A series of blog posts about learning to fly the Pitts Special
IAC member Glen Becker IAC 436957 was always going to own and wear a Pitts Special, he just didn't know it. As it goes with so many of us, he was afflicted with the aviation thing before he can remember. Childhood dreams of military and commercial aviation careers evaporated at 18 when he learned how slight, and undetected, a red-green color vision deficiency could be. Fate, though he prefers to think of it as "determination," led him to the dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time in December 2013.
He considers himself lucky to be the current steward of a beautiful Pitts S-1S and, with the help of some extremely talented and generous mentors, he has slowly worked his way to Intermediate competition. Having changed careers, started a business, learned airplane ownership, how to land a Pitts, and aerobatics simultaneously, he considers just getting to the contest a win. Getting there with some practice? Sublime.
Trying to enjoy the journey as much as the destination, he spends his precious time in the cockpit pushing his skills and experience forward, muttering his risk-management mantra, "Never underestimate your capacity for stupid," when he thinks no one can hear. He continues failing spectacularly to develop a cool G-face.
The blog posts begin with day one of his training on October 3, 2013, and ends with his a video on learning to do Rolling Turns.
Learning Rolling Turns
By Glen Becker | June 2020
Rolling turns are hard. I’m learning the most basic version: 90 degrees of turn and 1 full roll.
I trimmed the takeoff/landing, and some of the longer repositioning turns and conversations with my critiquer/spotter, from two practice flights leaving about 26 minutes of real-time rolling turn video.
Sped up 16x, with two normal speed examples as an intro. I counted (afterward) 62 rollers. On top of a hot, humid, day in the sun, I was a little wrung out.
We had catastrophically-perfect weather for this year’s installment of the East Coast Aerobatic Contest in Warrenton, VA (KHWY). It’s not lost on us this perfection while seemingly the rest of the hemisphere is reeling from the catastrophically bad weather.
I finished 2nd in Sportsman among a talented group. I’m happily surprised but did make satisfying improvements to my hammerheads during practice. I also got some good coaching on flying the Cuban Eight and that helped since it’s the highest-weighted figure in this years’ Known program.
Thanks, as always, to Julie Artz (Youtube: horsemoney) for coming out to play with us and sharing video. It’s always cool to see this relatively-solo pursuit from a fresh perspective. And it makes sharing with friends and family easy!
My second contest flight (of three); the judges liked it; scored 2nd out of 8.
This quick blurb about the contest appeared in the Fauquier Times Saturday. A picture of me from earlier in the week was conveniently available courtesy of the airport management and got included. Image credit: Alex Hrapunov
It’s official. And it’s no April Fool’s joke, despite the date. Two days ago, I successfully took off, flew, and landed my airplane…several times! And what a perfect day for it. Clear, dry, and light winds. I was really nervous, I’m not used to being that nervous, but it was mostly good “sense enhancing” stress. I was tight for the first part of the flight but slowly relaxed. By the time I came back to Lee I relaxed enough to not screw up my first approach to the relatively short, narrow strip I’ll call home. (It’s too bad I don’t have cockpit video of that landing. I would love to see what my face was doing!) My flying wasn’t pretty but I’m really happy with it. It felt good.
Karen told me how quickly it gets up and goes, but I was still exhilarated by the takeoff and climb. Dan Freeman flew his practice sequence and had just landed at Lee when I took off (he makes an appearance in the video). Mark Meredith (restoring a Super Chipmunk in the hangar next to Bill Finagin) took the opportunity for a proficiency flight in his Archer and went down to Cambridge about the same time. Emily’s brother Bennett flew with him and we had lunch down there. It was a great afternoon.
I went to Cambridge, did some testing west of the field: slow flight, stalls, rudder walk, turns, and found ~1900rpm gets me to a 100mph pattern speed. I did some brief checks of control feel at lower airspeeds and I’ll explore more soon. I found it takes a ton of right rudder, even in cruise a left turn only needs the barest hint of left rudder. I’ll explore that more as I get more time in it. Then I headed into the pattern at Cambridge for three low-approaches and then a landing.
Communication is still an issue, so maybe it’s not the radio. On the way out Potomac reported me weak, broken, and unreadable. Mark was only 5 miles away and said I was clear but very weak. (We planned to come back into the SFRA as a two-ship, just in case, but apparently Potomac could hear me well enough so we came in separately.) The automated radio check on the ground at Lee sounds fine. Troubleshooting ensues so I can go flying again!
