Tricks of the Trade

Between pilots and their airplanes are secrets that no groundling can ever know. Each airplane has special tricks and foibles, and the pilot who fails to seek them out and test them will one day discover them in time of peril, and perhaps too late. Each pilot, for his part, learns that the well-designed airplane is more forgiving of his own tricks, foibles and lapses of good sense than he has a right to dream. Last week a great airplane's tricks met piloting foibles in a combination that was a heroic test of both sides, almost with a happy ending. Almost--but not quite.

The airplane was a brand-new model of the four-jet Boeing 707, the first 707 destined for Braniff International Airways. Its special trick, as Boeing Test Pilot Russel H. Baum, 32, was trying to demonstrate to veteran Braniff Pilot Jack Berke, 49, was its eccentric reaction to an excessive sidewise skid, or yaw. Skid her too far one way or the other, he explained, and she will flip over.*At 12,000 feet over Seattle's suburbs, Pilot Berke, flying slowly with flaps down 40 degrees, tried to get the feel of impending trouble by kicking right rudder and putting the jetliner into a flat right skid.

Barrel Roll. Details of what happened next would have to await a Civil Aeronautics Board investigation. It may have been that Berke failed to correct with his left rudder in time, or inadvertently applied more right. The 707 flipped on its back. The gut-pounding stress was too much for the 248,000-lb. plane, and ordinarily the wings might have torn loose. But the 707 was designed to lose its engines under such strain, rather than its wings--and three engines ripped loose, plummeted to earth.

Quickly Pilot Baum took over, told Berke to help him roll the giant plane back to the left. The 707 came up straight and level, then rolled beyond to the left. With only the right inboard engine remaining, Pilot Baum thought fast, decided that he lacked the power to roll the plane back to the right, so, taking advantage of the momentum, turned the airliner into a maneuver for which it was never intended--a barrel roll. Under Baum's practiced hand, the huge 707 went through its full roll till finally it was right side up again, flying straight and level.

Beyond Endurance. Just then fire spouted from the severed fuel lines where engine No. 2 had torn loose. Baum knew he had only seconds to get his plane down before his fuel exploded. He could not raise his flaps or lower his wheels, for the loss of three power plants had disrupted the hydraulic and electrical systems. As Baum headed for a pasture. Flight Engineer George Hagen worked to get the flaps and landing gear back in operation. Boeing Pilot William Allsop, two Braniff men and a representative from the Federal Aviation Agency headed aft to take seats near the rear of the plane; another

Braniff man, Pilot Frank Staley, grabbed a seat near the front. Baum made a couple of descending spirals, wove between hills near the town of Oso. He was only 200 yds. from the pasture. But the 707. torn and tossed far beyond the limits of its carefully engineered endurance, gave up. The fiery wing exploded, and the plane splashed into the Stillaguamish River. The forward section disintegrated on impact, killing Baum, Berke, Engineer Hagen and Frank Staley, The tail section hit a sandbar, and the four men inside crawled to safety.

Said Boeing's William Allsop: "Our survival was not luck. It was the superb flying of Baum and the work of Hagen. Baum knew what he had to do and he did it. He showed enormous courage. And there's another thing: this hasn't shaken my faith or the-faith of any of us in the 707. It's writing aviation history."

-In a drastic skid, or yaw, one sharply swept-back wing is presented broadside to the line of travel, and acquires excessive lift, while the other wing is presented longitudinally, and loses most of its lift. Result: a quick flip.

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