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

In the words of Led Zeppelin, ramble on, Bob!! I enjoy reading your stories.

 

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.

 

So, today I did loops and a quick aileron roll. I have to limit the latter for now since they "tumble my gyro" a little and make me feel a little bad -- but that's going away quickly! Anyway, all I can say is WOW. Just wow. I'm so stoked out of my mind. This is the most awesome thing I've ever done, and I've had some great experiences so that's saying something!!! It's certainly difficult to do everything 100% properly, but man, I'm enjoying the challenge. I think it was a great idea to jump into this directly after my checkride.

 

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.

 

That does sound like fun!!

I'm getting into competition spins soon. Sounds like it should be challenging but definitely very cool!

 

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.

 

Well, if it's any consolation, your Testarossa makes me jealous You can live vicariously if you like! I have cloverleafs and Cuban eights tomorrow...

 

So, how did the Cuban eights work out?

 

Ahhhhh, the weather screwed me...it wasn't supposed to be quite so windy, but it ended up being around 33kts at the surface with a descending ceiling. So, tomorrow!

 

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!

 

HAHA, yeah, I guess so...but I'm still getting a handle on the whole taildragger thing, so I'm going to make that part as easy as possible on myself! There was a pretty stiff X-wind component. I know, I'm a wuss The ceiling...yeah, not much can be done about that...

 

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.

 

Sounds like the exact setup that I'm using. The heel brakes gave me pause at first, but I'm fairly used to them now. When I get into tow brake equipped cans, I have to reconfigure as well.

Thankfully, I haven't experienced the tailwheel spring problem. I sincerely hope I never do!! I'm definitely trying to ease into the taildragger/crosswind thing. It's not such a big deal on days when the wind has an Easterly component to it as the runway I use most of the time has a good barrier of trees to that side. If it's more Westerly, though, it's a bit more interesting from final all the way back to the hangar. I have to say, though, it's definitely not as hard as some folks made it out to be. The pieces are falling into place nicely, I think. I'm just now getting to the point where I can get a lot of landings in because my motion sickness has almost disappeared completely...before, we'd go out, do our acro, I would puke, and my instructor would have to land.

 

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.

 

HAHA! I lost it for a second yesterday...

I was pulling up into the second loop of the cloverleaf after the 5G pullout, and I just sort of, ah, lost interest? I came back and the plane was vertical and slow, so I hammered the throttle, took my hands off and let it recover, still a little out of it. My instructor was laughing at me and said, "Lost ya there for a second, huh?" Yep...I totally forgot to prepare for it, and I took a little nap.

I know that people with highly developed cardio vascular systems (I'm an avid runner and lifter) feel the effects a bit more than other folks, but I hadn't expected to go out at around +5. Plus, I figured having a good amount of solid leg mass would help, but I guess it only helps if you remember to use it, right?! I did three more and made it through fine, but I think I may need to peel a few miles off of my running routine...or maybe just stop running like a bat out of hell all the time. Any of you guys ever have this happen?

Did three points yesterday, too. They came pretty easily. In fact, I found them easier than wheel landings because, in my opinion, the sight picture is a bit like a tricycle gear landing. The peanut gallery had been telling me that three points are harder, but I have to disagree.

 

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.

 

That's what I hear...my instructor told me that no one he knows will do wheel landings once they have three points down. That's why he made me get the wheels down first. Just seems to me there is more potential for things to get ugly in the wheel landing, of course I don't intend to fall asleep in a taildragger anyway. Never know, though...