I put cameras on the airplane but I didn’t give them much attention…I had other things to focus on. Consequently, I didn’t get much usable video. The cockpit cam battery died quickly and the wing cam tilted back shortly after takeoff. I do have an hour of the underside of the top wing, though, in case that ever comes in handy.
Thanks to Bill Finagin for his excellent training and getting me ready quicker than I thought possible.
Tank Killers - twelve o'clock level
By Glen Becker | March, 2014
It’s not often we find ourselves down-range of any weapon, let alone a large one. How about this for size and sheer make-my-person-and-entire-airplane-cease-to-exist-from-4000-feet-away potential: 30mm gatling cannon delivering 3900 depleted uranium rounds per minute. Now make it a flight of two and you have my undivided attention.
It was a busy day at Easton (KESN) last time I flew with Bill Finagin. We were going around the pattern on runway 22 and a flight of two A-10 Warthogs were doing a practice instrument approach to runway 4, i.e. in the direction opposite our landing. The tower controller was busy and did a good job handling everyone. The timing worked out that we were on final as they were over the airport. Bill handled the important stuff of talking and coordinating our part and directing me, while I just flew. (To help make sense of the radio traffic: Bill’s permanent call sign is “bug 1” and you can probably guess “wardog 1” is the pair of Warthogs.) Video link.
Pilots spend a lot of time and energy watching for other aircraft. The vast majority of traffic we encounter is “no factor”, meaning we see them (and they probably see us) and no action is necessary for either party. Very, very occasionally we might have to slightly change our direction or altitude briefly. Rarely (it’s never happened to me) do we find ourselves flying straight toward another airplane on a collision course. Even more rarely is it death-dealers like the Warthogs. It was a unique experience.
It was never a problem but everyone was on their toes making sure everyone was doing what everyone else expected.
My First Hammerhead Turns
By Glen Becker | February 8, 2014
The Hammerhead Turn is a fun maneuver. It’s a challenging combination of all three planes of motion, plus the fourth dimension of time: there are two quarter loop components to pull in, pitch changes courtesy of the elevator, a roll component (to counteract torque at low airspeed and asymmetrical lift) to exercise aileron control, and of course the yaw component where we get to kick the rudder to turn around at the top. Plus, it gets us close to the zero airspeed regime.
There is more going on here than I can keep track of now. For the moment the important parts are the pull up, the yaw turn around the top, and the pull out. Eventually I need to add these parts:
Consistently hold the 4g pull from level to vertical
Timing the turn around. Done correctly, the airplane pivots around its center of mass in less than a wingspan. Too early leaves the airspeed too high and the airplane “flies” through a wingover, instead of pivoting. Too late and it falls backward into a sloppy tailslide.
Find the exact mix of right- and then forward-stick to keep the turnaround in the same vertical plane. The outside wing is traveling faster so it’s generating more lift, than the inside wing, which results in left-rolling tendency that is counteracted with right-stick. Forward-stick counters the gyroscopic force from the spinning propeller trying to pull the nose up.
Timing the turn stop. Without right-rudder the nose will swing through the bottom, past vertical. The engine and propeller make an effective pendulum weight.
Timing the vertical down-line and nailing the 4g pull-out to finish on target in both airspeed and altitude.
It looks so easy from the ground!
HEREis video evidence of my first attempts…preserved for all time (at least until electrons are obsolete). I hope to look back at this clip 5000 hammerheads from now and shake my head at how anemic my skills used to be.
Pitts Emergency Recovery Training
By Glen Becker | February 6, 2014
Part of my journey into aerobatics includes Spin Training. Spins are the downward spiraling flight airplanes go into when the wing stalls (i.e., stops producing lift) without coordinated rudder input to keep them level. Spins are a required part of aerobatic competition. Accidental spins are associated with a great many aviation accidents. One would think they’d be integral to pilot training. And they are…sort of.
We’re taught about them including the aerodynamics involved, recognition & avoidance, and the control actions to recover. But actually, doing spins is no longer required by the U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations to be a certified pilot. We talk about them, get tested on them, but don’t actually do them. We’re required to perform stalls (the wings must be stalled before a spin can occur) but only just the onset of the stall, before recovering to normal flight.
