Tailwheel Training and Camera Placement Work with Acro Camp IP Don Weaver

This is a regular blog post. You can find show notes to episodes - and links to episode audio and video - in the other entries.

I finally got a chance to escape from the office and get up for the first time with Acro Camp IP Don Weaver. Although we have spent a fair amount of time talking about the project, we haven't been in the same aircraft yet.

So we got up for 13 or 14 trips around the pattern at KPTK on Wednesday to test out some camera placements and get to know each other in the air.

I have a good deal of tailwheel time (at least compared to the average pilot), but wanted to get my groove back and spend some time understanding Don's teaching style.

We had a about a seven-kont crosswind, so it was a good day to work on wheel landings under those circumstances. I nailed three three-point landings first and then we set about the business of working on the wheel landings.

The crosswind was just enough to support rolling down the runway with the wail up, banked over a little to the right, and with only the right main on the ground. Over the course of the next nine or ten landings, I got a much better feel for what it's like to dance the Citabria around a little.

I think that a lot of tricycle-gear pilots get bunched up about the oscillations that a tailwheel airplane an have. Frankly, jacking back and forth like we were would probably have damaged a C-172 or at least scared the pilot silly. But this airplane is built to handle the side loads and squirrel around a little more. Additionally, I know that I still have the tricycle-gear pilot's tendency to not want to push the stick as much in the wheel landing because my lizard brain is screaming "Nose gear! Nose gear! Prop strike!"

In fact, you'd have to push a lot harder than I did to get the prop anywhere near the ground. It's just a sight picture and a kinesthetic sensation that you have to get used to.

By about the 10th trip around, I was reasonably competently putting it on the right main and keeping it there for an appreciable part of the trip down the runway.

Don's a good guy with whom to fly. He seems to share with Barry and a few others the rare gift of figuring out when the student is figuring something out for him self and knowing to shut the heck up for a few moments. That sounds crass to say, but I think we've all had motor-mouth instructors who actually keep you from learning by constantly calling out every little thing. It's like asking you on the first tee whether you inhale or exhale on your backswing. I don't know. Just let me hit the ball!

I think that Don quickly identified my tricycle tendencies and worked on those elements. He also identified a consistent problem that I have, namely centering the ailerons on landing (when I should have full deflection into the crosswind). Having me get it up on one wheel for the takeoffs and encouraging me to put it down on one wheel for the landings really helped me to see that part of the envelope.

We also flew a couple of cameras. These stills are from the Panasonic that I've been flying since last year. The other camera is a Sanyo Xacti HD2000 in back, to the right of Don's head, facing forward. I didn't have the wide-angle lens for the HD2000 that day, but I think that that placement is going to work out just fine once I get the lens. I just wanted to figure out whether that location worked from a vibration perspective.

By the way, the Sanyo HD200 accessory lenses appear to be out of stock everywhere! What gives, Sanyo? And the scumbags at www.elitedeals.com took my order for a Sanyo 0.45x semi-fisheye lens that they said was in stock, took my money, and then proceeded to wait on the manufacturer like everybody else for three weeks. Don't do business with these folks. They're bums. I got a nice 0.42x semi-fisheye lens with an adapter ring on eBay for less than half the price and the seller shipped it to me within two days.

The only problem now is that the HD2000, which has a pistol grip, looks like a flare gun or worse when I put the lens on it. I'm going to be pointing that rig at a performer on the flight line sometime this summer and some security guy is going to think I'm a nutball with a firearm and shoot me.

The HD2000 is probably going to be the primary camera in one of the airplanes for Acro Camp. I got it primarily because it has a microphone in jack. I can run the intercom directly into the camera and not have to deal with recording the audio separately. So the HD2000 in one airplane and the good old dependable Panasonic in the other one.

I still have to check out the Pitts for camera mount points. Might be a good excuse to go out to Ray Community Airport to see it and check out camera mount points.

Don and I also did some pretty aggressive slipping just to show the capabilities of the airplane. From 1,000 feet AGL and a quarter mile out, we slipped it down so that we came across the numbers at flare altitude and 85 mph. Don also demonstrated some effective ways to bleed a lot or airspeed quickly, also with slipping techniques. We had plenty of airspeed above the stall in all of the slips, so I wasn't worried that we were so cross-controlled.

That demo gave me a lot of confidence for engine-outs and glide performance in the airplane. Often, it's not hard to glide to the landing point in an engine-out. The challenge is arriving at the flare with enough empty space ahead of you without hitting anything on the way. With the Citabria, you can just get to where you want to be (a fairly broad window in space) and simply show the relative wind a lot of the draggy parts of the airplane. You have a pretty broad choice of altitudes at the key position from which you can get it down - from a long glide to an aggressive slip.

I'm looking forward to getting up again with Don. Both to confirm my thoughts about the camera mount points and angles and to expand my tailwheel and aerobatic stills (such as they are on both accounts).

And to think that I once worried about running out of things to learn!

Make sure that you fill out your Acro Camp cast member ("camper") application! This is going to be a boatload of fun. Check out the announcement and casting call at http://www.acrocamp.com/ and, if you qualify, go to the Acro Camp group at http://www.mytransponder.com/ (registration required, but it's free) and click on the link to the online application.

Back Up with Barry - Acro Stills from Saturday

This is a regular blog post. Looking for show notes or links to show audio? Please check out the other posts.

It occurred to me last week that I hadn’t been upside down since May and that that was a problem. So I got up with Barry Sutton for a little acro Saturday morning.

We flew a few combos and then headed back to the airport for some pattern work. My acro tolerance is back to crap (about 20 minutes), but that’s okay. You can’t knock it off for almost 90 days and still expect to have any real tolerance. But I have a ride with Greg Poe in the MX-2 this Wednesday and I at least wanted to get an idea of what, if any, tolerance I had left. I probably won’t be challenging Greg to wring me out.

On the other hand, I landed that airplane like I had built it. Holy crap! Two near-perfect three-point landings. And I think I finally got the hang of wheel landings. I’ll need to demonstrate the wheel landings again a few times, but I had a “A-Hah!” moment with respect to power use and I think I now have all of the tools I need to nail them consistently. It’s now just a matter of dialing in the right power and attitude from a box of possibilities of which I think I now know the boundaries. I love that part of training! Love, love, love it!

