On Aug 4, 7:51*pm, clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada wrote:
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)




snip

I recall my father constantly being under one adjusting the brakes to
get them to pull even. Then there was the day I helped my buddy
recover a Model B from a fence row. Was on top of a steep, crooked 7
mile down grade. We discovered that it wouldn't run so we towed it to
the top of the grade and coasted down. Also found that we only had
two working brakes. One on one front wheel by the foot pedal and one
on one rear by using the 'emergency brake'. Made it by him driving
and using the foot pedal me the emergency brake.

Harry K

Harry K