I won’t go into the great debate here but the teaching of spins is the aviation equivalent of religion or politics (or even worse: the PC vs Mac debate!): everyone has an opinion and they are mostly strong and very likely to run the entire gamut. There are those for whom the spin is the modern equivalent of the flat earth: a fear born of uncertainty and a place best left unexplored. It takes all kinds but, in their defense, spins are perhaps the least understood of basic aerodynamic phenomena and have been for over a hundred years.
For aerobatics, spins are required in all their flavors. But for the moment I don’t want to talk about spins; I want to talk about ’emergency recovery’ from accidental spins.
Part of trying new things is the certainty we will fail regularly and often. In trying new aerobatic maneuvers, one likely outcome of failure is simply falling out of the maneuver and into a spin. We practice with lots of altitude so recovery is easy, until we can perform the maneuver perfectly every time. This mastery is what allows airshow performers to dazzle us safely and consistently. Every second of their performance is only made possible by thousands of hours of preparation.
During the journey toward that mastery, we need to prepare to fail. That’s where emergency recovery training is worth its weight in gold-wrapped diamonds set in Californium-252.
Performing the steps in order, with authority, while saying them aloud
The main advantages:
Does not burn a lot of extra altitude compared to traditional recovery techniques
No need for the pilot to know the direction of spin
No possibility of making the spin worse (e.g., recovery inputs held too long inducing a crossover spin to/from inverted)
My primary flight instructor did a good job of making me not fear the spin 20 years ago, but I never knew how fun they (and emergency recovery training) can be. My understanding at this point is basic and growing. My confidence is growing by leaps and bounds!
Rudder Walk & Simulated Engine Loss video
By Glen Becker | February 4, 2014
I wrote about the rudder walk exercise a while ago and tried to explain what’s involved and how challenging it is for me.
Now I have some video to go with it, but the video isn’t that exciting until you realize a few things:
The airplane isn’t flying; it’s falling
The wings are generating no practical lift
We’re holding the airplane in a full stall with the stick all the way back
The only thing keeping the wings even close to level is my tiny rudder changes. That’s what Bill is referring to when he talks about “input” and “pressure”.
Airspeed is somewhere just under 60mph; we’re normally zipping around at 150mph
The beeping is the stall warning indicator
Descent rate is ~3400 ft/minute. (Maybe more accurately termed “free-fall rate”.)
It was a beautiful day for flying and Bill and I both had open schedules so we flew a long time, including airwork and pattern work/landings at Cambridge and Easton. It was New Year’s Eve and no one else was flying; even Potomac Approach (the Baltimore-Washington International control frequencies) was quiet.
This rudder walk and the simulated engine failure were the start of our flight.
I’m getting better! And loving every minute of the challenge.
We just happened (not an accident, I’m sure) to finish the rudder walk near a small airport (Ridgely) where Bill felt the most appropriate celebration was a nice simulated engine failure exercise. This amounts to pulling the power to idle and working through handling the emergency and setting up a power-off landing. I didn’t do it perfectly but it would probably have been a successful landing.
It happened. My mind is blown and I am officially in karma-debt: I’m the proud owner of a beautiful Pitts Special S-1S aerobatic biplane.
Here’s a laundry list of reasons this situation is seriously taxing my karma. I couldn’t have dreamed it any better:
It’s a beautiful, extremely well-cared-for airplane
It’s been based at my local airport (Lee-KANP Annapolis, MD) for 13 years
It’s in a hangar with three other Pitts, all S-2’s, owned by experienced Pitts pilots, who’ve all been extremely generous with their time and experience
The hangar is .5nm from my house
The hangar is next to Bill Finagin (in fact Bill owns both hangars and we rent from him)
Bill is a rare and valuable resource by himself, having 5 other Pitts hangared feet away is amazing
Karen took excellent care of the airplane and has been very generous with her time and experience in answering questions
Knowing the previous owner and other pilots who’ve known the airplane for thirteen years, including the mechanic who has done all the work, is extremely comforting and a very rare thing when buying an airplane
It was factory re-covered and extensively refreshed eighteen months ago
In my wildest dream the plan was to maybe hope to start looking for an airplane in late 2014. I’m so far ahead of plan I’m completely overwhelmed in the best possible way.
I’m not even ready to fly it yet. I have my tailwheel endorsement (but only 15 hours total tailwheel) and a few more Pitts-transition hours with Bill and I’m almost ready. I’m also dedicating the time and money for Bill’s Spin & Emergency Recovery course. I consider it required training and the best insurance available, not to mention just plain fun.
