The Aerobatic Box
The Aerobatics
Box presents general principles, not flight instruction. Such maneuvers should
be flown only after professional training, in authorized airspace, and in
aircraft certified for the stresses of such flight.
Aircraft fly in
three dimensions. The ailerons, elevator, and rudder of an airplane create
aerodynamic forces which cause the airplane to rotate about its three axes. The
ailerons control roll movement about the longitudinal axis. The elevator
controls pitch movement about the lateral axis. And the rudder controls yaw
movement about the vertical axis.
When you deflect
the ailerons to begin a turn, they create an immediate rolling movement about
the longitudinal axis.
Movement of the
elevator is quite similar to that of an aileron. Manipulating the control wheel
or “stick” causes motion about the lateral axis. Typically, this is referred to
as an adjustment to pitch, or a change in pitch attitude.
When you apply
pressure on the rudder pedals, you produce an aerodynamic force that rotates
the airplane about its vertical axis. It turns the nose of the airplane either
to the left or right. This is referred to as yawing the airplane.
Aerobatic pilots
think of aileron rolls as one of the simplest and most enjoyable maneuvers,
with low stress on the body and airplane from the force of gravity. The
aircraft nose pitches up slightly, then the aircraft rolls around, 360 degrees,
until it’s back to straight and level.
Walt Linscott, who
flies Paramount Aerobatics from his home in Alpharetta, Georgia, says to take
it easy.
“The airplane
should have a fairly stable look to it. There won't be any violent changes to
its attitude. There is no ‘barreling’' to the roll. The airplane does not move
up and down on the vertical axis very much.” The airplane
doesn’t look as
though it’s attached to a pole; but close enough.
“A perfect
horizontal line is difficult to achieve,” says Walt. “For air show flying it
looks like a small circle if you could see it from in front or behind,
imperceptible to the spectator on the ground.
“To begin an
aileron roll, you would bring the control stick back slightly to raise the nose
a few degrees above the horizon. Depending on the airplane anywhere from five
to 10 degrees. Then neutralize the controls, stick back to the center.” That
part is key; if the stick is held back throughout, the roll wobbles from its
small circle.
After the stick is
neutral, “Rapidly apply full stick in the direction you want to roll,” There's
no real preference to roll right or left. “Most American and European-built
aircraft would favor to the left because of the turning tendency, the torque,
from the propeller turning right.”
Walt applies a
slight rudder pressure to support the direction of roll he has in mind. “But
for rapid rolls, the airplane turns so fast on its axis that not much is
needed. You use the horizon for your guide to see that you’ve made one rotation.”
Air show pilots rarely look inside the cockpit.
After the
rotation, the nose has likely dropped below the horizon.
“Once the ground
comes back to level in your flight picture, you rapidly neutralize the controls
to stop the rolls, meaning, return the stick to center.” Maybe even push a bit
to the opposite direction.
“A lot of
aerobatic airplanes weigh close to one ton, and it generates a tremendous
inertia during the roll, so if you don’t add a bit of opposite stick it has a
tendency to roll past. There’s an art to it, a lot of it is by feel. The
airplane handles differently on a hot versus a cool day. Once you’ve got the
touch, you can adjust to each roll.’
The loop is one
of the oldest aerobatic maneuvers, and among the most graceful. History credits
the first airplane loop to a Russian pilot, Pyotr Nesterov, in 1913. Nesterov
flew a loop—a vertical circle—over the fields of Kiev, in the Ukraine. A loop
is simple to describe but a bear to fly well.
Aerobatic pilots
learn to loop early in training, since it's the basis of many other maneuvers.
The loop gets pilots in tune with unusual pitch attitudes, quickly changing
airspeeds, and the effect of g-force on the body and the airplane.
Jamail Larkins,
part of the Embry-Riddle Air Show Team, lets us fly along.
“I’m going to
start a loop with my wings level with the horizon. In my airplane I need an
airspeed of about 160 mph,” says Jamail. “I will pull the nose back until I
reach 4gs on the g-meter (a device that measures the force of gravity), then
keep that pressure until I go over the top of that loop. Once inverted, I’ll
release some of the back pressure on the stick, to float over the top.” That
“float” is key to a good circle.