Anyway, I wanted to post some frame grabs from the flight, so here they are!

Wingtip buried, here we go in a wingover.


The initial pull in the loop that proceeds into a roll and a split-S. I like the sun in the Scheydens here!


Knife edge in the first quarter of a four-point roll.

The Guy in the Red Airplane

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedRedAirplane.mp3.

As Airspeed steams into its fourth airshow season, I’m in top gear heading out to shows and having some of the coolest experiences available below Class Alpha airspace. And I just had a day-long experience up in the Alpha on a KC-135R Stratotanker, too. More on that soon. I don’t think that anyone could say that I’ve spared much effort in chasing edges of the aviation envelope so far this year.

I can’t remember who said that life is what happens while you’re making other plans. But he was right. And I had an experience with that very thing not long ago. I was going to hold off on this episode until I got more of the Indianapolis Air Show content out, but I heard something on a recent episode of Uncontrolled Airspace that made me want to pull this one forward.

By the way, I mention the Uncontrolled Airspace podcast way too little here on Airspeed. If you don’t yet subscribe to UCAP, you need to go and subscribe right now. Go ahead and hit pause. I’ll wait. Okay, you’re back? Good. And leave them a nice review on iTunes, too.

Anyway, the UCAP guys mentioned a letter to the editor of a local newspaper by someone thanking the unknown pilot of a red airplane who had done aerobatics near the writer’s farm.

[Mary reads from letter]

This is to tell the man in the red plane that he has a fan.

I've been watching you from the ground. Well, from my farm pastures and yard actually. More often than you know. I am in awe of your skill and the performance you give is wonderful and joyous.

Who are you? Are you a man or a woman? A professional stunt pilot or a pleasure flyer of that pretty red plane? Do you perform for others besides me, or is what I'm seeing just an expression of your own preferences? . . .

Not the usual complaint about noise or some perceived safety issue. A thank-you for the grace and beauty of the performance. That made me pull this episode forward.

First, a little background. As I’ve attended enough airshows, I’ve gotten to see many of the performers multiple times, some more than a half dozen times. And I’ve begin to really hone in on what I love.

No flies on the jet teams. I love them dearly. And no flies on anyone else. But I had an epiphany at Oshkosh last year. I was watching Greg Koontz perform in a bright red Super Decathlon. I had been flying the Citabria for a few months by then and had really begun to love American Champion aircraft. And, seeing Greg fly the Super D so well, I made a connection. That’s an airplane that you might well be able to find, and train in, at your own local airport. Yet here’s a guy flying that very airplane with a grace and power equal to anything else at Oshkosh.

You probably heard Greg’s appearance on the show earlier this year and you could be forgiven for thinking that I’ve begun to regard Greg as a bit of a hero. One could have worse heroes, I suppose.

And I got to really appreciate another part of Greg’s unique appeal at the Indianapolis Air Show earlier this month. At the opening of the show, Greg takes on the persona of Clem Cleaver from Alabama, who barges into the airshow to redeem his coupon for a flight lesson. After some back and forth with the announcer, the air boss ostensibly clears Clem and his putative instructor to get into the waiting Cub, take off, and leave the airspace. But, shortly after the engine of the Cub is hand-propped to life, the Cub begins to roll forward and Clem takes off across the grass beside the runway without the instructor.

What follows is ostensibly a comedy act, but is also some of the best low-level aerobatics that I’ve ever seen. Ultimately, “grandpa” shoots the Cub’s engine with a large rifle and Greg ends the sequence by landing the Cub on a moving pickup truck.

The more you see this routine (and I’ve seen it five or six times now), the better it gets. At one point, Greg, playing the terrified Clem Cleaver, pulls the Cub up to a 45-degree ascent, then pulls the throttle back all the way, pushes over the top, and yells at the top of his lungs. You can hear Greg shouting in the cockpit all the way to the announcer’s stand.

Here’s the shout on Saturday at Indy.

[Koontz 1]

And again on Sunday.

[Koontz 2]

Greg ends that phase of the act by landing the Cub on a moving pickup truck. Then, a little later in the show, he gets out the red Super Decathlon and puts it though its paces, fling outside stuff, high-energy maneuvers, low-energy maneuvers, and even tumbling the airplane (not easy in a Super-D).

Anyway, I know that I’ll never be an F-16, F/A-18, or even Extra 300 driver. So, when I see my idealized self out there flying, I usually see myself flying a bright red Super Decathlon. Just like Greg Koontz.


It’s a happy coincidence that Sutton Aviation at the Oakland County International Airport (KPTK), where I’m based happened to add a Super Decathlon to its line in April. And an even happier coincidence that it’s red.

I had planned to fly some pretty heavy acro to prepare for the T-6A Texan II ride that I had in May at Randolph Air Force Base. I’ve never had a great stomach for acro, but I’ve found that I can work up to about 40 minutes of moderate aerobatic flight with exposure. I planned for two flights a week prior to the T-6A flight and, when the Super D became available, I scheduled it along with instructor extraordinaire and FAA Designated Examiner Barry Sutton. Barry’s an excellent instructor and you’ve heard his commentary in the cockpit here on the show.

We went up for the first time on April 16 and I rag-dolled myself out in only 20 minutes. You can see video from that flight in the Airspeed video episode that posted on May 30. By May 6, I had had a few flights in the aircraft and my tolerance was getting better.

I arrived at the airport to find a gray 10,000-foot overcast and hazy visibility. Solid VFR, but not the best weather for acro because you prefer a nice, sharp horizon to use as a reference when you pull through a loop or roll the airplane.

So we launched and headed for the practice area north of the field. Although much of Oakland County is subdivisions and industrial parks, it gives way to wide open fields and other rural landscape just north of the airport. No federal airways nearby and plenty of vertical and horizontal elbow room so there’s no worry about being over a congested area or getting within 1,500 feet of the ground before being fully recovered. In fact, we add a 500-foot buffer over that and start maneuvers a good thousand feet above that.

Barry has a pilot acquaintance, Paul, at the airport who lives out in the middle of the fields of the practice area and he has mentioned on several occasions that he’d try to contact Barry on the practice area frequency if he saw the Super D maneuvering.

