Simviation Forums

Long time no type-everyone!!  

Finally, this weekend after my 24th birthday I will finally officially kick off aerobatic flight training.  I recently met a nice fellow who works at a flight school next to the one I work at (kind of awkward with my boss... oh well, he doesn't have anything aerobatic!  Only shinny, brand new ( < 30 hours) Cessna 172's and 182's!  

Anyway, he flys a Decathlon CS and is a regional champion and performed at his first airshow last spring.  The airplane is in great shape with newly covered wings and re-nailed spars and even complete with a smoke system.  The cost is only $185/hour tach but includes parachute rental, instructor, and even whatever pre/post flight planning I want.  It's a complete package deal!  Also, he may even swing down to an airport that's 2 minutes from where I live just to make things a bit easier for me!  He's a really great guy to talk with and is really excited about what he does.  And the cool thing is he only does aerobatic training!  

So now it's finally ME time!  All I've ever wanted to do is fly airplanes upside down and every other way possible, and now I can do it!  Without breaking the bank!  We have a tentative syllabus written up but may end up just making it up as we go.  He said it was written more for people who just want to do this for fun.  Not particularly for people like myself who want to go into competition.  

Anyway, flight one will consist of basic maneuvers to get used to the airplane such as slow flight, steep turns, stalls in all attitudes - uncoordinated, left and right spins, and do some loops and rolls.  Mostly to begin the process of acclimating my body to the different attitudes.  

Sounds like fun, and a great deal.  I'm hoping to start doing some aero training this fall (as much as the wallet allows ), so we'll see where that goes.  Good luck, and have fun. 8-)

Thanks, good luck to you too!  We'll have to share experiences a bit.  You mentioned in another post that you're flying a Yak-52, right?  You get to learn things backwards!

Thanks, good luck to you too!  We'll have to share experiences a bit.  You mentioned in another post that you're flying a Yak-52, right?  You get to learn things backwards!

We'll see.  I think I'll be getting a ride in it at least, but my instructor (who owns it) is checking into the insurance and everything needed to give instruction in it.  It should be on it's way from Lithuania right now.

Awesome!! You will enjoy it- don't be discouraged if you don't get used to the sensations right away; it's an "acquired taste", and just about everybody is a little freaked out at first.
It's definitely a good deal... take advantage of it!

Just confirmed, I start at 4:30 this Thursday!

Good news to hear, I am sure you will enjoy the training.

Ya know, I almost think it should be illegal to have as much fun as I did on my first flight.  Those spins are an absolute hoot!  I was a bit nervous to enter a spin intentionally, but once I recovered I was ready to do it again!  This week when I go up again we'll do a lot more unusual attitude recovery work so I know how to get out of botched maneuvers.  We'll work on more spins, loops and the 2-pt aileron roll.  More work just getting myself used to this new environment.  

And I totally agree with you Trucker.  I wish that I had training like this years ago when I first began.  Would have made me a much more confident pilot.  You can read how to get out of a spin all you want, but until to actually experience it and actually recover it yourself is priceless.  And to do it for FUN is just that much better!  

Thanks for the support everyone! Feel free to ask any more questions!

I just posted an update on my blog http://fight2flyphoto.blogspot.com

My last flight was Friday the 21st. We reviewed all previous maneuvers and introduced the slow roll, 2 pt. roll, immelman and the inside/outside Humpty-Bump. Thus far my favorite maneuver is the outside Humpty.

According to the syllabus I'm actually 3/4 through flight four. lol My instructor said that aerobatics are something that needs to be tailored to the individual. He is trying to make a more useful syllabus but said it's difficult to do when he has a student like myself who can sit there doing all of that stuff all day long and another student who can't even get beyond the steep turns. lol

We spoke a little bit about competition aerobatics. For my next flight (I have to wait until Oct 16th since he will be over in London until the 13th!) he will have me start doing competition spins. I already can recover on a precise heading, so all I really need to do is add the vertical downline at the end, as opposed to just a regular recovery. I did several 1/12 and 3 turn spins to the left and right. Each time I ended up exactally where I wanted to. At this point, however, I'm not sure if it's beginner luck, or I actually know what I'm doing!! haha I'll just tell myself I know what I'm doing.  

He is really confident that I will be ready for the competition circuit for the 2008 season based on the pace we're going right now. He's trying to get several people together so we can all take the same airplane and share costs. Although only the instructor can fly it solo due to insurance, they do allow competitors to have a safety observer in the back, allowing us to still compete. The only somewhat sad thing is the lack of competitions in the area. He said there are only three, and two of which are yearly. One is in spring, the other in mid summer, and the last in early September. At the rate I'm going now that is at least 20 more training flights/hours.

Along with introducing the competition spins we will also introduce the hammerhead, half loop, half cuban and reverse half cuban. And again, review.


P.S. I'm working on putting together a fun little tutorial type of video on the maneuvers I've covered so far.  :)

That's a lot of hard work, there...  keep at it; sounds like a great hobby for you!!  ;D

Well, I FINALLY got around to flight three last Thursday!  After my instructor got back from London on the 13th the weather was terrible and got an opening last week.  And I'll tell ya, the airplane tried to have us cancel on a beautiful day!  We were about 1/2 way out to the fuel pumps to top off before the flight when there was a sudden pop followed by a very rough ride.  I taxiied over to a "dead end" taxiway to the side and shut down.  Our tailweel innertube popped!  After a good 1/2 mile walk we finally got some parts and tools to change the tire.  An hour later we were up and running again!  But now the daylight was burning!  I didn't get out to the airport until around 4:30, then it was 5:30 by the time we were at the fuel pumps ready to go. lol  Sunset was only about a half hour away so we had to get goin' pretty quick.

But once we got up, boy was it beautiful!  We flew out of my instructors base airport (Arlington, KAWO) this time so we didn't have to travel out of any airspace to start practicing, we just did it about 4500 feet above the airport.  (Which I might add, was totally awesome to be performing right over the field!!)  It was a very beautiful, clear evening as I was able to watch the moon rise over the Cascade mountains as the sun set behind the Olympic mountains.  Due to our high altitude we were flying in the sunshine until a good hour past sunset.  

Oh yeah, and my mom and sister were there to watch!  I guess they about freaked when I rolled inverted the first time as a harness check! haha

Anyway, I did a lot of review including spins and my favorite, the humpty bump.  That outside humpty bump is just the coolest maneuver ever!  I had those down pat this last flight as the airplane was just about hanging on the prop when I gave it forward stick to push over the top.  Got a good -2G's on a few of them! lol  I was introduced to the half cuban, which wasn't all that great.  I kept getting the airplane awefully close to Vne and I rolled almost immediately each time.  I was having problems finding the 45 degree line and kept going past, which resulted in the high speed on the backside.  We also did some power on spins which were kind of fun too.  

Next flight we're going to go back through and tighten up some of the previous maneuvers and get them a little closer to competition standards.  

Oh and here's something cool... I just purchased a digital video camera that I can mount to my headset when I fly!  It records about 90 minutes of video in pretty decent detail.  It arrives Wednesday and I'm planing on going up again this Thursday.  (Oregon Scientific ATC2K)

That's it for now!

Well, flight number four was completed last week brining my total up to 4.7 hours of aerobatic flight instruction!