Sender: <marv@lancaironline.net> (Marvin Kaye)
To: lml
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:09:54 -0400
Message-ID: <redirect-2601927@logan.com>
From: "Eric M. Jones" <emjones@charter.net>
References: <list-2601525@logan.com>
Subject: Re:  Aerobatics
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For Xmas one year, I went and bought some aerobatics time with an instructor
in a Pitts S-2A airplane.
To get into the thing, one squeezes into the front hole, attaches the three
buckles and straps of a parachute ( the law...), attaches the crotch belt
(called an anti-submarine belt), attaches two shoulder belts, a chest
belt...and a lone sort-of-general-purpose-seat-belt. Perhaps the last belt
is a sort of spare. In case the first six fail. Really; the last belt
inspired me to think..."This is nuts! Nobody could get out of this thing!"
Well, we're in this baby for good. We would be seven miles-below-sea-level
by the time we could lose the canopy and get out of here. There might as
well be dirty laundry in the parachute pack if one of the wings were to blow
off. I had a malfunction while skydiving some years ago where I simply tried
to pull two quick releases and one ripcord in freefall while spinning under
a fouled main canopy. It took me two thousand feet. The instructor agreed
with this opinion.

The Pitts is easy in some ways--it takes off at 100 mph, lands at 100, flies
engine-out at 100, and climbs at 100. A flick of the wrist and the plane
corkscrews through the air. On the other hand, it glides like a brick, and
lands (by Cessna standards) very badly...even if one is very careful. On the
ground it handles like a blind pig. Design is the art of compromise.

We were really attached to this thing, and it felt good. The plane rolled
out and jumped into the air in about two hundred feet. We set up a 100 mph
climb to 3500 feet. Nose up 10 degrees and push full aileron and the thing
just rolled over 360 degrees. Pull back and the thing just inside-looped, a
quarter-loop and kicking left rudder flicked the thing into a hammerhead. We
did loops and rolls and spins and stuff for half an hour. I could tell the
instructor was a bit queasy too.

Really does bad things to one's stomach though. The brain REELS at this sort
of thing.  The G-meter goes to 12 (thus the seat-belt blizzard). My stomach
was happy again for two days.

Eric