In the mean time I have a few small projects I can work on.
Replacing the flat wooden seat pan with an aluminum sling similar to the production builds. I’ll go with a seat-pack chute to get back far enough to get my knees out of the panel and the new seat pan should get me down another inch or so.
Order a Quiet Technologies Halo in-the-ear headset which will give me a bunch more headroom compared to the Telex Stratus 50D behemoth earcup ANR.
New vinyl lettering to apply to the cockpit panels.
It was already in beautiful condition so I’m cleaning, polishing, and waxing now so when I’m ready to fly I can concentrate on the flying for a few months.
It was homebuilt in 1993 and I’m the third real owner, including the builder.
If it’s not clear let me reiterate; I can’t believe my good fortune and I plan to make good use of it. I’m not so much an owner as I am the current custodian. (Please god don’t let me do anything stupid. I don’t underestimate my capacity for stupid.)
For a pilot it’s a happy thing to add a rating or endorsement; it’s a badge that says you’ve expanded your repertoire in some way, have a new skill or competency that allows you do to new stuff in an airplane, and it’s a satisfying accomplishment. This one was more than that for me.
On that fateful, wonderful day (October 2nd, 2013 to be exact) when I asked Bill Finagin for advice on who he would recommend as a tailwheel instructor, he responded with one question: did I just want the endorsement or did I want to really learn to fly? The question caught me a little off-guard since I’d never considered the first option. Thinking about it now, I guess I can see why some people might want “just the endorsement”. Maybe they just want the “badge” and don’t really want to fly any of the cool airplanes. I don’t understand it, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Of course, I wanted to learn to fly them, the answer was simple, but the question itself was really the important part and did one vital thing for me (or maybe to me?): it was the seed that fundamentally changed my value proposition. Let me explain.
I’m not independently wealthy and I was unemployed. Five days earlier I had flat walked away from a good salary with a great group of guys at a good company because there was precious little life in the life-work balance. I was decompressing a bit and planned to take some of that hard-earned cash to reward myself with my tailwheel endorsement. While it was an easy expense to justify, money was very much a concern. I had done some internet research on pricing and local instructors but needed some expert insight. I knew Bill taught aerobatics in the Pitts and was comparatively expensive. The price tag and the thought of flying the “tricky” and often-feared Pitts never really let the possibility of flying with Bill enter my consideration. (This is just another example of my bad habit of thinking too small getting in the way.) But I knew he was an expert whose insight would be valuable. I was taxiing back to the ramp in the Cessna and noticed his hangar was open so I wandered over to reintroduce myself and get his input.
Then he asked the question. My interest piqued, my questions grew bolder as we talked and I explained what I wanted. Can I even handle the Pitts? How much does it really cost? Where do I go after? His manner and easy confidence in this exchange hinted at the depth of his flying and teaching abilities. He wasn’t selling me but he was encouraging and matter-of-fact about the realities of flying with him in the Pitts compared to a lower-performance, lower-cost airplane. He was also already teaching me and I liked it. After twenty minutes I headed home 99% certain, still a bit in denial but with the value proposition now completely clear, that I didn’t just want to fly with him…I couldn’t afford not to. Three hours later I called him and we started flying the next day.
I was not wrong. In the last seven weeks I feel like I’ve only just now really started learning to fly. My skills and my confidence have grown. More importantly, I have found something I see myself driven to do the rest of my life. Like sailing, aerobatics takes a relatively short time to learn and then, most importantly, a lifetime to master. I’ve heard golf described the same way and I’m sure it’s applicable to many other skill-based activities. My addiction to the Pitts and to the allure of aerobatics are on display for all to see. I’m plotting, planning, scheming, and dreaming. I have new motivation for finding an income that satisfies all our needs, not just the financial ones. It’s exciting and liberating and scary.
Thanks Bill.
Image courtesy of Alex Hrapunov
Pitts Hours 9-11: Now I can fly all the cool airplanes
By Glen Becker | October 30, 2013
It’s official, Bill signed off my tailwheel endorsement! It’s a good feeling and I know I’ve made tons of progress in this 10.8 hours of flying. I feel confident in my ability to go out and keep learning. Despite asking around and doing some digging, I haven’t found many tailwheel airplanes available for rental. I know of only one so far and it’s over an hour away. Fortunately, it’s at the same airport as the glider club so I can combine drives up there.
