My first hammer head wasn't really a hammer head, it was sooo much more. My best friend (I thought) said "want to try a hammer head"? Filled with trepidation, I replied "sure". We dived, dived, dived, gaining mach speed (this WAS in a Champ!) Then going vertical....wow. Let me go on at this time to say there are at least two reasons NOT to chop the throttle at the top. One, the plane will not turn with the engine off, and two, you can hear the pilot say "OH, shit!! This is immediately followed by a little maneuver commonly called a whip stall!! Now if you like to find yourself standing up in the back seat, with your neck pressed against the trim control, looking back between your knees passed vertical at the earths surface, please give it a try. But IF I am in the back seat, you will get a hammer in the head.

Without power, you simply have to start the hammerhead stall slightly before the airplane reaches the apex of the climb. All you have to do is get it "yawed" 30 degrees or so. When the airplane starts to fall, the fin and rudder will yaw it the rest of the way. I've done this maneuver many times in gliders, it works well enough for the purpose, but it will not win you any acro trophies

A hammerhead doesn't require a stall. It's basically a slow horseshoe-shaped maneuver.

iac.org wrote:This maneuver is sometimes called a hammerhead stall. This is not an accurate name because the airplane never stalls. The airspeed may be very low, close to zero, but since there is no wingloading during the turn-around, there is no stall (at zero g wing loading, a wing does not stall). The plane is flying throughout the maneuver with all the control surfaces effective (although sometimes only marginally so).

It can result in a whip stall though (gulp) like Y4's exciting tale. Makes my innards queasy just thinking about it.

I needed to add that the time and distance between the botched turn and the whip was forty five minutes and 8,000 feet. It was truly the most violent thing I've ever experienced in an airplane. And since MY FRIEND regularly flies at 11AGL, we recovered some three feet from the ground. So be sure you hold his beer and stay out of the back seat!

The dreaded first HAMMER HEAD (video)

For some reason I wish this was the original thread title. Sounds like too much fun (literally).

Jerry, you crack me up. Haha.

That must be the tailslide reverse snaproll that he was talking about!
And gaurenteed you only want to do it only o nce!
Some one told me this once!!
GT

Y-4 wrote:
My first hammer head wasn't really a hammer head, it was sooo much more. My best friend (I thought) said "want to try a hammer head"? Filled with trepidation, I replied "sure". We dived, dived, dived, gaining mach speed (this WAS in a Champ!) Then going vertical....wow. Let me go on at this time to say there are at least two reasons NOT to chop the throttle at the top. One, the plane will not turn with the engine off, and two, you can hear the pilot say "OH, shit!! This is immediately followed by a little maneuver commonly called a whip stall!! Now if you like to find yourself standing up in the back seat, with your neck pressed against the trim control, looking back between your knees passed vertical at the earths surface, please give it a try. But IF I am in the back seat, you will get a hammer in the head.


With all of those thousands upon thousands of precision, low level, death defying, aerobatic maneuvers, impeccably performed, with perfect co-ordination, exibited with the beautiful grace of a young New York ballerina, or, all of the stranger than fiction, hair raising hang glider flights and crashes, you choose to remember one little tiny, almost un-noticeable, barely perceptible, little tail slide of 40 years ago? OOOHhhh, Mottley, I just may be forced to tell the story of "almost" running out of gas....

I just KNEW the truth was gonna come out sooner or later!!!!

Gump