I’ll say at the outset that the cockpit audio here is a little distorted. I usually set the audio levels on the ground and then hand Barry the recorder to stash in back in a Velcro-enclosed pocket. Although there’s a “hold” slider on the MP3 recorder, the slider doesn’t stop changes from being made with the H-M-L sensitivity selector. I usually fly with it set on low, but Barry inadvertently switched it to “high” in the course of stuffing it into the pocket. It’s a little overdriven and distorted, but understandable.

We had just finished a loop and some rolls when Paul came on the frequency. Barry, like many others, had mistaken the T-6A Texan II, a 1,100-hp modern trainer, with the AT6, a variant of the original WWII-era T-6 Texan. No matter. I just thought I’d clarify. Anyway, here’s the call-up.

[Audio 01]

We did the Immelman and a couple of other maneuvers, including a hammerhead, when Barry called up Paul again.

[Audio 02]

So we did the roll and then set up for an inverted pass. Paul had his binoculars out and could just about make out our tail number. We added a hammerhead at the end.

[Audio 03]

Paul asked at the last pass how long the aircraft could go inverted. We follow that up a little and then Paul suggests a heading to get us toward the big empty fields near his house.

[Audio 04]

Paul talked us in and then we did a series of maneuvers. We set up a show line over the fields well offset from his house and came down a bit, but still well above the minimum VFR altitude for the area and well above aerobatic minima.


I’m just going to let the audio run here and let you listen in. We have our box with plenty of clearance both vertically and horizontally for the regs. Frankly, we’re a little too high for anyone on the ground to get more than a basic idea of what we’re doing. The pictures that they sent the next day were clearly taken at maximum telephoto and cropped and we’re still pretty small in the frame. But the altitude is a good thing.

Barry’s giving me direction, but I’m flying the series, which makes me pretty proud of myself. I had been flying acro for quite some time, but hadn’t really done a connected series before. And now I had a chance to do it with an audience. I’m going to let this run with the omission of a couple of maneuvers where I made an attempt to record a Scheyden ad and the audio really distorted.

[Audio 06]

Didja hear that? Kids shouting in the background and lady thanking me for my noble and graceful feats in the sky.

Just before that thank-you, I was feeling pretty green around the gills. Not ready to park a tiger, mind you, but not in the mood to thrash myself any more. And then the voices of Paul, his wife, and the neighborhood kids. Voices that seemed excited about aviation. Voices that made the kind of sounds that I make at airshows all summer. Only the guy in the red airplane was . . . me.

I was instantly not sick. Not one bit. I could have gone another 20 minutes right then and there. All because of the voices from a back yard near some sprawling fields out in the countryside.

Barry and I talked about it on the way back to the airport.

[Audio 07]

Yeah, it’s cool. Really cool.

We did a few trips around the pattern, alternating wheel landings and three-point landings and then finally called up and told the tower that we were going full-stop. On final, a radio call came in. “Cessna niner-four-eight-niner-one 10 miles south with Papa to land, full stop.”

A magic tail number for me. That’s the Cessna 152 in which I did my first solo. It was a private pilot candidate coming in to see Barry for a checkride finish-up. Barry and I parked the Super-D, put away the parachutes, and debriefed and then I wandered back out on to the ramp.

There they were. N132PA, the bright red Super Decathlon; and N94891, the little 152 that took me a long way on the journey from pedestrian to pilot. Both sitting there on the same ramp. A silent meditation of where I’ve been and where I’m going. And the echo of the tinny voice of a fellow pilot, his wife, and the neighborhood kids shouting in the background coming through my headset as I rolled and looped in a red airplane over the fields.

I’ll never be Greg Koontz. Or even a lesser airshow performer. And that’s okay. I’m superhero enough for myself right now. Reading, flying, listening, talking, and, most of all, dreaming. Exploring the envelope. Becoming a better pilot and a more capable human.

If I learned something that day, it’s this. Sometimes you spend too much time fantasizing about what it’s like to fly like Greg Koontz. And sometimes it seems like all journey and no destination – or at least no stops along the way.

And then a flight like this comes along. For 20 minutes, you’re the guy in the red airplane. And the kids are shouting and pumping their fists in the air and pointing at . . . you.

So you stand on the ramp with the 152 and the Super-D and just take it all in. And then you go home and cut the audio and write the script and try to tell a few thousand of your closest friends about what it was like. Just like now.

Most of the time, you’re the scared knucklehead in the 152 or the confused guy with the hood on in the 172 or the guy with the aching right leg in the Apache or the flight-suited CAP major trying to drink from the twin 10-inch LCD fire hoses of the G1000. But, on rare occasions, magic, love, and science meet and you’re the guy in the red airplane flying upside down for the shouting kids.

That letter to the editor showed me that there are red airplanes – and people who watch them – all over the country. I’ve sure as hell been the one watching. And it was nice to be the guy in the red airplane, just once.


Go find a red airplane. Or whatever amounts to a red airplane for you. The life that you dream about might well be happening even as you’re focused on the mechanics and procedures of getting it to come about. Life is what happens while you’re making other plans. Don’t miss those fleeting moments when you actually are some glimmer of the hero that you daydream of being.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m Superman and Harry Potter and Fletcher Seagull, all in good measure. I’m a pilot. And sometimes I’m even the guy in the red airplane.
____________________

Link to letter to the editor of the Fauquier Times-Democrat:
http://www.fauquier.com/letter/751/

Sutton Aviation:
6230 North Service Drive
Waterford, Michigan 48327
248-666-9160
http://www.sutton-aviation.com/

Greg Koontz Airshows:
2546 Slasham Road
Ashville, Alabama 35953
205-616-8176
greg@gkairshows.com
http://www.gkairshows.com/

Music:
Jon Schmidt
Winter Serenade (Sussex Carol)
http://www.jonschmidt.com/catalog/index.php
http://www.mevio.com/music/?artist_id=3736

Video from the First Acro Session in the Super Decathlon

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These are the show notes to a video episode. You can watch online right here by clicking on this direct link. http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedAcro02.m4v.

It’s here! The second full-up Airspeed video episode!