The last couple of hours I’ve spent flying from the back seat. It feels and looks different so it took some getting used to, and represented a spike in my workload, but I like it! Not only does it feel more like the command center (the front cockpit has just the main instruments, the radios and most engine controls are back there so solo flight has to be from the back seat) but it seems more comfortable. The visibility is a little better since it’s further from the wings. And since it sits further out on the moment arm from the main gear, s-turns while taxiing aren’t as wide. It’s also smaller and cozier, with pads at each shoulder. Stick forces are the same but the brakes and rudder pedals are hinged slightly differently. The pressure difference is minimal; Bill pointed it out and I’m sure I would not have noticed it right away.
I have the endorsement but this isn’t the end of the story. I plan to take Bill’s Spin & Emergency Recovery course and also reward myself with a very brief intro to aerobatics. And while I’m anxious to go fly other taildraggers in the meantime, I know if I am lucky enough to end up with a Pitts of my own, I’ll be right back here with Bill to brush up before getting into it.
Here is video of a recent lesson. It’s typical of our tailwheel lessons: repetitive and boring to watch, especially with the heavy overcast conditions but still challenging for me to fly and helpful in my post-flight analysis. This was five of 19 landings I did that day. For non-pilot friends and family, I’ve added some explanations in the video, I hope it helps make sense of what’s going on.
Yes! I can do this. Today’s flying was good and fun and I needed it. After my sobering, and downright humbling, performance in the last lesson the confidence boost from flying well and having fun today was welcome.
It was a beautiful day and just being in the air was good. My pattern work and landings were ok and improving, and generally flying the airplane is starting to be more natural and less work. Don’t mistake, my workload is very high but I’m starting to see a slight reductions in the learning curve. I’m having fun and concentrating on not being impatient with my progress.
I feel like I’m making the step into Conscious competence and it feels good.
After 15 landings at Cambridge and then Easton, we went to the aerobatic practice area and Bill introduced the Barrel Roll. Having seen so many airshow performances, I’m loving the education that comes with learning what it takes to make the airplane do even a simple maneuver. I’m fascinated at once by how small some of the control inputs and pressures are and by the precision required. I think I’m going to love this.
Image courtesy of Alex Hrapunov
Pitts Hours 3-5: It's All Fun and Games until...
...someone loses an eye.
By Glen Becker | October 19, 2013
This new thing of flying the Pitts was going so amazingly well that today was a good test. Not of my flying but of…I’m not sure what. My will? My interest? My determination? I flew poorly, or at least not as well as I’m capable of, for the first half of the lesson. It started with a botched takeoff that was so bad Bill had to take control. Then I botched my arrival at Easton and my next five trips around the pattern were humbling. I was behind the airplane, sloppy in judgement and control, and generally failing spectacularly to be spectacular. The most worrisome part: I wasn’t having fun.
I take solace in knowing they were all landings, safe and effective, if not good landings. I have a hunch, based on nothing of course, that it’s these kinds of days when many of the incidents and accidents that make up aviation’s safety statistics are more likely to come out to play, seek us out wherever we are, and bite us. Today was incident free. But how would I have fared if presented with something simple like an unexpected request from ATC, a system malfunction, or an emergency?
I’m being a bit melodramatic in my analysis, but humor me for a minute. After all, Bill was in the back seat doing his Instructor thing, acting as PIC (Pilot in Command), and well aware of my struggles. The chances of an accident chain escaping both our notice, while small, is never zero. But while I’m spending brain cycles analyzing my performance, I have to remove Bill from the equation, just as I do to some extent while I’m flying. Of course, I’m relying heavily on him for instruction and guidance, but at the same time there is a delicate balance between self-reliance and over-reliance. I trust him to keep us safe, he’s a better pilot than I’ll ever be, but to grow as a pilot I need to take an increasing amount of responsibility for the flight. How much I rely on him is relatively large right now but needs to go down as I get more experience in the airplane. Remember, the goal is not only to be safe, but have fun as well, when there is no one else around. If I’m not “pushing the boundary” of reliance, I’m not advancing as quickly as I could.
The good news is I flew fine for the second half of the lesson. After fueling at Easton, we headed down to Cambridge for more circuits and I was on again. I take heart in this because hopefully it means I was able to forget the mistakes and not let them affect what came after.
