My latest ride...

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Behold the Decathlon CS:

Yesterday was one of the greatest days of my life as one of my biggest dreams came true and I began training to enter one of the greatest motorsports of all time: Competitive Aerobatics.

I met my instructor earlier this week after learning there was a fellow at the airport who tought aerobatics. I was very quick to get the ball rolling and within a week of meeting him we were up flying.

This airplane was designed for the purpose of aerobatics and is equipped with an inverted fuel system and quick-release door hinges. Both pilots sit in a tandem arrangement (one behind the other) with the student pilot flying from the front seat.

To start my training yesterday we began with simple steep turns, slow flight, and stalls. This got me familiar with how the airplane reacts in different phases of flight, especially slow flight. I did several power on and power off stalls (simply refers to how much power you have during the stall. Power on is at about half throttle and power off is with it simply back at idle.) and got acclimated to how the airplane reacts in that condition. Quite well I might add! Just pitch the nose down a bit to break the stall and use rudder to level the wings.

After that we moved on to spins. My instructor demonstrated one then let me do them on my own. I was quite nervous for the first spin I did on my own. Being trained to avoid this for the last 11 years made me feel a little uneasy about doing it on purpose! But after I recovered I said, "OK, that rocks. Lets do some more!" So I did 1, 1.5 and 2 turn spins to both the left and the right. My instructor was quite impressed with how I was doing as I always recovered on the precise heading we were looking for. One interesting thing about spins is that the first two turns or so are rather timid. Once you reach the latter half of the 2nd turn and go into the third the airplane actually settles into the spin and accelerates a bit. By the 4th turn it is settled into this faster rate of rotation. And due to the rotation of the propeller, spins to the right are even faster than spins to the left! So naturally, I liked those the most!

After I did about a dozen spins, including a 6-turn spin, we moved onto aileron rolls. These are about the simplest maneuves you can do as it simply requires you to gain the proper entry airspeed, pitch up so the nose is about 30 degrees above the horizon and then abruptly move the stick all the way over to either side, being sure to leave the elevator at neutral. Then it's just along for the ride. To make things look better you move the stick forward a bit as you go over the top of the roll, causing you to lift out of the seat. And lemme tell ya, that was an absolute blast!! Seeing that horizon rotate around in front of the windscreen was amazing! I did rolls to the left and right. Probably about a dozen of them. Again my instructor was impressed because I was able to finish the maneuver on the same heading and altitude as when I began.

From there we moved on to loops! Which I must say, are quite fun as well! This maneuver is a bit more demanding than the rest as it requires a hefty pull to initiate the climb and another significant pull to recover on the backside of the loop. He demonstrated it once, then I took over and did another 6 on my own.

We begin by diving to reach about 150mph then smoothly and abruptly pull the stick back into your lap causing about 4 g's of acceleration. This was the first time I ever experienced anything greater than 1.6 and I'll tell ya, it isn't very comfortable! Well, that is, to a normal person. I loved it and thought it felt wonderful!
For the first few seconds of the loop you are looking out the front, but as soon as you lose sight of the horizon over the front you turn your head to watch over your left shoulder and watch the horizon rotate around the wingtip. It's pure magic to see that! The Decathlon actually has a large window looking out the top of the airplane (visible in the picture above), so as soon as the aircraft is about 45 degrees on its back your view shifts again and you start looking at the horizon coming up directly over your head. At about the same time you ease your pull on the loop and ease the stick forward, causing you now to experience about -1G. (just like being hung upside down) The reason for this is so that you make the loop look like a full circle instead of an oval. Once the nose goes back below the horizon you're looking out the front and begin another significant pull to recover from the resulting dive. Again, it's another good 4g's on the accelerometer.

I can't even explain how much fun that was!

After that I wanted to do some inverted (upside down) flying so he walked me through that, then let me do it on my own. And holy-smokes was this fun! There is nothing like flying around the sky with the sky below you and the ground above you. Just hangin' there in the straps. There is no other feeling like it around!

After that we decided it was best to stop to get some fuel. When I first met with my instructor he told me that the flights will only be about 45 minutes because that's the most anyone can really take of that kind of flying without feeling sick. I was up there for 1.3 hours and could have done that all day long! lol The only time I felt dizzy (as did he) was after that 6 turn spin. But that's only because it is about the same sensation as sitting in an office chair as someone spins it as fast as they can for a few seconds. lol And even after that I was in complete control of the airplane and aware of my surroundings.