These are highlights from my first flight in the American Champion Super Decathlon. I had flown the Citabria with some frequency in 2007 and had a couple of flights in that aircraft in 2009, but this was the first Super-D flight.

By this time (April 16, 2009), I had received word that my T-6A Texan II ride had been approved and I knew that is was going to be sometime in May. So I got out to the airport and flew acro aggressively to condition myself for the Texan ride. I wanted to be able to fully experience that ride and motion sickness can be such a buzzkill, in addition to making the coverage for you guys pretty lame.

So I headed out to Sutton Aviation and set up an acro program with Barry Sutton where I’d train as aggressively as I could and try to build my endurance for the T-6A ride. Toward the end, I was flying twice a week and getting a pretty solid 25-40 minutes of maneuvering each time. But this flight was pretty short. I rag-dolled myself pretty quickly, both because I was just getting my tolerance back after a long winter and because this aircraft is a lot more powerful and maneuverable and I was able to throw myself around the sky a lot more aggressively.

Anyway, here’s the video. For those to prefer, or miss, the audio episodes, I have more in the pipeline. I’m out on the patio this evening writing the script for the seaplane episode. And I go into the studio in a few weeks to record the music for the T-6A episode (provided that I’ve finished writing it by then).

Be sure to catch me at the Indianapolis Air Show next weekend. I’ll be there Thursday through Sunday. I’m doing a presentation for the Civil Air Patrol at Jonathan Byrd’s Cafeteria in Greenwood, Indiana 6:00 – 9:00 and I’m thinking about having an Airspeed meetup/Tweetup at Damon’s in the Holiday Inn Indianapolis East on Friday at 7:00. Watch my Twitter feed for details and to confirm before showing up.

Contact information for Sutton Aviation, where you can fly this airplane with Barry Sutton:

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive - Waterford, Michigan 48327
248-666-9160
http://www.sutton-aviation.com/

Airspeed Video Feature - Aerobatic Conditioning

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your favorite other podcatcher. It's all free!

These are the show notes to a video episode. You can watch online right here by clicking on this direct link. http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedVideoAcro01iPod.m4v.

So here it is! The first full-up Airspeed video feature. 14 minutes of good stuff featuring my last acro conditioning flight before heading down to Randolph AFB for the T-6A Texan II ride.

This is some new ground for Airspeed. I’m by no means abandoning audio. Audio will remain my primary vehicle. But some stuff just works better in video and this is a great example.

Please let me know what you think and how I can continue to improve Airspeed for the greatest and most loyal audience in the world: You guys!

Many thanks to Will Hawkins of Wilco Films for his tutelage in the mysterious ways of video editing. This would have been possible without him, but only with a lot of suffering and trial and error!

Contact information for Sutton Aviation (where you, too, can strap on a parachute and fly this very aircraft with this very Barry Sutton!):

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive - Waterford, Michigan 48327

248-666-9160
http://www.sutton-aviation.com/

Yet More Acro Conditioning

This is a regular blog post.  You can find show notes and links to show audio in other posts.

About 1.5 in the Super-D yesterday with Barry Sutton, about 35 minutes of which was pretty good and consistent acro.  Tolerance is getting a lot better.  We pulled several combinations, including a loop to a hammerhead to a four-point roll and back-to-back split-S's (a reverse Cuban eight?).

Feeling pretty good about the tolerance.  I go for one more session in the Super-D this week, go get a seaplane rating this weekend, then it's off to Randolph AFB to fly the mighty T-6A Texan II.  It all seems to be happening pretty quickly but, in fact, it's a result of a lot of planning as far back as last September.

Anyway, here are a few frame grabs from yesterday.

More Frame Grabs from Last Week's Acro Conditioning

Just a few more frame grabs from last week's acro conditioning session with Barry.  I'm working with Final Cut Express to try to transition from Premiere to that package so I can publish a few video episodes of this acro.  Should be a lot of fun once I get up the learning curve.  In the meantime, enjoy!

Acro Tolerance Going to Two a Week

This is a regular blog post.  If you're looking for show notes or links to show audio, please check out the other posts.

Just a short update.  I'm scheduled to go up with Barry in the Super D for acro twice a week between now and mid-May, when I've scheduled the T-6A Texan II flight down at Randolph AFB.  The weather's not looking too promising for today's flight, but I'll be there and preflighted at the appointed hour and we'll make a go/no-go decision then.

Tolerance at the moment is an abysmal 20 minutes, so it's imperative that I get up and inverted a lot between now and mid-May.  Above is a frame grab of the video that I shot the week before last.  The camera is working well and I'm pretty excited about how things are going so far.  Look for more video episodes soon!

First Flight in the Super Decathlon

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio, please check out the other posts.

Okay, there’s aerobatics. Then there’s aerobatics in the American Champion Super Decathlon. Holy crap!

I’ve been flying the Citabria Aurora at Sutton Aviation since last April. No flies on the Citabria and I really like that airplane. 118 hp and great flight characteristics. But the Super-D has 180 hp, about 2.5-ft shorter wings, inverted fuel and oil systems, and a constant speed prop.

The Super-D has enough power and maneuverability to really rag you out if you want to go up and do that. And that’s exactly what I set out to do yesterday. I have a military demo flight scheduled for May and I need to go up and start rebuilding my acro tolerance so I’m good to go for the flight. Not that I have any problem hurling when it’s called for after a reasonable amount of maneuvering, but my tolerance is way down from last year. That’s okay. Even airshow performers have to build up after a long winter by flying progressively longer aerobatic sessions.

My tolerance is at about 20 minutes with some breaks between maneuvers. The best I’ve ever had was about an hour straight last right after the Thunderbirds ride. The goal is to try to fly every week or so between now and mid-may to build that tolerance back to an hour.

And the Super-D is the right platform for that. Because of the better power and the inverted systems, Barry Sutton, my acro instructor, added the Immelman (a half loop after which you roll right side up at the top), knife-edge flight (rolling to 90 degrees of bank and then kicking in all of the top rudder to fly sideways), four-point rolls (stopping the roll at 90, inverted, and the other 90 before rolling wings level), and rapid aileron rolls. We also did a hammerhead.