The alert reader might notice this flight was the same day as my fun aerobatics flight with Dan. In fact, Bill and I took off about 90 minutes after Dan and I landed, with lunch in between. The full analysis is I was probably still recovering physically from my first exposure to aerobatics. In future I’ll plan flight training further removed from any aerobatic exertions, like the next day.
My plan is to eventually fly aerobatics so often I acclimate to a point where I continue to function afterwards! (I accept that I must learn to crawl before moving on to, insert maniacal laughter, world domination.)
Onwards and upwards…and hopefully some upside-down, too.
One to Remember
by Glen Becker |
Today I consider to be my first, true experience with aerobatics. Oh sure, I took a .8-hour ride in a Pitts 17 years ago and Bill showed me a loop, roll, and hammerhead turn on my first flight with him. But today I actually flew aerobatics!!
It all started about a year ago. I happened to be at the airport on a Saturday morning when I saw Bill’s hangar open and the Pitts waiting patiently inside. I couldn’t resist and uncharacteristically intruded on he and his student by asking to take some pictures. Bill said sure, offered to roll his airplane out into the brilliant fall sun, and also pointed out there were four more Pitts in the open hangar next door. I couldn’t have been more excited. That was my first introduction to Bill. That morning I also met another Pitts pilot named Dan. He was working on his plane and was very open to my questions and interest, sharing great enthusiasm for both aerobatics and the airplane. I don’t know if I made a pest of myself but I was thrilled when he answered my question about a ride with solid encouragement. We tried to match schedules off and on for almost a year. Today we made it work.
I didn’t want to be a bother and offered to just ride along while he practiced his routine. Fortunately, he is a wise aerobatic pilot and knew I wouldn’t make it through his routine feeling well. (I was scheduled to fly with Bill right after.) He explained we would use a 10-point system, with 10 being how I felt right then, to keep track of when it was time to quit. After each maneuver I would give him the number according to how I was feeling. We did a briefing covering the plane, parachute, canopy release, etc. and planned that Dan would show me some basics and let me fly. Now we’re talking! Remember, at this point I have a couple hours dual-received instruction in the Pitts with Bill but even just touching the controls and flying straight-and-level is exciting. Imagine my excitement at getting to fly actual aerobatics!!
Once in the practice area we got oriented with ground references and climbed to practice altitude. Dan would demonstrate a maneuver with me following him lightly on the controls then I would fly a few while he critiqued. We did loops, half Cuban Eights, and Immelmans. After each one Dan would check how I was feeling. Big surprise; I was feeling great!
Like most aerobatic forms the loop is easy to fly and hard to fly well. (This simple fact is what I find irresistibly compelling about flying in general and aerobatics specifically. It takes a relatively short time to learn and a lifetime to master.) But the loop is important because it forms the basis for so many other maneuvers.
He had me start with a hard 4G pull from level flight, while looking through the sighting device on the left wing. This is a simple wire structure with spokes making it easy to see both angle on the horizon and lateral position of the wing. Keeping it stable on a point of the horizon is the goal, since that means the airplane is moving in a circle along a consistent vertical plane in space and not wobbling. This tracking is controlled by the rudder but the pressures change at different points of the loop. At the initial pull up some left rudder is needed to counteract the gyroscopic force of the spinning propeller, approaching vertical the P-factor has more affect than the gyroscopic affect and some right rudder is needed. Approaching inverted and for the remainder of the loop left rudder is brought back in again. The forces are small but very noticeable in their absence. I’m only just starting to understand the nuance and hope to get the chance to keep learning more soon! Almost every aerobatic maneuver has dozens of subtle control inputs required to make it work. From the outside everything looks so easy and simple when the fascinating reality is there’s a ton going on and a thousand minute judgments to be made every moment.
The Half Cuban Eight starts just like a loop but instead of continuing down the back side, we stop the loop and fly an inverted 45 degree down line. In that line we half-roll to upright and then pull out of the dive. (A full Cuban Eight would then pull back up into the same maneuver again in the opposite direction.) It was a great novel feeling hanging on the seatbelts on the inverted 45 down line. I got excited and rushed the half-roll and the ending pull to level. Dan tried to get me to relax and draw the lines before and after the half-roll. These are factors aerobatic judges take into account in competition.
The Immelman starts with a half loop but then stopping the loop at the top and exiting inverted, followed by a half-roll to upright.
