Here is an interesting article that recently popped up on AVweb. ( April 24, 2016 )

" Want to Improve Your Landings? Learn Aerobatics "



http://www.avweb.com/news/features/Want-to-Improve-Your-Landings-Learn-Aerobatics-226129-1.html

Some of the points they mention do make a lot of sense. I wish Bob Hoover owned a BearHawk.

Denali

I took a short aerobatic course. ~~10 hrs. The best I got was being comfortable without getting complacent or panicky. So long as the wing is not overloaded, the plane could care less about your prior view of what the world should look like. Now i will go see if I can print the article.

Trim

I agree with all the points made in the article. We cannot learn how the controls; aileron , elevator, rudder, and throttle work without moving them. Dutch rolls to 45 degrees teach rudder/aileron coordination as well. Throttle movement to the stops may be necessary in gusts. I very much agree that too much speed is the leading cause of airport accidents and that approach to landing stalls just don't show up much in accident reports.

Good article.

I also agree fully with the article. As a Master-CFI-Aerobatic, I often had new students that just weren't used to actually making the airplane do what they wanted, especially when it involved yaw/nose control. We see this everyday at all our airports watching pilots land in even very modest crosswind conditions. The skills and more importantly, the confidence one gains from aerobatic training is truly live saving training for many.

Jughead

Jughead,

The instructor in the article seems to prefer low powered airplanes, like the C-150 and Citabria, for teaching aerobatics.

I have limited experience teaching aerobatics, and none in high power to weight airplanes, but I have found that large after-market engines on small airplanes mask some of the techniques and principles I am trying to teach in takeoff, landing, energy management turns, thermalling, etc. The aerobatic airplanes that can almost hover out of ground effect in a ninety degree pitch up attitude seem to hurt both airplane and pilot when they power around in aerobatic maneuvers. It is hard to watch.

My question is does the tremendous excess engine thrust for climb in these airplanes mask some of the techniques and principles you are trying to teach?

My short field work was much easier after taking Aerobatic lessons. It gave me the confidence to take my plane out and see just how it would preform in stall and what the warning signs where. Every plane flys different and rigging will effect its performance. Being able to take a plane up to 4,000 AGL and really fly on the edge for a while will give you a good feel for the plane and how slow you can go before it wants to quit flying. Knowing that you can recover from a spin will let you stay right on that edge. I try to take it up and do slow flight/turns several times a year just to keep in touch with the plane.
DENNY

For me, it made all my flying better. Landings especially. Like the article says, if you learn to do basic aerobatics well then high AOA flight at low speeds will be a non issue. For me as well, understanding how the effectiveness of rudder changes at high AOA was an eye opener. My first instructor was a retired USAF test pilot/skyraider/F4 guy and was always giving me "pearls of wisdom." Many of which I never understood until I started doing aerobatics. One of many he used to say was "practicing landing is a poor way to get better at landing. Poor landings are really a slow flight issue."

A friend of mine is probably the best I've ever seen at short landings. Not in the STOL competition type way, I mean he can get into any airplane and within a few minutes learn to REALLY slow the thing down. Transition time is just uncanny...he just "knows" when the tail/wing are going to quit flying. He has also been doing aerobatics in little airplanes since he was a kid, I don't think it's unrelated. Aerobatics really helps truncate your new aircraft transition time.

Another friend of ours just placed first in a category at the Texas STOL fly-in last weekend; in an airplane he had never flown. He only had a few hours of ferry time in that type of plane. He came up from a similar background.

I think getting some basic aerobatics training is some of the best money you can spend in aviation. I'm no super pilot, but the confidence I gained through it has been invaluable to me.

Oregon180 wrote:I think getting some basic aerobatics training is some of the best money you can spend in aviation. I'm no super pilot, but the confidence I gained through it has been invaluable to me.

Exactly. Not much more to say except acro can get really addicting.

Rich

I was already a CFII when I took a basic aerobatics course in Boulder some 35 years ago, so I was a pretty confident and reasonably skilled pilot. But I became much more confident, and my stick & rudder skills definitely improved, as the result of that 10 hours of aerobatics. Whether it improved my landings per se, I don't think so, but overall, it was valuable.

Basic aerobatics teaches the pilot how to make the airplane do what the pilot wants it to do, instead of the airplane doing what it wants to do. It (or a variance, an upset recovery course) is a valuable course for all pilots. Rick (the author) is correct--it's also a lot of fun. I never became good enough at aerobatics to pursue it beyond the basic course, and a divorce and its cost pretty much got in the way of continuing, anyway.

One of my favorite aviation memories comes from that time, too. (If you've seen this before, just ignore it ) The effects of the divorce were getting to me, so I hopped in the TR182 and flew down to Boulder, hoping my instructor would be there. He wasn't, but a dumpy little woman in a red jumpsuit said she'd fly with me. I asked her if she was an instructor, and she said she was. So we went out to the Super Decathlon, preflighted, and took off for the aerobatics box. She asked me to show her what I knew, so I did a pair of pretty good loops, an outstanding multi-turn spin, and then a crappy roll. She said, "Let me have it so I can show you what I have in mind."

