Aerobatic lessons #3 & #4 (long)

[Bill]

I've been a bad boy, and have not posted about my recent aerobatic adventures.

An aside: I'm taking the lessons from a fellow about 77nm away from here, and it is an hour and a half (over 100 land miles) by car, about :40 by Skyhawk. Due to plane avaiablilty and weather, I rode the motorcycle to the first two lessons. Also, my instructor wanted to keep the first two to "single" lessons of about 0.7, to allow the student to acclimate. Lessons 3 & 4 were double, back to back lessons, including coming back, landing, and de-brief between. Not only that, I flew the Skyhawk to and from the lessons, so I got 1.3 acro and 2.3 PIC XC. THAT was a busy day.

Anyway, back to the lessons:

#3: To that previously learned, we added hammerhead turns and barrel rolls.

In the hammerhead turn, he said it is a pure unusual attitude maneuver in that you're cross controlled during the turn. We did a pull up similar to a loop, stood the plane on its tail, allowed the airspeed to decay some, and then smooth application of full rudder. As you do this, you smoothly apply full opposite aileron with some stick forward, and the plane gracefully pivots about the inner wingtip. The opposite stick is used to counter the rolling tendency due to the slow airspeed and full rudder deflection. I find this to be one of the most graceful of the things I've learned. Nothing like seeing that outer wing turn up over, and see the world pivot around that inner wing tip, and then the ground comes into view, and then you have to start your pull up immediately lest you become a giant lawn dart. Beautiful.

I had some trouble with the barrel rolls, as I don't have a really good picture in my minds eye what a barrel roll is supposed to look like. But we tried about 4 of them, to varying degrees of success. The loops, aileron rolls, and snaps previously learned went well.

We came back for a few practice wheel touch and goes, followed by a sweet 3 point landing.

Lesson #4:

I really think I'm starting to get the hang of the rudder dance on takeoff, he really liked my work, and said he didn't touch a thing. We again practiced the maneuvers learned in lesson #3, and I think the double works well for me. I felt warmed up, and already had a touch for the airplane. The big event for this lesson was my first spin.

His spin entry was a little different than I expected. I expected to start in slow flight, do a power off stall, and then kick pro-spin rudder. NOOOOoooo!

We started in level flight at 85mph, pulled up 30-40degrees, and then did full back elevator and full left rudder, but pulled power to idle. Like a snap roll entry, but with no power to pull the plane around.

We went about half way thru the snap, and the plane then started to stall while inverted, and then departed. After a few second of stalling and turning, the plane snapped into the spin. The world was a blur and everything spun around the prop spinner. We counted out three turns, and then I eased the backpressure and put in full anti-spin rudder. When she stopped rotating, I pulled out of the dive.

I was dizzy for 5-6 seconds, and it took about a minute of straight and level until I felt 100% again. Good think John likes to do the spin as the last maneuver of the lesson.

Back to Sky Ranch (2200ft grass strip on the TN river, water at each end!) to practice a few more wheel touch and goes, then a really great approach and three point landing.

By this 4th lesson, I felt like I was getting a little more comfortable in the plane, and was starting to look out the side windows for reference, etc., instead of staring straight ahead like a deer in the headlights.

Then I Skyhawked home.

Soon to follow, lessons 5 & 6 (If you don't die of boredom beforehand )

 

[citationxjl]

Sounds like fun. Brings back memories of my first aerobatic lessons. Great times and very addicting!!

 

[gismo]

I had some trouble with the barrel rolls, as I don't have a really good picture in my minds eye what a barrel roll is supposed to look like. But we tried about 4 of them, to varying degrees of success.

Then I Skyhawked home.

Until I realized that the airplane would be changing headings and moving laterally quite a bit during a barrel roll, I was always confused about what it should look like. One thing that helped me a lot was to start out pointed about 30 degrees away from a long straight road in the opposite direction of my roll (30 degrees to the right for a left roll). Initially I had in my mind the erroneous belief that the airplane's heading was constant during the roll as it is during a slow or ballistic roll. The first books I read on the subject said to pick a point 30 degrees off to the side and roll around that, but I ususually lost that point about 1/4 the way around because I didn't expect it to stay on the same side since I was initially rolling towards it.

If you take a model airplane in hand and get your instructor to show you how that should look relative to a line or point on the horizon it might turn on the light bulb for you. If you are confusing the airplane's path with what it does in other rolls you'll probably have the same problem I did.

BTW, I hope you are considering that for a while after getting wrung out doing acro, you may not be in the greatest condition to fly the Skyhawk home.

 

[Ken Ibold]

BTW, I hope you are considering that for a while after getting wrung out doing acro, you may not be in the greatest condition to fly the Skyhawk home.

Amen to that. I recall one time when I stopped flying the Citabria home after an acro lesson ... and I was on downwind. It wasn't pretty.

 

[Bill]

BTW, I hope you are considering that for a while after getting wrung out doing acro, you may not be in the greatest condition to fly the Skyhawk home.

I did take that into consideration, but I've done it twice now, and have felt fine both times. Nothing we've done in the citabria has even remotely made me feel sick. But, I know it can happen to anyone.

I do take about a 2 hr break after the last acro lesson to relax before departing in the Skyhawk.

 

[BruceAir]

There are a couple of ways to do barrel rolls, depending on how you want to end the maneuver. To complete the roll on (or near) your original heading, the following procedure for a barrel roll to the left works well:

1. At the proper entry speed, pull straight ahead to 45 degrees pitch.
2. When the nose reaches 45 degrees, apply coordinated left aileron and rudder (this maneuver is coordinated throughout). Continue to apply up elevator as if flying a loop.
3. Continue flying the maneuver as if it were a loop, except that you're holding left aileron and rudder as necessary to maintain a coordinated "turn." Just as in a loop, you should relax the back pressure as you fly through the top of the arc.
4. If you're doing the maneuver properly, you will be wings level inverted as your nose intersects the horizon. Your heading well be 90 degrees left of your entry heading.
5. As the nose falls through the horizon, smoothy add up elevator, again as if you're flying the back side of a loop. The nose will continue to track back toward your original heading.
6. If everything's going right, the nose will return to the horizon, on your original heading, as the wings also come level.

You can see an animation of a barrel roll at: http://users.argonet.co.uk/users/quilljar/aero-3.html

Although the nose does not stay on a point as it should during an aileron or slow roll, when the maneuver is flown as described above, from the pilot's perspective, the airplane will appear to rotate around a point 45 degrees to the left of nose. Because a barrel roll is a very smooth, positive-G maneuver, I usually do at least one when I give aerobatic rides before we progress to more exciting stuff. And when I put Mt. Rainier at the 45-degree point before we start heading up, the view is spectacular.

I also have a short video (about 3 Mb) of a barrel roll (with an aileron roll on top) on my Web site at: http://www.bruceair.com/ShortVideo.htm

It's the last video in the right column. It shows the maneuver from the tail camera perspective. It was shot last year near Boulder City, NV, my airplane's winter base.

Instructions for downloading and viewing the videos are at the top of the page.

 

[Bill]

You can see an animation of a barrel roll at: http://users.argonet.co.uk/users/quilljar/aero-3.html

Thanks, Bruce, the animations and video help greatly. I am sad, though, two more lessons, and the course is over :-(

 

[Toby]

Thanks, Bruce, the animations and video help greatly. I am sad, though, two more lessons, and the course is over :-(

There is only one cure for that....