The Super-D makes the old maneuvers more intense because the additional power means that you can do aileron rolls in level flight without losing lots of altitude as with the Citabria and you get a lot more hang with the hammerheads. You can’t quite helicopter up there with two full-size humans in the aircraft, but you get a lot of hang. And the Super-D makes the new maneuvers possible, mostly because you can add sustained inverted flight to the repertoire.

I’m looking forward to flying this aircraft a lot more over the next few weeks!

Inverted Again!

This is a regular blog post. Check out the other posts for show notes and links to show audio.

I finally got inverted yesterday for the first time since November. Yeah!

About 1.7 hours with Barry Sutton in the Citabria yesterday. The mission was to get up and start rebuilding my aerobatic tolerance for the 2009 season and then continue with tailwheel training in the pattern.

We started with wingovers of varying degrees until I was getting her up to about 60 degrees, burying the wingtip, and still pulling her out well below the yellow arc. The idea with the wingovers was to get some sense of energy management back after not having flown the aircraft for months. Six or eight of those until I was nailing them pretty well both left and right.

Then we looped her. I do so love the loop. If I’ve been having problems, it’s been that I’ve relaxed the pull too early on the way up. Mostly, it’s getting a feeling of what it’s supposed to look and feel like in the airplane. This time, I think I nailed them pretty well. Good steady pull on the way up with only a little bit of letoff as I floated over the top and then begin the pullout as the horizon comes through the top (!) of the windscreen.

On the back of the last one, I actually felt like the airplane rotated a little around its lateral axis. Not sure if that’s good (too much pull and stall risk?), but it was an interesting sensation. This is a very capable airplane and we had plenty of altitude in which to recover, so I wasn’t worried. Additionally, I’m getting pretty good at managing the energy in each maneuver. On each of the last two or three loops, I kept the airspeed out of the yellow while still being pretty smooth.

Barry says that the loops were good and round and probably looked impressive from the ground. In fact, he says that the average layperson would assume that we had out cheeks in our laps pulling gees. Heck, I think it’s impressive regardless, but understanding how it’s different in the airplane from what you see on the ground is an added benefit of doing this. I get a lot better idea of what I’m seeing at airshows.

Aerobatic tolerance is about 20 minutes. Rotten. But I’m glad that I’m starting in early. I’d like to have it up to an hour of moderate aerobatics by early June. An organizer at one airshow that I’m covering this year says that he’s going to vet media riders in a Pitts S-2C before turning them loose to get media rides from the performers. Okay. (1) a Pitts S-2C ride is a great ride even if you never get past the vetting and (2) as long as I get to shoot and record in the Pitts, I’m good. Although I really do want to be the iron-stomached media rider who can handle whatever the performer throws at him.

I had a chance to try out the new camera rig. It performed very well. No gee-induced issues and the mount (from Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies) held the camera exactly where I wanted it. I put it on the tube to the upper left of the panel as seen from the front seat. The wide-angle lens gave a satisfactory breadth of view of the cockpit, but the sensation of motion wasn’t what I was looking for. I think I might need to mount it toward the center so that you get more outside view and get more of a sense of the aerobatic maneuvers.

The camera proved easy to operate from the pilot’s seat. You can’t see the controls from the pilot’s seat, but they’re fairly easy to operate by touch if you’ve futzed with the camera a bit on the ground first.

I managed to goof up the audio recorder during startup and didn’t record the intercom audio for this flight. So I’m going to have to use this footage for something else. But it’s good footage nevertheless. I’m looking forward to playing some more with the camera to figure out what works best. In any case, I don’t want to wait until it’s a really good flight opportunity to try to work out the bugs. I’ve just recently been approved by the Air Force for a really cool opportunity and I want all of the hardware working flawlessly when that gets scheduled.

I have the new MacBook Pro and I’m getting acclimated to it. I’ll be installing the video editing software soon and I’m looking forward to posting some exampled of the in-flight video soon.

More aerobatics and tolerance-building coming up! Stay tuned!

________________________

More information about Sutton Aviation:

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive
Waterford, Michigan 48327
248-666-9160

Taildragger Training - Part 1

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedTaildragger1.mp3.

[Audio 01]

We’re going to do a little time travel here. Last April, when I had scheduled the DC-3 type rating course, I figured that it would be a good idea to get some tailwheel training before going down to Griffin. It seemed to stand to reason that it would be a good idea not to have my first tailwheel experience be in an airliner.

I actually needn’t have worried. Other than taxiing (which was an exercise in humility), the ‘three behaved beautifully.

But my tailwheel training has since become a lot of fun and I’ve spent a lot of time in a Citabria since then.

My instructor is Barry Sutton of Sutton aviation at Oakland County International Airport in Waterford, Michigan, although it’s “Pontiac” on the radio. The ICAO designator is PTK, for those following along in their A/FDs.

Barry’s a DE and an amazing instructor. John and Martha King have nothing on Barry for cockpit chatter. Barry is polished and smooth and seems to have a telepathic sense for what you need to know and immediately begins telling you before you have to ask. But Barry also has a talent for being quiet when he senses that you’re working things out, which is a rare thing indeed. I think Barry is the best instructor with whom I’ve ever flown. And I guess that’s saying something these days, as many people who’ve occupied the right seat in airplanes I’ve flown.

Anyway, I got ahold of Barry and scheduled a time to go get an intro to taildraggers and to go do some pattern work.


The airplane today is an American Champion Citabria 7ECA Aurora, tail number N157AC. It’s practically brand new, with its airworthiness certificate issues in December of 2006. It’s powered by a Lycoming O-235-K2C that puts out 118 horsepower at 2,800 PRM and it’ll climb at 740 fpm at sea level. It’s 22 feet long, 34 feet wide, and has 165 sq. ft. of wing area, giving it a wing loading of 10 lb./sq. ft. at its max gross of 1,750 lbs. It’s also certified for basic aerobatics and is rated for +5/-2 gees. I

t seats two in tandem. I’m in front for these flights. It’s a little weird if you haven’t flown a lot in tandem airplanes. You don’t see the instructor directly, so his or her voice is just sort of there in your ears. Like a voice in your head that’s teaching you to fly. Note: If you still hear a voice in your head telling you how to fly when you’re solo, consider a precautionary landing and some rest.

