more. Maybe I'm a control freak or something, but I can't stand the thought of sitting in the front seat without knowing how to fly the plane myself if the pilot suddenly fell over dead or something. OK, *not* very likely, but that's the way I feel about it :-)
> >
> > Anyway, I'm finding out more about it the weekend after this one, so I'll just have to wait and see what it involves.
> >
> > Brunnen-"trying not to get wild visions of training as a *pilot*, since that will probably lead to disappointment"G
>
> I've said it before and I'll say it again.....No, I've said it too many times already, but you really do.
> Drop a few little hints to the pilot and you could be flying in no time. I'm not a pilot, but I've flown several light aircraft, including a Piper twin engine. Flying is simple. If you can ride a bicycle, flying a Cessna is a snap. Landing is the only thing that takes a little know-how. Basically, you control three things pitch, yaw, and roll. You also have thrust and drag. Pitch is easy. Pull back, the nose rises, push forward and it goes down. Roll is the longitudnal axis. Moving the control left dips the left wing, right dips the right wing. To turn right, roll right and pull back on the control. You can use a little right rudder to help it around. That's the pedal on the right. To gain speed, increase power. This also increases lift, so watch your altimeter. You may need to push the control forward a little to keep from climbing. The opposite is true. If you slow down, a little lift is lost and the plane tends to settle. You can pull back and hold your altitude, but this will slow you even more. Somewhere along about here, you might want to know the stall speed of the plane. This the minimum speed at which you can climb or stay level. If you stall in a light plane such as a Cessna, it's usually no big deal. Just push the control forward and it will gain speed and begin to fly again. High-wing light planes are extremely stable. If you get them flying straight and level, you can take your hands and feet off and they will usually stay right on course for a while. I mentioned thrust and drag. You increase thrust with the throttle. Drag is built in but you can increase it with flaps. The nice thing about flaps is that they also lower your stall speed by increasing lift, and you can fly slower. Landing is simple (I can't believe I said that!). All you have to do is stall the plane at the moment of touchdown. You better ask a pilot about how to do that.
> Congratulations! Grab that offer.
> Howard

Wow! Thanks, Howard. That does sound a lot easier than I thought. I never even went *near* a small plane until this year, so it's always been a complete mystery to me how the things work. Now I *really* want to try it!