More aerobatics

Well, so far I have ‘clocked up’ 6.5 hours in total on aerobatics in the mighty club Robins! To date, we have concentrated on:

• Ballistic rolls / barrel rolls (OK),
• Loops (fun),
• Stall turns / Immelman’s (lots of fun – when you can get them to work!),
• Spin entry and exit (yee haaa!),
• Vertical recoveries (ooeerrrr!).

I am now feeling confident on all of these except for stall turns, the last of which I tried resulted in the aircraft flicking over onto it’s back and heading rather rapidly vertically back towards mother earth with me wondering what the hell was happening! So more practice required there then.

The weather didn’t look great. High pressure and no wind, so a bit murky and overcast, but it didn’t look very thick. A quick conference with someone who had already been up established that the cloudbase was 3400’ with a scattered lower layer, with tops at FL40. The Robin is a bit asthmatic at the 6000’ we would need to play ‘on-top’, so Max decided we would work below.

Off we went, to the south west near the ‘bend in the river’ Severn. Switched to Filton and advised them of our intentions. We hit the overcast at 3400’, so went down to 3000’ to give enough room for loops without entering clouds at the top of the loop.

Rolls
Did a few of these, although I am pulling it up too much, probably 40 degrees rather than the preferred 30 degrees. I am sure I can get this right consistently next time.

Loops
First one a bit ragged as I didn’t ‘float’ over the top, but carried on pulling a bit. As a result, the wings started to rock and Max said we just about stayed in the loop. He other loops were better though I thought.

Stall Turns
First stall turn, Max asked if I wanted to do it all or wanted a refresher demo again. I opted to give it a go, but just in case, Max talked through the recovery techniques if it went wrong.

Off we went. Standard entry, then pull up to the vertical and full power. Look at the left wingtip relative to the horizon, feed in right rudder as airspeed decreases to keep her going up straight. Have I run out of right rudder? Let’s see….oh yes, I seem to have, now what was it? Oh yes, hard left rudder and right aileron……whaaa….. oh crap….. Before I can get much of the left rudder in the Robin decides I am a dithering prat and must be punished! So it decides to do a hammerhead stall instead – yep, next thing I know I get the ‘ground filling the windscreen’ thing as Max calmly suggests that I pull the power off – Now would be good! Power off, pull to level and recover.

OK, we talk that one through. He says I know what to do, but I am late and am hesitant when doing it. I had come to the same conclusion. Max explains that when you have missed it, hold the rudder firmly in the middle with both feet and pull the stick back to stall the plane, then carry out the vertical recovery. I want to try again and vow to be more decisive and get it this time.

I just start the standard entry (a shallow dive to get to an awe-inspiring 110 kts) when Max spots an aircraft close to us. He is obviously giving us a deliberate eyeball and turning around us. It is a Cap10 aerobatic aircraft – G-CZCZ and Max realises that he wants to play. Apparently, this is the aerobatics pilot equivalent of pulling up beside you in a car at the traffic lights and revving the engine to indicate they want to race. Max takes control and we have a play of tight turns to get on each other tail. Needless to say, we get creamed! Well that was fun and a mutual waggle of the wings indicates fun over as we get back to stall-turns 101.

The second attempt is much better, albeit with Max calling the time for full left rudder. We get around and I see it now. I have to say, I was about one second behind Max in what I would have done myself – so I think I can now see the timing. I am not thinking about it as much, instead I just run it though my mind before the entry and get on with it.

The next few stall turns all work as planned and I am feeling much better about it.

The ‘fuel low’ light starts to blink, so we decide to head back. On the way back, Max demonstrates the next phase of the control inputs he wants to see me use in a roll. This time, to ‘flatten’ the bottom of the ellipse described by the nose (the sacred circle) by putting a bit of forward stick from the knife position until the opposite knife. I follow him through with two fingers on the stick and see what he is doing. So probably next time, I’ll do this.

The circuit isn’t very busy, with only one other plane in. Maybe they don’t like the look of the lower layer, but it is really scattered as we have been working 2500’ – 3400’ quite happily.

Max decides we’ll have a bit more fun and tells me to go for a glide landing. Could be interesting as I don’t know what the Robin glides like, never having done so. The Bonanza was no glider and the TB10 – well, I suspect the Space Shuttle has better gliding characteristics! So I judge the power off point being just after turning a reasonably close base for 27 (certainly well inside ‘the doughnut’). I know we are high, but I also know I can lose height by a variety of means. Establish 75 kts best glide and yes, let’s get full flaps as I do a descending turn onto short final for 27. I start to side-slip to bring the landing point back towards the numbers but Max asks me to stop and let it land long. This I do as I ‘assume the position’ in the flare with a slight nose up and hold…and hold…. and hold…. The mains touch, pull back a bit progressively and I manage full pull back without the tailguard scraping. OK – pleased with that one – it’s been a good couple of years since I did my last glide landing – long overdue really.

Backtrack on 27 and head to the pumps.

A quick debrief. He is looking for more consistency now and picking me up on finer points, which I guess is progress and is fine by me. Probably same again next time, but with me judging the timing for the Immelman and putting elevator input into the inverted part of the rolls to make the ellipse a bit more circular.

After about the third lesson, I gave up on the idea that this would take ‘eight hours’ as described in the AOPA certificate (and as taken by Ultimate High in Kemble). However, I am only doing one lesson a week (sometimes less as the weather intervenes) and am enjoying the experience, so I am reconciled to it ‘taking what it takes’.