As a note for future episodes, I’ve done a lot of aerobatic training in it and recorded a lot of audio and video that will appear in future episodes.

Flying a taildragger is different in many ways. Probably the most important is that the center of gravity is behind the main gear. If you think about it, that’s an important thing because, if it wasn’t, the airplane would simply rest on its nose with the tailwheel in the air.

The most important consequence is that taking off and landing in a taildragger is a little like pushing rope. If there’s any off-center drag or friction, the center of gravity is going to want to come around from behind you and get in front of you. In a taildragger, that’s called a ground loop and it’s embarrassing at best and can bend you and/or the airplane at worst.

Think of it like this. The nest time you’re in a grocery store parking lot, go grab a shopping cart. Turn it around backwards and put your forearms on the sides of the cart, rest your elbows on the front corners, and grab the sides with your hands. Now run really fast. The cart isn’t very graceful and it gets worse the faster you go. That’s a pretty good proxy for what it’s like the first few times you fly a taildragger.

One other thing as we get started. Barry talks a little about an imaginary nosewheel. He is, of course, addressing the fear by tricycle-gear drivers like me that pushing the nose over will result in a prop strike. The fact of the matter is that there’s a fair amount of downforce on the tail of the airplane and you’d actually be hard-pressed to have a prop strike. Even if you got pretty well beyond level, the prop would tuck under a bit before actually striking the runway.

For all normal operations, you can simply imagine that there’s a nosewheel in front and you don’t even have to imagine very hard. After a certain amount of forward force, the airplane will resist you pretty well and the nose feels pretty stable.

Also, this is my first time flying an aircraft with a stick. You hold the stick in your right hand. Push and the houses get bigger, pull and they get smaller. Left and right are as you’d imagine. The throttle is a knob on the left wall and the carb heat is a smaller knob just below it and you operate those with your left hand. Trim is also on your left, but it’s only marginally helpful for gross adjustments. It’s almost impossible to trim the airplane for hands-off level flight.

The transition from yoke to stick took ten seconds. I’m not kidding. It seemed completely natural immediately. And I love, love, love flying with a stick instead of a yoke. I’d have to get a different kneeboard if I was going to fly the Citabria IFR (and, by the way, it’s IRF certified), but I’d consider doing that. As it is, I fly it without a kneeboard and take notes on my right knee with a fine felt-tip marker. Right on the knee. A prouder tattoo one cannot imagine. In fact, I’ve often considered writing an ATIS on my knee before going out just because I think it looks cool.

The first order of business was to familiarize me with the feel of the rudder at high speed before rotating. To that end, Barry and I did two high-speed taxis down Runway 27L. Barry had the stick and the throttle and got us moving just fast enough to get the tail off the ground. I’m sitting up front with my hands in my lap and feet on the rudders.

Here’s the first high-speed taxi.

[Audio 02]

Not bad. We taxi back and do another one.

Barry and I talk about the first run and get ready for the second one.

[Audio 03]

Then it’s time to do the second high-speed taxi.

[Audio 04]

We taxi back to the approach end of 27L. this time, we’re going to take off. The wind is pretty heavy out of the south and I’m not ready to crosswind operations in this airplane yet. We’re going to ask for a right turn on takeoff and make right traffic around to Runway 17.

You can land a taildragger in two ways. The easier and more common is the three-point landing. As the name implies, you try to touch the mains and the tail all at the same time. A three-point landing is a little easier in the Citabria because the tailwheel is steerable and you have more directional control when the tailwheel is down.

The other kind is a wheel landing. In a wheel landing, you land on the mains and then let the tail fly until it can’t fly anymore. It’s much the same as takeoff except that you’re slowing down. It’s also a lot harder because (a) as a tricycle-gear pilot, you’re overly scared of nosing over and having a prop strike and (b) you don’t have that steerable tailwheel on the ground and you’re instead depending on the rudder for directional control, even though rudder effectiveness is decreasing all the way until the tailwheel makes contact.

All of the landings today will be wheel landings. That’s because the DC-3 almost always does wheel landings. Unlike the Citabria, the ‘three is very stable in a wheel landing. In fact, although the ‘three can and does do three-point landings, it’s discouraged because the tail could begin oscillating up and down and, when a tail that big with that much momentum starts to oscillate, you can have control departures, prop strikes, and other nastiness.

But the Citabria is a good platform for understanding what goes into landings of either kind and we’re going to do some wheel landings today.

Here’s the takeoff from runway 27L and part of the pattern over to Runway 17. You can tell that I’m really enjoying the way this airplane flies.

[Audio 05]

And here’s the approach and the first landing. There’s a lot of convection and other turbulence, so you’ll head Barry coaching me on the throttle until I get the approaches dialed in.

[Audio 06]

Not awful, but I can tell that Barry’s doing a lot of the flying on the landing. We taxi back to the approach end of Runway 17 and I get my second takeoff. I feel pretty good about the takeoff and do most of it myself.

[Audio 07]

We get through the thermals and it’s time to touch down again. I don’t keep the stick forward to keep the tailwheel off and Barry helps me out with that. I’m exhibiting ever reaction that you’d expect from a tricycle-gear pilot flying a taildragger for the first time.

[Audio 08]

We head around the patch again and I put in my worst landing of the day. I keep wanting to pull back when I need to be disciplined enough to keep it forward to keep it on the mains and keep the tail off the ground. This time, we have to play with the power and oscillate a few times before getting the aircraft down and stopped.

I should mention that Pontiac is a pretty big airport with parallel main runways in addition to the crossing runway that we’re on. It’s a rare time when we have the airspace pretty much to ourselves. Barry’s friendly with the guy in the tower and I take the opportunity at the end to try to cloak my landing in a PIREP.

[Audio 09]

We got something like seven takeoffs and landings that day. Here’s the last one. It was a little better than most, but I still didn’t push adequately and we had to play with the power in order to get the right attitude for touchdown.

[Audio 10]

Needless to say, about a month later I had a tailwheel endorsement from Dan Gryder in the DC-3. The ‘three was much easier to fly than the Citabria in many ways. Lots more on the checklist and much more technical to get her over the fence but, once over the fence, docile as could be.

