<font color=blue>Wot is that bird???</font color=blue>
C-STOL = Controlled Short Take Off & Landing. The Helio Courier of the '60s and '70s was a six place fairly ordinary looking tail dragger with the front landing gear positioned pretty far forward, Lycoming engine, crosswind landing gear was an option (and was on the plane we experimented with). It was a metal skinned plane and the most unusual feature was slats in the leading edge of the wings that extended out several inches on two rods. Those slats added tremendously to the lift, so you could take off and/or land at about 30 mph and you had fully controllable flight at 28 mph. When you reached 50 mph, they slid back into the wing with a bit of a "clang" so it was an ordinary looking fixed wing. When you dropped below 50 mph, they slid back forward of the wing. So with fully controllable flight at 28 mph, when the wind was blowing one day at about 35 mph, I flew it backwards across the airport. And you could really do some tight turns at slow speeds. With the landing gear so far forward, you could stand on the brakes very hard and not nose over, so with the combination of slow speed and hard braking, it was truly amazing when you saw the distances required to take off or land. They had pictures of one taking off and landing on a pier in New York City, and on a double tennis court somewhere. The one we had for awhile was not supercharged, so it had a cruising speed of about 164 mph, top 184. The supercharged ones would do 210 mph.
What am I typing so much for/w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif? Take a look at one at
and <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.heliocourier.net>this link/ and several other places on the Internet. Truly amazing aircraft, used by the military for surveillance and recon, used by Alaskan bush pilots, etc.
<font color=blue>Were you a flyboy in (I hate to say it) your younger days??</font color=blue>
I've never had a license/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif, but in late '73 and early '74, I was Commander of the Helicopter Section of the Police Department. We had 8 Bell 47s and a DeHavilland Beaver, and a salesman trying to sell us a Helio Courier./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I had studied the Jeppeson books and had two of my instructors giving me lessons and was about ready to go take the tests when I transferred to a different job, so never finished. So no license, and a long ways from being a pilot, but I've been at the controls of the Helio Courier, Cessna 152, and Bell 47 helicopters a few times (but always with a good pilot sitting next to me). One of the most fun trips I ever made was flying a new 152 from the factory in Kansas to Alaska (both brothers are pilots and one was selling airplanes in Anchorage back then so I went with him when he came after a new one he was selling to a flight school). Can't you tell I'm not a pilot; I still like to talk in miles per hour, not knots./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