“If you don't
release your back pressure on the stick, as the airplane starts to come
inverted, the loop becomes an oval shape.” During the first 45 degrees of
climb, Jamail’s eyes fix straight out over the nose. “Look back over your tail
as you pass through the vertical to make sure the wings stay level with the
horizon,” adds Jamail. “As soon as I'm coming around I bring my eyes front
again.”
Jamail also
watches a mirror atop his wing. The reflection tells him whether the wind is
drifting him off a true vertical circle, or making his wings anything but perpendicular
to the ground. Jamail pushes the rudder pedals to center the tail, and rolls
the wing using the ailerons. All told, it’s easy to become unlooped.
The first loop to
the outside was flown in 1927, by ace pilot Jimmy Doolittle. At a military
field in Dayton, Ohio, Doolittle began at the “top” of the loop, pushing his
Curtiss P1-B fighter from straight and level flight, towards the ground then
around the circle, to safely return to his altitude.
At air shows
today, the maneuver is just as likely to begin at the “bottom” of the loop.
From straight and level, the pilot rolls the plane inverted, then pushes up,
around and over, before closing the circle.
Jamail Larkins,
of the Embry-Riddle Air Show Team, flies it both ways.
“It's one of my
basic maneuvers. I fly it a lot.” Jamail says that the outside loop is a mirror
image to an inside loop.
“The only
difference is instead of pushing up your nose, you’re pushing down. You start
the maneuver on the ‘top of the loop’ for an outside loop, while for the inside
loop you start at the bottom.”
Though it may not
seem a big difference from the ground, the physical sensation of outside versus
inside loops can be an eyepopper. During negative g-force, the pilot’s head
points away from the center of the circle. Blood swells the head and can cause
throbbing behind the eyes.
“You’re
experiencing negative g’s and you’ll float a bit out of your seat, pushing on
your straps,” says Jamail. Inside or outside, the total vertical size of the
loop is about the same. “If you’re doing a 4g inside loop, so long as you do a
4g outside loop negative, there’s no reason to begin from a higher altitude.”
If the wind is
coming from either side of his wing tips, Jamail may need to use his rudder
pedals to bring the nose back to the centerline. Otherwise, it’s all stick
pressure. “Keep pushing until you’re all the way around,” he says, though if
the wind is coming from ahead or behind, Jamail may need to adjust the amount
of forward pressure. Otherwise he won’t fly a circle, but an egg.
Imagine an
airplane flying along the inside of a huge barrel, the wheels rolling along its
surface. The airplane rolls around its own axis, while it flies a loop that
looks more like a corkscrew.
Walt Linscott
calls his air show routine Paramount Aerobatics. He describes a different
perspective.
“If you could
look at the aircraft from directly behind, it would trace circles in the sky,
horizontally, as it flies away from you. It’s done by combining a roll with a
loop. In a basic loop the airplane changes direction when it comes over the
top, but in a barrel roll the airplane doesn’t change direction. It continues
in the direction it was heading when it entered the maneuver.”
To make it
happen, Walt applies control inputs which combine an aileron roll and a loop
(see related topics).
“You raise the
nose a lot higher above the horizon than for an aileron roll, say 20 to 25 degrees.
Unlike the aileron roll you don’t neutralize the stick’s back pressure to
center, you keep it constant. You apply pressure continually in the direction
you want the airplane to go.’ The key to a good barrel shape is that steady
hand on the stick.
“At the top of
the barrel roll you're actually inverted. As you come down that part of the
‘barrel,’ you wind up at the end of the roll, at the altitude where you
started.”
Walt likes the
nuance of rolling the barrel. “It’s a more graceful and stable maneuver than an
aileron or snap roll (see related topics). It takes a fair amount of finesse
because everything is changing as you fly. The slower you go, the slower your
roll rate is for the given airplane.”