My understanding with Barry is that I’m going to fly the Citabria with him until he tells me that he’d sign me off for a tailwheel endorsement in that aircraft. Then I’ll really feel that I’m a tailwheel driver. Most of the flights since then have been aerobatic for the first hour and then pattern work after that. As I record this in mid-January, I haven’t been up in the Citabria since November, but I’ll be back in the saddle as soon as I can get there.

I think the Citabria is my favorite training aircraft thus far. It’s yellow, it’s new, it’s clean, it has great visibility (including a transparent roof), you sit on the centerline, you have your feet up on the rudders, you have a four-point harness, and it’s a genuine stick-and-rudder pilotmaker. Captain Chris of Plane madness did an informal poll on Twitter a few months ago, asking, if money was no object, what two aircraft would you own. I responded with the F-86 Sabre and either a Citabria or the Citabria’s big brother, the Super Decathlon. It’s that much fun.

Stay tuned because there’s lots more tailwheel and aerobatic audio stored up from the last year. And I’ve shot a lot of cockpit video of the aerobatic stuff, so I’m planning to release some more video episodes, too.

Contact Barry Sutton at Sutton Aviation:

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive, Waterford, MI, 48327
248-666-9160

First Post-Thunderbirds GA Aerobatic Flight

This is a regular blog post. Looking for show notes or links to audio? Please check out the other posts. AND CHECK OUT THE THUNDERBIRDS POSTS FROM A FEW DAYS AGO! (Scroll down.)

Spending a lot of time with the audio from the Thunderbirds ride getting it edited down for another epic summary episode a la the DC-3 summary episode. Thinking 90-minute-plus extravaganza. Might even go into the studio to record original music for it. Will have more vide to post soon, too. Will Hawkins is helping with the initial production. Watch this space!

Got up on Tuesday for 1.5 in the Citabria with Barry Sutton. I should note that, since Tradewinds closed in February, I haven’t had any home FBO at which I am checked out to rent airplanes all by myself. And I’m finding that, for the time being, I don’t care! I am a growing Citabria addict.

I did about 1.5 in the 172RG over at Flight 101 and had a good experience, then there was the DC-3 training. Just before doing the DC-3 training, I went up with Barry in the Citabria because I had no tailwheel time and wanted to do a few wheel landings before flying the ‘three. I loved that flight and went back to do more tailwheel training with Barry so that I could say with a straighter face that I have a tailwheel endorsement (the ‘three is wildly tailwheely in the taxi, but behaves like a big tricycle-great airplane otherwise). I really need to master a smaller taildragger before I can feel good about claiming to be a taildragger pilot.

Barry allowed early on as how he does aerobatic training in the Citabria, which piqued my curiosity. We did two flights after I got back from Griffin and before the Thunderbirds ride. The first was about aircraft stability and the second was about unusual attitudes and energy management. In each case, my stomach had had enough by about the 20-minute mark and we did the rest of those 1.3 or 1.4-hour flights in the pattern working on landings.

I got pretty green toward the end of the Thunderbirds flight. Not dwelling on it and not saying that I didn’t have an outstanding experience. (Can I say it again? The Thunderbirds rocked and Maj Mulhare worked really hard to make it a solid experience! I will never, ever forget that flight!) But I was a little disappointed in myself about getting that green that quickly.

So I had low expectations going out again in the Citabria on Tuesday. We strapped on the chutes and headed to the practice area and I expected to get maybe 20 minutes of cranking and banking before having to come back to the pattern.

Surprise! Yours truly got a full hour of loops, rolls, and hammerheads (I love hammerheads!) and no tummy issues at all. In fact, it was Barry’s idea to head back to the airport. (Not that Barry had issues – He just wanted to get some landings in.)

I think that it might have something to do with being on the controls a little more. I flew most of the maneuvers instead of watching or just following along on the controls. I think that made a big difference.

And there’s some element of exposure that helps. Most aerobatic guys who take time off in the winter will tell you that it takes them about five flights to get back into the swing. There’s an extent to which you have to just keep at it and push through whatever barrier you’re experiencing.

I was really stoked after the flight. This is what I’d hoped aerobatics would be like! Not having to be limited by the stomach and just enjoying the outer reaches of the flight envelope. And getting familiar enough with the maneuver to be able to just watch yourself do it.


You know the aerobatic sequences from One Six Right? I used to just hang my head and cry (yeah, cry) when I saw those because, although I’ve had more flight experiences than most people will ever have, I feared that that real skydancing would just plain elude me. Can it be that I can reach it and that it’s just on the other side of a little push through that 20-minute barrier? Can it be that I just need to have my hands on the controls?

What is a barrier, really? The problem is that the most important barriers are unique to each of us and there is no way to see anything but this side of the barrier until you put your head down and make a run at it. Maybe many runs. Maybe even fighting your own physiological and mental limits each time.

But the happiest times of life are when you realize that the barrier is surmountable. That you can do it. Or at least peek over the other side.

Hey, I’m no steely-eyed missile man yet. In fact, in many ways, I’m just a poser. I have a lot to learn. I’ll always have a lot to learn. But, on Tuesday, I transcended what I though was going to be an ongoing personal limitation. Or at least made a big-ass dent in it.

Car-dancing on the way home. Liquid Tension Experiment blaring. Windows down. Yeah!

Flight will transform you. Flight finally let me give my undivided attention to a burning blue-green horizon as the brilliant yellow nose of the Citabria fell through it and then the wings were like they were on straight vertical detents for a moment before pulling out.

Poser though I may be most of the time, for a little while this Tuesday, I was Superman, Harry Potter, and Fletcher Seagull. I am Stephen Force and I love this stuff.

________________________________

Contact information for Barry Sutton:

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive
Waterford, Michigan 48327
248-666-9160
http://www.sutton-aviation.com/

Unusual Attitude and Upset Training in the Citabria with Barry Sutton

This is a regular blog post. Looking for show notes or show audio? Please check out the other entries.

Try this at home! It could save your life. (Just make sure that you do it in a properly certified airplane with a qualified instructor.)

