Silvio Petricciani - University of Nevada, Reno

50 Silvio E. Petricciani
and down below us was a settlement of some
kind. So I started to spiral down through the
hole, got down, and I found out that we were
over—well, what we had originally planned to
do was go from Las Vegas to Salt Lake, back
to Provo, and Provo back to Las Vegas which
was a triangle. We find ourselves instead of
Salt Lake being up here, we were over here
over Provo. We were forty miles to the east
and forty miles south. We had never gotten
to Salt Lake, and we were forty miles east.
Well, the reason for that was that every time
you pass what you call a squall line on a cold
front—the cold front was moving this way,
west to east, and we were going north, so you
get a definite wind shift. And the wind took
us in effect—when on a low, then the wind
goes counter-clockwise, and on a high, the
wind goes clockwise. So what happened was,
we got into this low and we were brought up
over around this way; instead of being able
to fly directly why the squall just brought us
over that way and a head wind.
So, I said to Oscar, I said, “Well, Oscar,
we’re over Provo now.” I said, “Let’s just land
here, wait’ll this thing blows over.” And this
is something that I learned that day: you
never have to get someplace; there’s always
tomorrow.
Oscar said, “No.” He says, “Let’s go.” He
says, “Let’s go back up through the hole,” he
says, “I’ve got to get back to work tonight.”
That was mistake number two.
First place—first mistake was that I never
should have gone any further north than
Milford, Utah. That was mistake number two;
I said, “Okay.” So the only instrument time that
I had had, I’d had with my instructor. He flew
me through one cloud down in California,
and at that time we had basic instruments
which was needle, ball and airspeed. Needle,
ball is nothing more than an inclinometer
which is a little ball that sets on a curve, and
then the needle is gyroscopically controlled
and it sits straight and always points to the
horizon unless you’re making a turn. When
you’re making a turn, it displaces the needle,
and it shows that the airplane, as the needle
goes over to the right side, it shows that you’re
turning to the left and vice versa. I’ll show that
to you sometime next time we fly.
And your airspeed, of course, lets you
know whether You’re going up—if you go
up you go slower—and if you are diving, you
go faster. And you know what your normal
airspeed is when you’re flying straight and
level, so the variation of those two. This was
what pilots flew on instruments—needle, ball
and airspeed. Some of them were lucky to
have an artificial horizon; we didn’t.
So anyway, one thing leading to another,
I started up. Oh, your compass, of course,
anyway to give you your course. But this was
an old wet compass that bobbles around all
over, and it’s subject to different magnetic
disturbances from the ground and also
magnetic north, but it gives you a fair idea of
which way you’re going. So, away we go back
up through the hole.
Well, there again comes the expression,
“sucker hole,” because many a pilot’s been
killed by getting into weather and seeing this
great big hole opened up where you can see
sunshine through the other side, you know.
He says, “There’s my out,” and he goes towards
it and just about the time he gets there, some
little angel up in heaven just comes in and just
closes that whole thing up. That’s what you
call a “sucker hole.” And when it closes up,
there you are in the clouds. But this is what
happened to me.
But I did remember this ten minutes of
flying through the cloud in California, and
I held the needle steady and the ball in the
middle. The ball lets you know whether you
are slipping around the turn or something. As