By this time, I was still feeling like multiple-10’s but Dan was wiser than that. He demonstrated a hammerhead turn then we headed home. My grin was a mile wide even as the adrenaline started dissipating and I found myself a solid 8 on the short ride back to Lee. In fact, I waited a while after we landed and had lunch before going flying with Bill. As it turned out I was still pretty tired and it was evident in my flying. Thanks again go out to Dan for the insight and wisdom to stop when we did. I’m sure I would have pushed on, had a great time, but then been completely unfit to fly with Bill. “Everything in its time.”
I can’t wait for my next taste of aerobatics. I’m pretty sure there is no going back from here.
Thank you, Dan!
How I Learned to Love the Rudder
by Glen Becker |
One of a long list of surprising things I’ve learned flying the Pitts with Bill is how much control we have with the rudder. I expected this, knowing the tailwheel training would require more rudder skills than a tricycle gear airplane like the Cessna 172. Of course, I learned during my Private training to keep the rudder and aileron coordinated and to use rudder in the stall for directional control. But the limits of the training (which was 20 years ago already), and the Cessnas I learned in, kept the true magic from revealing itself. Being taught straight-ahead stalls, since spins were removed from the requirements, satisfied the regulations but didn’t really require any skill or greatly expand my flying experience. For that I’m sad. Had I been wiser I would have asked for a deeper introduction to stalls and spins. But that’s probably the definition of wisdom: knowing now how much we didn’t know then. Or maybe it’s just called aging.
Fast forward to today and I’m in the Pitts, literally falling out of the sky, trying ever-so-valiantly-but-mostly-failing to keep the wings level…and the whole time cackling with the glee of the challenge!
Bill calls it a rudder walk. I’ve heard/read what appear similar exercises called a ‘falling leaf’. It amounts to climbing to 7500′, putting the airplane into a full straight-ahead stall…then holding the stick back and keeping it there. The Cessna, as long as you don’t completely screw up with the rudder, would just drop the nose a bit and fall straight-ahead until you release the elevator and the angle-of-attack is reduced enough to get the wings flying again…stability is part of the design. The challenge in the Pitts is it’s not designed to be stable; it’s designed for aerobatics. Just like the Cessna we keep the wings level, and in doing so avoid a spin, with the rudder. It doesn’t require much rudder, and by that, I mean infinitesimally small amounts, but it does require immediate and forceful input. A “jab” and then back to neutral. With the wrong amount of rudder, or the right amount held too long, the Pitts will happily fall off into a spin. Once it’s starting to spin there’s no magic, just rudder, required to level the wings again and continue trying to keep them that way. Bill lets me practice this all the way down until we break the stall, recover at a safe altitude, and climb back up to do it again.
Think of it like walking a balance beam. In the Cessna the beam is about 4 feet wide: I have to be aware of the edges but it’s not difficult to stay on top. I can make a change, watch and wait for it to take effect, then change again however is necessary. In the Pitts the beam is an inch wide…and round on top: there is still watching but I’m looking for the tiniest of changes and there’s no thinking, it is only feeling and reacting.
The point of the exercise is to learn the same rudder inputs, here in the safety of altitude, that will be necessary to control the airplane on the ground rollout after landing. It’s one of the skills which an experienced tailwheel pilot employs without thinking…it becomes second nature. It’s important and it’s not easy, though I have no one else to compare my progress with. But it’s fun and it’s extremely satisfying to see improvement.
For those who’ve read this far and are interested in more, here is an article with much better rudder information than I can provide. It was written for AOPA’s Flight Training magazine by none other than Budd Davisson, a long-time Pitts pilot and instructor.
WHOA
By Glen Becker |
My second lesson with Bill today in the Pitts covered air work, pattern work, approach and landing, and ground handling/taxiing. We went down to Cambridge for the pattern and ground work. It was quiet and we mostly had it to ourselves.
He started with the visual references I need to get on, and stay on, the downwind. We fly a relatively tight pattern, with the runway just off the lower wingtip when viewed from the cockpit, and bank to about 55 degrees. Much steeper than in a Cessna. The higher speed, tighter pattern, and steeper banks are all new challenges for me. The Pitts is both demanding and tremendously rewarding in that regard. It will do everything we tell it to, instantaneously. We need to be very sure what we’re telling it to do.
