Bill
Touchdown! Greaser!
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- Mar 2, 2005
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- Southeast Tennessee
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Well, yesterday was aerobatic lesson #2 in the Citabria, and this one was alot more interesting. As you learned from my first lesson writeup (what, you didn't read it??? 
), my instructor is an ex-Navy jet pilot. His take on teaching aerobatics is do it the military way, which must mean throw you to the wolves.
We sit down for the pre-flight lesson, and he says we'll go practice steep turns, this time working up to nearly 90 degree knife edge turns. Then we'll go practice a combination of maneuvers. We'll line up on the road, pitch down 30 degrees, then at 140mph, pull back smoothly for a nice loop, coming out of the loop, pitch up 30 degrees, then he'll call an aileron roll, left or right. After the aileron roll, I'm then to stand the plane on its tail and do a zoom climb, followed by a 0G forward pitch arriving at level flight right above stall speed. Then, do a knife edge turn 180 degrees to pick up the road again, and repeat the sequence. Whew!
So out we go, this time I'm in the front seat. Being 6'2", my knees nearly are into the bottom of the dash, and I feel like a kid in a kiddie car. We do the takeoff roll, and I do the dance, and do a decent takeoff.
In the practice area, we start with 60 degree turns, and he wants me to be really aggressive in the left right transitions, using nearly all of the control travel on the reversals. Then, we move on to nearly 90 degree turns, but I have a hard time keeping the nose on the horizion.
Question for you acro experts: How DOES one keep the nose on the horizon? Looking at the vector diagram, nearly all the lift is horizontal, I don't really see what keeps the airplane in the air on a 90 bank turn.
So, we then start the combination, and the loop goes well, 30 degrees up, and he calls a left aileron roll, and I do the classic newbie mistake. I dial in full left stick, and forget the rudder. Horrible adverse yaw, and the plane does a sick tumble thru the air and then I fall out of the maneuver. Ending up with a windshield full of ground, I figure out how to get the wings level and then pull out of the dive. John says to try some rudder on the next one .
So, we do this pattern 4 more times over, and by the end I'm really getting a nice fast full control deflection aileron roll, but I'm still pushing too hard forward on the pitch out from the zoom climb, giving negative G's, and John doesn't like that. Gotta work on that some.
After that, he asks how I'm feeling, and I say I'm still doing fine. He asks if I want to try the snap roll, so we do. We discussed this before on the pre-flight lesson, and he said to come out of the snap, you need to basically do a spin recovery. Rudder opposite to the rotation, and firm stick forward.
So, power back in level flight to 85mph, and then snap! At the same time, power goes full, full left rudder, and stick hard back full. And, AROUND we go...yeeehaaaa!!!!!! I do the recovery, and end up pitch down with the engine at idle. He asks why I pulled the engine, and I said I guess I thought about doing a spin recovery, and all the books said you wanted no power so you didn't get into a flat spin. Correct, he says, but for the snap, he says to leave full power in for the full maneuver. So, we do several more snaps in each direction, then head for the ranch.
The airport is a grass strip (Sky Ranch near Knoxville, TN), and is on a river, so the approach is strange. You come in over land, go across the water, then onto land again, and you get several baubles. I ended up ballooning the flair, but John put in a quick burst of power, and I came down on a fairly nice 3 point, and then started chasing the tail. John asked if I wanted to try the brakes, and I took a shot at pumping the heel brakes while doing the dance on the rudder. It worked out pretty well, and thus endeth my second lesson.
This guy worked me hard, I was sweating more than I ever did during my private, but I had a wonderful time. This was the first time I've ever used full control deflections in flight, and it is good to get a feel for the airplane. He says as we progress we'll work up to using (and going beyond) the full capabilities of the aircraft.
Lastly, snap rolls RULE! What a blast, SNAP, and zing you go around.
It is gonna be hard to give this up at the end of the class.
), my instructor is an ex-Navy jet pilot. His take on teaching aerobatics is do it the military way, which must mean throw you to the wolves.We sit down for the pre-flight lesson, and he says we'll go practice steep turns, this time working up to nearly 90 degree knife edge turns. Then we'll go practice a combination of maneuvers. We'll line up on the road, pitch down 30 degrees, then at 140mph, pull back smoothly for a nice loop, coming out of the loop, pitch up 30 degrees, then he'll call an aileron roll, left or right. After the aileron roll, I'm then to stand the plane on its tail and do a zoom climb, followed by a 0G forward pitch arriving at level flight right above stall speed. Then, do a knife edge turn 180 degrees to pick up the road again, and repeat the sequence. Whew!
So out we go, this time I'm in the front seat. Being 6'2", my knees nearly are into the bottom of the dash, and I feel like a kid in a kiddie car. We do the takeoff roll, and I do the dance, and do a decent takeoff.
In the practice area, we start with 60 degree turns, and he wants me to be really aggressive in the left right transitions, using nearly all of the control travel on the reversals. Then, we move on to nearly 90 degree turns, but I have a hard time keeping the nose on the horizion.
Question for you acro experts: How DOES one keep the nose on the horizon? Looking at the vector diagram, nearly all the lift is horizontal, I don't really see what keeps the airplane in the air on a 90 bank turn.
So, we then start the combination, and the loop goes well, 30 degrees up, and he calls a left aileron roll, and I do the classic newbie mistake. I dial in full left stick, and forget the rudder. Horrible adverse yaw, and the plane does a sick tumble thru the air and then I fall out of the maneuver. Ending up with a windshield full of ground, I figure out how to get the wings level and then pull out of the dive. John says to try some rudder on the next one
.So, we do this pattern 4 more times over, and by the end I'm really getting a nice fast full control deflection aileron roll, but I'm still pushing too hard forward on the pitch out from the zoom climb, giving negative G's, and John doesn't like that. Gotta work on that some.
After that, he asks how I'm feeling, and I say I'm still doing fine. He asks if I want to try the snap roll, so we do. We discussed this before on the pre-flight lesson, and he said to come out of the snap, you need to basically do a spin recovery. Rudder opposite to the rotation, and firm stick forward.
So, power back in level flight to 85mph, and then snap! At the same time, power goes full, full left rudder, and stick hard back full. And, AROUND we go...yeeehaaaa!!!!!! I do the recovery, and end up pitch down with the engine at idle. He asks why I pulled the engine, and I said I guess I thought about doing a spin recovery, and all the books said you wanted no power so you didn't get into a flat spin. Correct, he says, but for the snap, he says to leave full power in for the full maneuver. So, we do several more snaps in each direction, then head for the ranch.
The airport is a grass strip (Sky Ranch near Knoxville, TN), and is on a river, so the approach is strange. You come in over land, go across the water, then onto land again, and you get several baubles. I ended up ballooning the flair, but John put in a quick burst of power, and I came down on a fairly nice 3 point, and then started chasing the tail. John asked if I wanted to try the brakes, and I took a shot at pumping the heel brakes while doing the dance on the rudder. It worked out pretty well, and thus endeth my second lesson.
This guy worked me hard, I was sweating more than I ever did during my private, but I had a wonderful time. This was the first time I've ever used full control deflections in flight, and it is good to get a feel for the airplane. He says as we progress we'll work up to using (and going beyond) the full capabilities of the aircraft.
Lastly, snap rolls RULE! What a blast, SNAP, and zing you go around.
It is gonna be hard to give this up at the end of the class.
Straight and level - yes. In a turn, it's mathematically impossible.
neither can jesse 