In her hands, that little Decathlon changed personalities--so incredibly smooth and accurate! So we flew for an hour, with her showing me better ways to do what I could do, and then returned to the airport. After filling out my logbook, she said, "Does anybody here know how to hand prop an airplane? I need to get to my next gig." I did, so I walked out with her to her red Pitts, cranked up her airplane, and she flew off to her "next gig".

I walked back into the office and commented, "That's a pretty odd little woman, but boy can she fly!" One of the guys there said, "Don't you know who you just flew with?" "No." "That's Betty Stewart--World Aerobatics Champion!" I learned later that she's the only woman to earn that title 2 years in a row. Coincidentally, I also realized later that I'd seen her win it, the year it was held in Oshkosh, WI.

Cary

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Cary wrote:
I walked back into the office and commented, "That's a pretty odd little woman, but boy can she fly!" One of the guys there said, "Don't you know who you just flew with?" "No." "That's Betty Stewart--World Aerobatics Champion!" I learned later that she's the only woman to earn that title 2 years in a row. Coincidentally, I also realized later that I'd seen her win it, the year it was held in Oshkosh, WI.

Cary, that is such a cool story. There is a local lady instructor who also offers aerobatics instruction, but I am currently wrestling with some medical issues. If I can make it happen though, I am definitely going to go for more instruction. Thanks for sharing. There are some amazing people out there in the aviation community with some truly amazing talents.

Here is a link by the way to an article describing Ms. Stewart's induction into the Aerobatic Hall of fame. That Pitts in the picture is probably the same plane you helped to hand prop eh ? She is quite a lady.

https://www.iac.org/news/2004-11-05-stewart-and-hester-inducted-aerobatic-hall-fame

Cary, That is a great story. I bet you're thankful you weren't some mysogynist that told her to grab you a coffee while you looked for an instructor!

My wife is a lovely lady but if you want to see a whirling dervish, when she says she flies for a living, ask her if she is a flight attendant!

contactflying wrote:Jughead,

The instructor in the article seems to prefer low powered airplanes, like the C-150 and Citabria, for teaching aerobatics.

I have limited experience teaching aerobatics, and none in high power to weight airplanes, but I have found that large after-market engines on small airplanes mask some of the techniques and principles I am trying to teach in takeoff, landing, energy management turns, thermalling, etc. The aerobatic airplanes that can almost hover out of ground effect in a ninety degree pitch up attitude seem to hurt both airplane and pilot when they power around in aerobatic maneuvers. It is hard to watch.

My question is does the tremendous excess engine thrust for climb in these airplanes mask some of the techniques and principles you are trying to teach?

Contactflying,

There are several answers to this question.

1. No matter how much horsepower or crispness in the controls, during aerobatics, pilots learn to watch over the nose and use the rudders to keep it where it was intended to be. That is one of the biggest benefits. During my military time on an exchange with the Navy we came across an unique example of this when we transitioned from the T-34C to the T-6II. The T-34C was a fun, very capable aerobatic airplane, lots of power, descent control response and with that much HP, lots of rudder was required due to P-Factor and Torque. The T-6 had an "auto-rudder" system. It applied about 90% of the necessary rudder with no input from the pilot. This was supposed to help guys transition to jets later, (don't get me started). But what we found was it caused the nose to do some weird, slightly unpredictable things during aerobatics because it couldn't quite keep up with the maneuvering. Therefore, you had to really watch what the nose was doing and apply rudder, sometimes both left and right in fairly quick succession to keep the airplane doing what you wanted it to do. It was legal to fly the airplane with the power rudder system turned off, though most kept it on. A friend of mine, Patty, flew several air shows demonstrating the airplane for Beechcraft/Raytheon at the time. We had several conversations about this very issue. She just left the system on and "flew the nose."

2. I think the low power, non-symmetrical winged aerobatic airplanes are better for learning the control inputs to fly the basic maneuvers.
Yes, the high performance machines can roll so fast they can mask lazy/improper rudder/stick work to some degree. But you don't have to use full capability of the controls when flying them. In fact, most pilots are afraid of applying more than half control deflection in the Extra. It's capabilities far exceeds their comfort level. Even with instruction, demo and guidance, most students will take several attempts before they can even apply full scale aileron deflection.

3. One thing the high performance machine's benefits is seeing what gyroscopic effect those big props turning 2700RPM can do to the airplane's flight path. Especially during negative G and/or large rudder input maneuvers. Most of the "tumbling" maneuvers you see flown are utilizing gyroscopic effect to produce the desired results when combined with large rudder inputs.

I hope this answers your question. I still firmly believe, ANY type of aerobatic airplane and training is very beneficial for every pilot.

Jughead

Thanks Jughead. I learned a lot I didn't know from your explanation.

contactflying wrote:Thanks Jughead. I learned a lot I didn't know from your explanation.

x2, good stuff.

I can agree with ninety plus percent of all the above except for one thing.
I flew a Cessna 150 Aerobat once. Once was enough. Flew like a tortoise.

Thought I would try the plane out since I had watched one of my instructors, Amelia Reid, fly one doing low-level Ackro for years while working the old Watsonville Airshow. My old Champ was easier to fly it's limited range of 'Ackro'.

Wannabe clear