In early 2006 I decided that I’d like to expand my flying skills and try to ‘push the envelope’ a bit more and do some aerobatics.  I finally settled on the ‘Full Spin Training’ combined profile with Ultimate High (you can contact them at www.ultimatehigh.co.uk), with the first sortie in the Bulldog and the second sorties in the Extra on 10 June 2006.

I started thinking I might like to try my hand at some more aerobatics and exchanged e-mails with Andy Reohorn who I had met on the Flyer trip to Latina.  We managed to talk each other into doing the AOPA aerobatic course at Ultimate High, booking ourselves on a course in September 2006.

Our instructor for first the day of the course was Malcolm ‘Malc’ Hagen.  Malc is a refugee from the Fleet Air Arm who flew fighters from aircraft carriers, including the Ark Royal.  After full briefings in the classroom, Andy and I went on to do two flights each on the first day.  The first started well.  A recap on stalls then onto max rate turns looking at maintaining the turn on the buffet and using bank to maintain height control.  Moved onto doing some initial loops and barrel rolls then onto a stall turn.  I couldn’t really visualize the barrel roll and seemed to have some problems and didn’t really get the nose up enough.  By this stage I was starting to feel rather queasy so we headed back to Kemble.

For the second flight we moved onto spinning.  Fortunately I’d already done some spinning in the course I’d done at Ultimate High in June so that was fairly straightforward.  We then moved onto incipient spins and progressed into looking at incipient and full spin recovery from manoeuvres.

I had a different instructor on Tuesday who was a relative newcomer to Ultimate High.  Dick Catterall is an ex-Jaguar pilot, who certainly seemed to know his stuff despite being the youngest of the pilots I flew with during the week.  Following a thorough briefing I headed out for the first flight.  We started with the loop again, concentrating on putting in corrective action with aileron or rudder to ensure the loop was better flown.  Moving onto barrel rolls we looked at a different way of entering them.  Instead of diving to the right to start the barrel roll we pitched the nose up straight ahead and then started it using a point of the left wing to look at as we went through the inverted to then continue round the roll.  This seemed to work a lot better for me as I felt like I understood rather better what was going on.  Moving onto the stall turn I learnt it’s not possible to pick up a low wing in the vertical using aileron – it just makes the aircraft start to turn around in the vertical!  A half Cuban was the next move which I quite liked – very similar to a loop but you hold a 45 degree line on the down side of the loop then roll vertical and pull out.  By this stage I was starting to feel a bit unwell again so we headed back to base.

The second trip started with a recap of unusual position recoveries (UPs) and we concentrated on separating the rolling and pitching rather than doing them together (and it always helps if you remember what you want to do with the power!).  Onto an incipient spin recovery after a roll off the top that I possibly left rather late so had to use more of a full spin recovery.  We then moved onto half horizontals that consist of pitching up to 45 degrees, rolling inverted, and then continuing as you would the end of a loop.  The trick here is to ensure you start manoeuvres and pull into them with wings level, and with the rolls use a little opposite aileron to check the roll.  More stall turns that did not go very well again had me starting to feel unwell – I think the negative G was getting to my stomach – so we decided to head back for base.  On the way I said I’d like to have another go at the stall turn as I really wanted to crack this – what a mistake to make.  I really should listen when my stomach says enough is enough.  Did the stall turn and the nausea got worse.  The sweats started so I got Dick to take control while I got my sick bag out of the flying suit just to see if holding it would help.  No such luck and up came lunch.  All rather embarrassing, but I did feel a lot better afterwards, managing to get it all in the bag and remembering to move the microphone first!

A little while later we decided I was up for another flight and started off with looking at spiral dive recovery techniques and then moved onto accelerated stalls, although I’d experienced these a few times already during ‘over enthusiastic’ pullouts from loops.  We then decided to do some aero consolidation and did loops, barrel rolls, half Cubans and half horizontals.

The flying the following day was carried out in rather poor weather where we had to find gaps in the cloud to get to places where we could carry out our training, and a rather interesting crosswind.  We started off with loops, which seemed to improve when I was a bit more gentle on the pull-up than I had been, and eased a bit over the top.  One thing we did identify is that I seemed to suffer from left wing slightly down during all pull-ups and this seemed to be due to me using my left hand on the stick and when pulling back I naturally then pulled slightly to the left.  We tried some aeros using both hands on the stick and this really seemed to improve things.  A quick review of barrel rolls, trying to pick out unique clouds for reference points, and then onto the stall turn.  I’m not sure what’s happening, but the stall turns seem to be coming together and, most amazing of all, I feel fine!  Finished off with some half Cuban 8s.

The next flight saw more aeros revision work including loops, half Cuban eights and aileron rolls. All went fine, with me starting to feel some improvement, then it was then onto the slow roll.  We’d had an in-depth briefing for the slow roll, however it certainly seemed to be the most difficult manoeuvre to date.  With the requirement for the coordination of different rudder, aileron and elevator inputs through the roll to keep the nose up it’s the aerial equivalent of tapping your head with one hand while rubbing your stomach with the other hand while on a pair of ice skates and spinning in a circle – it also helps if you’re not too optimistic and try starting with too slow roll rate!  We then practiced some more max rate turns before getting onto slow flight.  The slow flight is to try to get you used to the controls and feel of the aircraft in straight flight, turns, climbs and descents while maintaining the required height and level.

The next day we found some holes in the cloud and started off with max rate turns, which were improving, then some aileron rolls.  Slow rolls went really well, and the stall turns are now starting to look like stall turns, finally finding the vertical.  We then tried linking a loop into a stall turn and this is where it becomes apparent that you really need to think ahead when linking manoeuvres otherwise the second manoeuvre is not as good as when done on its own.

The second trip was with Roger ‘Rog’ Milburn.  After looking for some holes we decided to fly this trip below the cloudbase and use a base altitude of 2000’.  Max rate turns then a roll off the top. Stall turns really starting to improve now that I’m getting the hang of looking in the right places – this especially helps when watching the right wing on the final section.  Half Cubans and half reverse and a couple of loops completed a great session.  An introduction to run and breaks when we got back to Kemble really made the end of the trip memorable!

The final trip of the day was the test itself.  Off we went up through some nice holes in the clouds and I was put through my paces.  We started with various stall recoveries and recoveries from various attitudes.  After some max rate turns we did some spin and incipient spin recoveries then it was onto the aerobatic manoeuvres.

I started with a loop and flew through my own stripstream on the exit – a really good start.  Onto an aileron roll, a barrel roll, a slow roll, a stall turn and then a roll off the top of a loop.  All seemed to go well with these, so it was onto the combination sequence.  This consisted of a loop, stall turn, Cuban, and finally a slow roll – it’s surprising how much you need to concentrate to link them all together.  The run and break went well and after the landing and taxiing back to the hangar I got the all-important handshake and was told I’d passed!
 
I’ve now developed more of an interest in aerobatics and am looking at completing my tailwheel conversion, either in Shoreham or in the Chipmunk which will return for a month in the summer.  I’ve also organised to do more training on a Decathalon at Shoreham and enter some beginners’ competitions, and hopefully Andy will bring along his Starduster (bright red biplane!) so we can make a fool of ourselves together.

Would I recommend this to anybody else – you betcha!

This article is an extract from  Jersey Flyer Spring 2007 (2.86 MB)