On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:32:29 -0400, Sliker
wrote:

If the brakes were that good, that was a nice exception. The postwar
stuff I flew had lousy brakes. Like the Swift with the orginal
Goodyear brakes. The disk pucks were about as big around as a quarter.
I know they must have known those wouldn't stop the plane.
The Champ had weak brakes too. And just about any of the planes with
heel brakes were pretty weak. And the worst were the ones with
mechanical brakes. I hear that's pretty much what got the old Ford
Model A's off the road. They couldn't pass inspection with mechanical
the installed mechanical brakes. Is there anyone hear that drove
those?
"juice brake" conversions were very common on the Model "A". Wasn't
stopping POWER that was critical, it was the BALLANCE. Buggers could
be all over the road before you got all 4 wheels drawing down evenly.
Had a 1928 Chevy National with mechanical brakes - they were pitiful -
outside bands on the rear deums for service brakes, expanding internal
shoes for the parking brake - and standard procedure was to pull the
hand beake and stop on the pedal at the same time if you REALLY needed
to stop.
Had a 1949VW Bug with mechanicals as well. Stopped fine after you
figured out which way it was going to head, and corrected for it
before putting BOTH feet into it.(mind you, it only did about 48MPH
wide open down hill with a tail wind)

On Fri, 1 Aug 2008 20:00:57 -0400, "Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea
Hawk @See My Sig.com wrote:

"Sliker" wrote in message
. ..
...
Plus, way back when, old light aircraft had crap for brakes. Back when
Stinsons, Swifts, and other postwar aircraft were built, there were no
Cleveland brakes. With those, and clones of them, you can stop just
fine.

Does a 1946 Cessna 120 qualify as a "postwar aircraft"? Brakes were good
enough for stopping hard enough to keep the tail in the air until you
stopped.

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