Aerobatics and IMC - a heady mixture!

The forecast was bad. A real claggy, high pressure day with light winds, poor visibility and a low overcast. So I was a bit surprised to get a text message from Max to say we were on for aerobatics. My immediate thought was that he was in a parallel universe – it was 13:00 with the lesson due at 14:00, it was dark-ish and the clouds looked low and thick. However, he obviously had a plan, so off I went to the airfield.

I was greeted by Phil with an ‘I didn’t expect to see you here’ look. One mandatory Italian blend real coffee later and Max turns up, ‘The tops are at 3000’, so we should be fine’ he breezes as he walks on past headed for the phone to book out. ‘I’ll get the plane’ I call to the retreating figure.

Out in the hangar, the doors are closed and all the planes are tucked up – no one has been out today – I don’t blame them! I get Max and together we pull two planes out before we can get at our steed for the lesson.

I check it out and start up once Max is in. I get the ATIS and set the pressure – 1038 – wow! That’ll help with aircraft performance! The Tower is not busy and with minimal wind, they give us our choice of runways. We opt for 27 (being the nearest) so I do a slight cross-wind take off and climb away. At 1000’ we are in the clouds as I dust off my IMC rating and glue my eyes on the instruments. We continue climbing heading south-west for his favourite ‘bends in the river’.

At 2500’ the clouds lighten and we burst out into bright sunshine and limitless visibility now we are above the inversion. This is one of the real pleasures of IMC / IR flying – to be up there in beautiful sunshine feeling as though you are the only person there (quite probably we were!).

We switch to Filton Radar for service and set squawk to 2004 and do the HASELL checks. We are up at 4500’ on the QNH with the undercast at 2500 – 3000’, so plenty of room.

Rolls

We start with a couple of ballistic rolls as usual. Max is pleased with these, so starts me on more of an aileron roll, pushing on the stick from 90 to 270 degrees to ‘flatten out’ the bottom of the sacred circle. These go OK initially, then they even start going reasonably well. I seem to be better on rolls to the right then rolls to the left. I have to say I am now happy with these myself – far from expert, but OK.

Loops

The first one I don’t pull up hard enough and pay the price with a wobbly ‘float’ in the inverted. We get around, but it is scruffy. The rest of the loops are better, again not great, but OK. I need more polish and more fluid movements with the stick – I am a bit ‘military’ in my approach at the moment (anyone who has done drill will be familiar with ‘ONE – two / three – ONE – two / three – ONE etc.).

Stall Turns

OK, we get around, but still not great. I still need to work on the timing, but that is down to practice.

The session is drawing to a close, so we head back. Max wants to do the quicker ‘114’ NDB let down (if it were left to me I would have shot the full NDB / DME). So he calls the headings and altitude and I fly to these. We are in the soup at 2700’ and it is getting darker now. I concentrate on flying accurately and glue my eyes to the instruments. After several minutes following Max’s headings, we clear the overcast at about 700’ with the lights of the airfield ahead of us (the other massive plus of IMC / IR flying – breaking out of the overcast and saying to yourself – ‘Damn - this stuff really works!’.

Max demonstrates a low level ‘circle to land’ at 650’ on 09. He hands over on final for me to land. Again, though I say it myself, a reasonable landing.

Back in the clubhouse and starting to get dark now. I found that tiring, concentrating on aerobatics followed by more concentration on instruments. Max announces that he is happy for me to do solo aerobatics for five or six hours now to polish up what I have learned. He restricts me to Rolls and Loops (no stall turns). After five or six hours or sooner if I feel I have it ‘off pat’ (fat chance!), I should give him a shout and he will take me through more complex manoeuvres (like cubans etc.) that involve much higher entry speeds with the Robin and more complex use of throttle etc.

I am happy to accept and immediately book a lesson for 28th December. I warn Phil to top up the aircraft insurance beforehand! I float back to the car and somehow drive home without remembering the trip - feeling like a million dollars!