The first couple trips around the pattern he had me do a low approach, flying the length of the runway at about 10 feet, while holding altitude and runway alignment. I felt okay holding the altitude but struggled with alignment. The P-factor at the relatively low speed and high angle of attack is remarkable and takes a lot of right-rudder to compensate. I was drifting left consistently. An even larger bootful of right-rudder is needed when applying full power to climb out again.
All of these forces (adverse yaw, torque, slipstream, P-factor, gyroscopic precession) are present in the Cessnas I fly, but are so damped they’re almost hidden. Every private pilot learns about them, and right-rudder is always needed climbing at full power and low airspeed, but the relatively low-powered, heavy Cessna hides everything from me. The Pitts puts all these forces, and my ignorance of them, on full display. I feel like I’m only now learning to actually fly.
Bill had me fly a landing to touchdown and then took the controls when I botched the rollout. Giving them back once clearing the runway, he introduced me to the ground handling and zero forward visibility. We also did a couple high-speed taxi runs down the runway to give me the feel of the rudder. It’s very clear why the feet and rudder work are so important … there is a magic to feeling and responding that has to be learned to the point of reaction; if I have to think, it’s too late.
Bill had me do the takeoff (he’s following me on the controls through all of this work) and that felt good. Not that I performed well, there were no directional upsets I needed to correct, simply that it felt good. Applying full power, hearing the engine spin up, feeling the tail start flying, accelerating quickly to takeoff and then climbing like a rocket just plain feels really, really good.
We climbed up to 7,500 feet and did another “rudder walk.” I want to write about this in a little more detail, but suffice it to say I’m still chasing it but getting better, marginally. Afterward we headed back to Annapolis as planned, where I would fly to final and Bill would take it from there (Lee is a short, narrow field) and then have me taxi back to the hangar. (As I’m sure is true of any instructor, I can only imagine how painful it must be for Bill watching me stagger through a new skill like S-turning on the narrow taxiways.)
Dreaming
It was only 1.3 hours of instruction, but even with a 10-minute break while fueling in Cambridge, I was completely wrung out … sweaty and tired. Both mentally and physically. (Yes, I’m pretty sure I was mentally sweaty.) Eventually I will learn to relax into all the new sensations and my workload will reduce as my skills improve. For now though, I’m sure I’ll continue to experience an odd combination of two conflicting needs: desire to fly the Pitts all day long every day, and the need to rest and absorb what I’ve learned.
It’s amazing to me how satisfying this airplane is. It feels right. By contrast a Cessna 172 feels like running through knee-deep mud. After 2.3 hours in the Pitts, I’m completely sucked in. Obsessed. Addicted. Already worried about what happens when I’m not flying it anymore. So much so that I’m consciously avoiding thinking about any possibility of continuing to train with Bill after the tailwheel endorsement. I’ll try to find a taildragger to rent for the time being and let my obsession moderate. Maybe when I can think clearly again, I’ll look into the realities of what it would take to continue chasing the dream of aerobatics in the Pitts.
At the same time, I also can’t wait until my next lesson on the 18th!
OMG
By Glen Becker |
I flew with Bill Finagin today in his Pitts S-2C.
I don’t often use “OMG” in my communication. It’s a kinda pithy, overly trendy exclamation usually befitting situations in which we’re otherwise speechless. I’m often not speaking but I’m rarely speechless. Today I’m speechless.
It wasn’t even a very aerobatic lesson, but it was transformative. Awesome, truly, in the non-colloquial use of the word.
I’m technically not doing aerobatic training right now, rather working on my tailwheel endorsement. But having the opportunity to do it in the Pitts with Bill (a Pitts expert and aerobatic legend) was way too much opportunity to pass up. (We live .6nm from the field, right under his base leg for runway 12 at Lee Airport.) He did a nice and simple briefing on the very basics of the physics to get me started. Then we went over the Bay, working north of Easton’s airspace, and climbed to 7500′. He showed me the basic pitch and bank visual references, rudder coordination drills (the rudder walk…more on this humbling, fascinating drill later), loops, hammerhead turn, and all the associated references. We did two touch-and-go’s at Easton to introduce the landing cues then headed back to Annapolis where he covered the pattern, approach, and landing again.
I’m so screwed. I think I need to earn enough to own a Pitts and fly/teach/compete aerobatics. This could be both the best week of my life and the worst. I am so screwed.
