Day 25 - Wearing A Biplane

Well there's something you don't see everyday. I bobbled my head around in the solid plexiglass bubble canopy, and looked up. The ground is 5,000 feet above my head. Heh.

We had transitioned directly from a hammerhead (the aircraft flies straight up, stops, performs a 180 degree rotation about its vertical axis and points downward as if pivoting on a wingtip, then spirals toward the ground), to the maneuver that we were now in, which was a loop. Dan continued to pull aft pitch, continuing on through the loop. The ground smoothly transitioned from being above my head to directly in front of me, and closing in fast. The positive Gs were really beginning to kick in, and my vision began to darken. My hands tingled, and little star-like glistens entered my field of vision. I tightened my stomach muscles, grunting slightly in an attempt to slow the rapid blood flow to my feet caused by the intense gravitational force from the aerobatic maneuver. And then suddenly the ground disappeared from in front of me, and I was looking again at the sky. The forces of gravity were no longer violently tugging at my body and associated fluids, and the starry spots in my vision disappeared. I barely had time to register this realization before the little red biplane rolled hard right and onto its back. "YEAAHH!!!!!" I howled in to my headset. "Victory roll!!!" The airplane continued to twist until it righted itself, then kept right on rolling. Here we go again!

That's right, friends and neighbors, today was aerobatic introduction and upset recovery day. After a very enriching ground class on the dynamics of flight phases that Dan aptly described with terms like "behind the power curve," and "outside the envelope," it was time to head for the skies and put me through the ringer. I strapped my parachute on and climbed into the little hot rod of an airplane. It was basically a giant engine with two wings that someone stuck a couple of chairs on as an afterthought. You didn't really ride in it, you wore it. Even for my tall, slender build, the quarters were cramped. I cycled through the endless series of belts and buckles that attached me to the airplane at no less than seven points, and put my flight "helmet" on. Personally, I wouldn't even call it a helmet. It was one of those cloth skull caps attached to a headset and looked like something that Snoopy would wear. I suspected that it was less of a helmet and more of a sack for my head and its contents, should post-accident clean-up be required. You know, to make things easier on the paramedics.

Within 10 minutes of Snoopy hat placement we were blasting away from the earth at a speed and angle that can't be reproduced by anything that I am qualified to fly. The ground disappeared rapidly below us, and Dan initiated a turn to the north to take us away from the airport and into the aerobatic practice area. "Ok, go ahead and take the airplane," Dan called from the rear.

I was riding in the front seat, and Dan in the back. Great. I've got a front row seat for a puke fest. Go me. We each had a set of controls, and it was time for mine to come to life. My feet extended to touch the rudder pedals, and my hands simultaneously moved to the stick and throttle. "My airplane," I acknowledged. It was a strange-feeling airplane, way different from anything in which I had logged flight time. The first thing I noticed was the immense power that it produced. The sounds and sensation of the horsepower at my command were unmistakable. And the flight controls were no slouches either. The control inputs were rapid and crisp, with tons of control authority. The slightest movements produced tremendous results. If you said, "turn, airplane," she said, "I already did, keep up you idiot!" There was no mistaking what this bird had been built to do, and this was just straight-and-level flight.

But that didn't last long. Before I knew it, we were dutch rolling, stalling (power-on and power-off configurations), and performing high angle turns as well as 90 degree flight. Then came the maneuver we'd all been waiting for. The last thing we would be training on. The big one. The root of my problem. Quite possibly the coup-de-grace. The dreaded spin.

The fact that I'm now telling you about the flight after the fact, obviously, indicates that I lived through the experience. The spins were not nearly as big a deal as I thought. It helped that I was in a smaller airplane and not the big twin (which I'm still slightly concerned about), but I found that I really had to try to get her to spin. Even in this airplane, it wasn't fast and violent. Furthermore, I discovered that if I was slow and methodical, and talked myself through it, I was able to quickly recover every single time. And let's just say that after about the third consecutive recovery, when Dan reached up to me and gave me a very vigorous pat on the shoulder complete with accompanying and equally vigorous words of congratulations, that I had experienced one of my greatest gratifications in a long time. To receive the seal of approval from such an experienced and talented veteran aviator really meant the world to me. After we landed he even bragged to Joey how well I'd done. For him to be pleased with my performance in the airplane was the perfect icing on today's educational experience. And as for the series of aerobatics mentioned at the beginning of the passage? Well, a well-executed training flight just wouldn't be complete without a little victory dance, now would it?

Oh, and by the way, I didn't puke.

Joey