The Burchinal FG-1D Corsair had the look of having been rode hard and put away wet, as did all his airplanes, but they flew and he'd let anyone fly them for a price.

Burchinal is the epitome of the "attitude-only" type of instructor, and he has no airspeed indicator in your end of the airplane. He's more interested in developing the seat of your pants than instrument interpretation.

Once you've graduated from the Stearman, you get to play with that North American student-stomper, the SNJ-5. The SNJ differs from the T6D and G and the Canadian Harvards in that it doesn't have a steerable tailwheel. It's a locking full-swivel type. Burch uses this because it's a little more difficult to fly than a regular T-6 and you learn a lot more.

The Mustang is constantly dangling in front of you like a liquid-cooled carrot, enticing you to do better and work harder. Everything you do in the SNJ is related to the Mustang. When you're ready to try the Mustang on for size, he starts mixing P-51 rides with periodic check rides in the SNJ. He takes you up in the 51 and shows you torque rolls, stalls, and shoots a couple of landings. Since there are no controls in the back of the Mustang, the best you can do is reach around him and feel the stick. Then he pulls over to the side, hops out, and it's up to you.

If you're trying to do the entire course in one sitting, he'll sneak in an occasional B-25 ride. The B-25 is a real moose and lets you know what heavy means in the term heavy aircraft. It also shows you how weak your arms are and gives you a chance to see exactly what a big airplane feels like when you dirty it up on final and depend on power to get you to the numbers. It's good training for accelerating your brain ahead of the airplane.

When it comes to the actual flying, don't expect a Piper Flite Center kind of operation-blue blazers, tiled class rooms, and all that. In the first place, the operation is based on Burchinal's duster strip. In most parts of the country the term "duster strip" is all-descriptive. It implies an operation based on function, not looks. Everything has to work and be safe, but looks and leaks aren't of major concern.
The runway is 13 feet wide and 2,700 feet long with wires at one end and runs up the side of the only hill in that part of Texas. One open hangar and a corrugated one (full of sprayers) are the only buildings on the field, aside from his bathroom-sized office.

Of course, hot and cold running classrooms don't make you a better pilot. The classroom most often used in the operation is the coffee shop at the truck stop next to the field. The whole attitude is super relaxed and country style. You'll fly when you fly, and nobody punches a time clock.

There's a regular groove worn across the runway from walking the 200 feet to the truck stop (which has outstanding home cooking, by the way). If you like to start at 9 o'clock exactly and fly by a schedule, you might as well forget it. You'll learn to fly just as well, but people used to the rat-race of big-city airports will get a little frustrated from time to time. Forewarned is forearmed; don't go down to Paris unless you can spare at least three weeks.

The name of the flight program could have been Davisson versus the SNJ, as far as I was concerned---- and the SNJ usually won. Because 1 had a fair amount of tailwheel time, I started out in the SNJ. I figured he'd do this, so the month before I went down to Texas, I begged, borrowed, and paid for as much T-6 time as I could corner, and managed to get at least 25 landings in the back seat of T-6Ds and Harvard Mk IVs. I'd had absolutely no trouble at all. As a matter of fact, I found the T-6 so easy to fly that I couldn't understand where it got its nasty reputation ... then 1 climbed into Junior's SNJ and found out.

The SNJ is a whole different breed of cat, especially if the tailwheel lock isn't good and tight. On the T-6G, the Harvards, and the P-51, the tailwheel steers with the rudders just as on any normal tailwheel airplane. When you push the stick hard forward, it unlocks the steering portion and allows the tailwheel to full swivel for parking and tight maneuvering. On the other hand, the SNJ tailwheel has a little handle sticking out of the upper-left side of the cockpit. This locks the wheel straight ahead, or allows it to swivel any direction it wants -and it wants to swivel a lot! With a swivel tailwheel, all you have to control your direction of travel are the brakes and quick reactions, and Texans (SNJ and T-6) don't have outstanding brakes.

Supposedly when the tailwheel is locked, the airplane will track straight ahead, but that's an out-and-out lie. With the tailwheel lock, it just swerves a little slower, but it still can make a square corner before you can bat an eye. Fully loaded, the SNJ runs close to 5,000 pounds, so combine all this inertia with bad brakes, a narrow gear, a not-quitelocking tailwheel, and you have the makings for all sorts of ridiculous fun.

My first hop in the SNJ was probably the most humbling hour in my rather nefarious flying career. In the first place, Junior asked me to start it (t had memorized the pilot's handbook), and I fiddled around for 10 minutes or so and finally had to call his 16-year-old son, Sammy, over to do it for me. I strapped into the back figuring it wouldn't be that different from a T-6, but it was not only different, it bore absolutely no resemblance! My troubles began the second the engine started. I couldn't even taxi it away from the pumps! It was awful! I'd run in some power and the cocked tailwheel would start it swerving to the right, then I'd nail the left brake, stopping the airplane completely, but still managing to cock the tailwheel the other way. A burst of power, and it started swerving to the left. Right brake, we lurch to a halt and cock the tailwheel again. Several times I nearly blew the gas pumps into the next county trying to get rolling straight.

Junior finally took over and pulled it out into the middle of what he laughingly calls a runway to taxi to the other end. Even in the middle of the runway, I couldn't keep it straight. I just couldn't get the hang of overcoming all that inertia. When you touch one brake and start the nose moving, you have to be ready to hit the other brake long before the nose is where you want it, or inertia will swerve you right on past it. Making things even more interesting is the runway, which is so narrow that if you can see any of it at all from the back pit, you know you're way off center.

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