So, I'm a few hours into my aerobatic training...

Yes , I remember Bobby Bishop and that little Bede jet. Bobby was a gentle and likable guy. There was Jim Franklin, Bud Fountain, but I don't recall Tom Jones. Most all of them are up in that big fly-in in the sky now except Hoover and Hughes. One day my wife and I counted 33 performers that were lost in a period of 10 years. Fate will let you push it for just so long.
Switches

 

Yup - did I take you to infer that Bob Bishop is also gone? His wife and my exwife used to both have State Farm agencies back then in OKC and we used to socialize quite a bit. Bob told me that earlier in his career he had been a test pilot for Bellanca (the fast retractable, not the Citiabria like I had). We lost track when he moved to Seattle (I think) and I moved to Dallas.

Tom Jones was the pilot who was lost in the late 80s, early 90s on a Sunday afternoon at the big annual airshow at Will Rogers field in Oklahoma City. He had one of those russian radial engine aero ships (Sukhoi?) and it was a very hot day. He had pulled up for a wing-over and the plane just rolled over and spun all the way down - engine still running and making smoke. It was assumed that he had passed out due to dehydration and heat. One of the sad parts of it all was that local DJ Dan Stroud, my instructor, was announcing the show when it happened - we were all friends. They just called the show stopped, and all the planes that were there did a huge commerative flyover all around Oklahoma City - including that monster Russian transport ship that was even bigger than a Galaxy. This show was a special invite to the Russians and they had helos, fighters, and so on there to fly and display.

Tom previously owned a Pitts with a modified engine which had six holes drilled around the face plate on the crank where the prop mechanism bolted on. These cracked through, causing the prop box to part company - he was able to crash land it (miraculously) but it skidded into a hanger with an open door and pretty well wrecked itself and the beech baron inside! My neighbor Dave Howard bought it for salvage and used some of the parts on his Starduster.

Those were the days - but again I think we need to remember what a serious sport this really is.

 

I still think one of the most fun things you can do is spins they are just a riot, also try inverted spins!

 

One thing that I used to do in the Stearman was to dive, pull up, roll inverted, push forward until it stalled, and just waited to see what happened. Great fun. You are going to have a lot of fun when you get used to it AND you are learning some VERY useful stuff.

 

Snap rolls, snap rolls. I found that the A-roll was the first thing that I learned to actually do in reality rather than just imitating Dan's motions and wallowing all over the sky. I even got to where I could do a four point roll (but never a credible 8).

You are making me jealous - blood pressure and ageing eyesight have left me out of this.

 

So, how did the Cuban eights work out?

 

That's nothing if you learn to fly in Oklahoma City. 35 from the north for 3 days, 35 from the south for 3 days, reset and repeat. But the descending ceiling would kind of put a damper on things!

 

OK, a couple of stories. First, on that taildragger thing - my old Citabria 7ECA (personal plane) had heel brakes...the rudders were just steel bars that you used with the top part of your shoes. The brakes were little 50 cent piece sized pedals right on the floor that you pushed down with your heels to brake.

Needless to say, that gave me a little mental trouble when Dan Stroud and I were doing my aero lessons in his Super Decathlon. It had conventional toe brakes and I nearly put us onto the nose once or twice until I got the head into gear.

Second, on light taildraggers and Oklahoma wind - the Citabria had a steerable tailwheel, of course. The deal was that it steered through a pair of stretched coil springs off the rudder. They were not very well secured. One of the consequences of making a bad Xwind landing (i.e. a skidding tailwheel contact) was that one or both would sproinyoiining off and leave you with either no steering at all or steering in only one direction. You cannot imagine the shame of having to call ground control at a controlled airport and tell them you need to shut down, get out, and put your springs back on before you can taxi! Worse yet, to have to ask for a line boy to come out and hold your plane if there was a strong wind. Needless to say again, I soon learned to land this guy VERY CAREFULLY.

 

That's great that you soldiered on past it. As it happens, I had about 50 hours taildragger in 5190X before I tried the aero - so the ground handling and landing issues were well sorted by the time I started the loops and rolls.

 

I concur about the three point landing - particularly in the Citabria family. For one thing, at least you are going slower so the ground handling issues are less exciting, and also of course you get a shorter landing and can use the brakes sooner.

BTW, early on when I was learning to land the taildragger, my instructor (not my aerobatics instructor, my regular flight check guy) suggested that we do some initial work on a grass strip. This is much more forgiving if you manage to set down with a little side slip against the wheel alignment going on. I can tell you that I NEVER used wheel landings with my old 7ECA except for demonstrations during check rides.