I have never felt this comfortable and at-home in an airplane before. And that's saying a lot, because I live for those brief moments I get to spend in an airplane. And after five years of being completely burned out with aviation, the passion is back, stronger than ever! I finally feel like I did back in the days of my private pilot training, and it is wonderful!

Having built this moment up in my mind countless times leading up to this day I can easily say it was infinitely better in real life than I ever imagined! Pure magic!

I have read about these maneuvers countless times, and flown them in various simulators countless times as well, which greatly helped me on this flight. I was quite amazed to see how similar the control inputs were compared to the simulator.

My next flight will be next week and we're going to continue building on more maneuvers. We'll go through all of them relitively quickly and then go back and fine-tune them to get me to competition standards.

 

[rdale]

Congrats Boss! You do a pretty good job of putting us in the cockpit too. Thanks for the ride...

 

[sfs]

It's a good thing that there are different kinds of people in the world: I would have paid a lot to be let off the plane. I'm glad you're having fun, though.

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Congrats Boss! You do a pretty good job of putting us in the cockpit too. Thanks for the ride...

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It sure was fun to write.

It's a good thing that there are different kinds of people in the world: I would have paid a lot to be let off the plane. I'm glad you're having fun, though.

haha! Oh, it's such a blast! I go up for my next lesson this Thursday, weather permitting of course.

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Well, today I had my second flight! And boy was it fun! We reviewed the maneuvers we did on the first flight (loop, spins, aileron roll, and inverted flight) then added a few more: Immelman, 2-pt roll, slow roll, and Push and Pull Humpty-Bump.

The Immelman is simply a half-loop followed immediately by a slow roll to upright. It's quite challenging as you end the maneuver upright only slightly above stall speed. The pull up to the top of the loop really slows the plane down a lot. We start this one at 160mph and ends right on the 55mph mark.

The slow roll really has a deceiving name. Speed has nothing to do with the maneuver as it still requires full stick deflectection and maximum roll rate. The difference, however, is this roll is to be axial without any change in heading or altitude. The challenge is that it requires precise coordination between all flight controls. Throughout the maneuver your feet are moving constantly to adjust to the rapidly changing roll attitude, and the stick adjusts to keep the nose on the horizon while inverted. It is somewhat disorienting at first as your body gets slammed to the left, then straight up, then right, then you settle back down in your seat at the end. (for a roll to the left, of course) It can leave you a little confused at the end. Well, I should say that I could see how that would be possible. It didn't confuse me but I'm a roller coaster junkie. lol

The Humpty-Bump is almost as fun to say as it is to fly! It is a vertical maneuver where you perform a 1/4 loop to vertical, hesitate a few brief moments, then abruptly apply aft stick and ride it around until you perform 1/2 of a loop so the nose is pointed straight down. Since the airplane was going vertical the speed drops very quickly and the actual rotation part of the maneuver is just on the edge of stall. The top is not really a high-g maneuver... probably just about 3 or so, but it's sure fun to see that horizon come around so fast! The recovery at the end is another significant pull to level.

The other version of the humpty has you push the nose over the top instead of pull. During that part you literally get thrown straight up out of your seat and your full weight (and then some) is on the harnesses. I'm finding the difficult part of these negative-g maneuvers is keeping constant stick position. No matter how tight the harness is, your body still moves which translates to the stick moving as well. So this can be a challenge on certain maneuvers.

This maneuver is one that I need to pay special attention to as it may cause "gray-out" and lead to disorentation. During the negative g part of the maneuver your blood pools in your head, then you abruptly pull a high positive -g recovery causing all that blood go back into the lower portion of your body. Once blood starts to leave the brain one of the first symptoms is reduction in vision thus the gray out.

So there you have it, flight number two! And now I haev to wait until October 15th when my instructor gets back from a business trip to London.

I decided to end the flight after 1.1 hours due to rapidly decreasing visibility and weather. It was to the point I couldn't really see the horizon very well and makes performing precise maneuvers quite challenging!

 

[MarkEvan]

You see this is what I mean, with shots like this (espesially the first) I have a long way to go to reach your standards, but the more we practise the better we get . Great pictures though.


Mark