Question: Your throttle linkage just broke. You’re stuck in climb (or cruise) power. What are your options?
- Bail out.
- A very hot and fast landing.
- Use carb heat, put the wheels down, switch to one mag, lean the mixture, turn on all electrics, trim up a bit for slower speed, climb, and mayday!
- Everything in number 3, but also head for a nice two mile runway, then cut the power over the numbers, and just let it slow down and settle in sweetly.
The answer of course is number 4.
Subject: Short Stuff
Question: What (and where) is the world’s shortest runway (fixed wing, now) with scheduled airline service? (I don’t mean some bush strip in Idaho or a 600 foot mountaintop gash with a 20 degree upslope, like in the 1990 movie Air America!)
- On American Samoa, there is a strip used by amphibious aircraft operated by Polynesian Airlines which extends just 200 feet into a lagoon. (It used to be longer, but a storm changed the local geography. Now it is just used as a taxiway after a normal water landing. Territorial authorities have not officially changed its status from a runway, however.)
- Hooey! Creative writing, that’s all choice (1) is! The REAL ‘shortest runway’ is on Tetiaroa, a coral atoll 26 miles North of Tahiti and owned by the actor Marlon Brando. There is scheduled air service from Papeete. The sand runway is 795 feet long. (You stop in a hurry.)
- On the island of Saba (‘Say-bah’), about 28 miles South of St. Maarten and only 5 square miles in size, there is a runway that is about 1300 feet long.
- none of the above
The answer is number 3.
Subject: Excusez-moi, madame!
Question: The term for the angle that a wing chord line makes with its fuselage is called the angle of incidence. Is there a similar term for the angle of the horizontal stabilizer? If so, what is it?
- Yes there is, and it is simply the negative angle of incidence.
- Yes, sort of. The term is decalage, which is actually the difference in angles of incidence between the wing and horizontal stabilizer.
- No, there is no such word.
- Yes, and the term is decolletage.
The answer is number 2. Decolletage is, um, well… look it up.