1.3 hours and five three-point landings yesterday in an American Champion 7ECA Citabria. I got a little time in this aircraft with Barry Sutton in May prior to going for the DC-3 type rating – the idea being that I didn’t want to show up in Georgia with zero tailwheel time. What I learned was that the dynamics of the two aircraft are almost completely unrelated. Not that there’s nothing to be learned from one taildragger to the next, but the skillsets are really different. Not unexpected, I guess.

But the experience with the Citabria really made me want to get more time in it. Two objectives here. (1) become proficient enough in the Citabria that Barry says he’d sign me off if I had come to him ab initio for a tailwheel endorsement and (2) cooler still, use this opportunity to explore the flight envelope in terms of aerodynamics, upset recovery, and aerobatics.

So I scheduled some time yesterday to go up with Barry and do just that (er, those).

Weather was cool with good visibility, smooth, and broken ceiling at 3,500 to 4,000. Not so good for serious aerobatics (in my conservative view of things until I gain some more experience), but just fine for basic VFR unusual attitudes.

We started out with demonstrations of stability. Trim the airplane out for straight and level, give the nose a good push, and let her porpoise through four or five oscillations to demonstrate that the aircraft tend toward return to level flight if left alone. Okay, I read about that. I understood it all, too. No problem.

Then Barry pitched us way the hell up. Cranked us over to 50 or 60 degrees of bank and said, “let go.” (Let go?). (Yeah, let go.)

I wish I could say for sure what the airplane did. I think that she yawed gradually around her wingtip with a bit more increase in bank and gradually went nose-down. The cool thing is that the yaw and bank basically damped down and, within about six seconds, we were stable, even if we were looking at a lot of planet out the front window. Throttle back and pull out of the dive and return to straight and level flight.

Guess what? The stability thing works in all three axes. For some reason, they don’t tell you much about that in the primary training literature. But we had the airplane all cranked over and scrambled in all three axes and it returned relatively stable flight all by itself.

Next, we did a spin to the left. The wing dropped off to the left and the autorotation started. Barry pulled the throttle and, after a turn or a turn and a half, Barry said “Let go.” With both of us hands-off, the Airplane broke the stall, stopped rotation within a quarter turn, and became merely a diving airplane instead of a spinning airplane.

I recovered from the dive and took her back to straight and level at 3,000 (about 2,000 AGL). After some more maneuvering, Barry asked me what’s required for a spin to occur. I gave the textbook answer: “The airplane must be stalled and it must be uncoordinated.” But Barry illustrated the truth of yet another precondition. We stalled the airplane and kept it coordinated and the nose came straight back down. Then we stalled it with the ball way outside the middle and let the airplane do what it did. Which is to say that the reaction was very incipient for a long time (more than five or six seconds, which is a long time if you have even moderate reaction time) and, absent keeping the stick all the way back and the rudder floored, so spin ensued.

The take-away is that there’s a practical third element, that being that that condition has to last a long(er)(ish) and/or the stall condition needs to be pretty deep. Modern aircraft don’t really want to stall or spin. If you’re in a stall of the inadvertent VFR kind that doesn’t find you suddenly and extremely cockeyed, you’re probably going to have time to recover. Just don’t do anything stupid, like letting your lizard brain pull back on the controls to accelerate the stall.

There is an extent to which the airplane will take care of itself. Although we were in very unusual attitudes, the aircraft recovered in every instance hands-off with only a power reduction required and then a pull out of the dive (which is easy to do because you’re wings level and have a good look at the ground and/or the horizon and they’re not rotating anymore).

The key is having enough altitude. This stuff takes several hundred feet, if not more than 1,000 feet, to happen. None of this knowledge would be very helpful on the turn from base to final. But I think I’ve seen enough to consider adding “hands off” to my SOP in this type of aircraft if I’m VFR and have altitude to spare. Not sure about other aircraft (e.g. C-172s, etc.), but it sure works in the Citabria.

I’ve said it before, but I'll say it again. Barry’s a really good instructor. And I know from good instructors. He takes the time to understand what you want out of the flight and presents the material in an ordered, sequential, and helpful way. If you’re looking for tailwheel, high-performance, multi, or similar training, Barry’s your guy. I’m not sure how much primary or instrument instruction he does, but I think that any primary or instrument student would be licky to train with Barry, too.

Obviously, this account is unique to this airplane, this instructor, and this author. Do try this at home because it’ll give you confidence, a better understanding of the flight envelope, and additional tools in your flight bag. It might even save your life. But do it in an aircraft certified for the maneuvers, observe placarded and other limitations, wear a parachute if required, and get a well-qualified instructor who knows you, the aircraft, and the airspace.

Contact information for Barry Sutton:

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive, Waterford, MI, 48327
248-666-9160
http://www.sutton-aviation.com/

Capt. Force Drags His Tail - And Manages to Keep It Behind Him

This is a regular blog post. Please check out the other posts if you’re looking for show notes or episode audio.

Got some tailwheel time this afternoon at Sutton Aviation with Barry Sutton in a Citabria. I had been reading the materials that Dan Gryder provides and saw something to the effect that “if you can taxi the DC-3, you can probably fly it.” So I reconsidered the wisdom of flying the DC-3 while having had no previous tailwheel time. Taxiing or otherwise.

We flew a really nice Citabria, namely N157AC. Two high-speed taxi runs down 27L at Pontiac with Barry handling the stick and throttle and me on the rudder. Then eight takeoffs and landings for a total of 1.4 hours. All were wheel landings, with the idea being that you always do a wheel landing in the ‘three and it would be good to get an idea of what wheel landings are like and have an understanding of the forces involved. Obviously, the ‘three is going to be a lot heavier and more steady, but it’s still a tailwheel aircraft.

That’s Barry Sutton in the back. Thousands of hours in tailwheels and other aircraft. And a great manner as an instructor. I think he out-John-Kings John King. And, when you’re in a tandem configuration with the instructor behind you, it’s like you have this disembodied announcer voice coming from the sky that occasionally moves the controls, too.

Actually, it might be fun to just have the instructor be the voice of the airplane. “Hey, that hurt! Could you maybe point me down the runway now?”

I’ll post audio from this ride as soon as I can. Probably after the daily updates from the ‘three training May 23-25. But it’ll be fun. The tower was really chatty and it was a fun day to be in the pattern.

More information on Sutton Information:

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive, Waterford, MI, 48327
248-666-9160