Airplane controls
usually work better at higher airspeeds. Walt explains that as he flies down
the ‘back side’ of the barrel to again fly upright, the airplane gains speed,
so the elevator control becomes more effective.
“If you don’t
adjust your elevator inputs to account for the change in speed, you’ll end up
at a different altitude. Also, the rudder plays a larger part in a barrel roll
than in an aileron roll. If you’re sloppy on your rudder input, you’ll exit in
some direction you didn’t plan to go.”
At age 50,
Jacqueline Warda is flying her first year of “Jacquie B” Air Shows. Her
favorite maneuvers are the Hammerhead and the Torque Roll (see separate
section).
“A hammerhead
begins when you're going straight and level. Pull the nose back to the
vertical. We're going to fly the airplane to the very top of the energy curve,
fly straight up at full power until it can no longer go up. This is the point
where some airplanes start to shudder.”
At that point,
says Jacquie, “the airplane ‘runs out of up.’”
“My airplane (a
factory-built Pitts) will shudder so slightly it’s almost undetectable. But
I’ve done it enough to feel when it's there.” Most aircraft built in North
America have propellers that turn to the right, or clockwise from the pilot’s
perspective, and that twisting force makes turns easier to the left.
“So I'm going to
kick my left rudder to the full left. The nose literally will carve an arc in
the sky from straight up to straight down. It will do a 180-degree turn. I'm
oriented so that the person on the ground is seeing a front profile or back
profile, so they can see the wing going over.”
When the plane
stops climbing, it pivots around its vertical axis, which is now horizontal.
All of its energy has been dissipated during the climb, and for a brief second
it hangs like a freeze frame. The nose swivels from up to down within the
vertical distance of one wingspan; pivoting around as though weightless.
Jacquie enters
the hammerhead maneuver from at least 170 mph. “Otherwise I will run out of
‘up’ a lot sooner. It’s important to get speed for as much ‘up’ as possible,
because when you turn it down you want enough room to recover and turn level
without affecting safety. You should always calculate how much altitude it
takes to start a maneuver, finish the maneuver, and recover with reliable
airspeed.”
“In my line of
work, there are two power settings, on and off. Most maneuvers you’ll do with
full power, but generally speaking the throttle is in.” says Jacquie. Her hammerheads
begin at 1,000 feet above ground level then reach the pivot point at 2,000
feet. The challenge is the natural tendency of an aircraft's torque, from its
propeller, to pull it left as it climbs this vertical line.
“That torquing
sensation wants to take over, and in the hammerhead I want straight vertical.
To counteract the torque, I need to start adding right rudder and right
aileron. If I don’t, the aircraft will begin to roll. When I start to kick, it
could be as much as 90 degrees off heading.”
“I try to be very
aware that women are reading, and I want them to take notice. Anyone who really
wanted to badly enough, can do this. Women should know that I'm not 20 years
old with a million dollars in the bank, and have paid for every flight one hour
at a time.”
The Immelmann is
one of the simplest aerobatic maneuvers, and is simply half a loop (see related
topic) ending at a point in which the airplane is inverted at the top, then a
half-roll, that is, the pilot rolls back to an upright, straight and level
position. The move is named for Max Immelmann, a German World War One ace.
James Peitz, who
flies an air show routine called Jim Peitz Aerosports, says that today's
aerobats use an Immelmann for the same reason it, or something like it, was
invented.
“It's a good
basic maneuver to turn around your direction; it’s a good maneuver to gain
altitude; it’s good for positioning for the next maneuver,” says Jim. “You
start with a quarter loop by pulling the stick back to fly vertical, then at
the top of that loop, you roll the airplane over from upside-down and you’re
flying straight and level in the opposite direction.”
The roll from
inverted to normal, level flight should be done right away, without letting the
airplane settle or pick up airspeed. That comes next, after the Immelmann is
complete.
“In the air show
realm the Immelmann puts you at a higher altitude, 500 to 1,000 feet depending
on the airplane you're flying. It positions you to gain airspeed,” using the
gain in altitude to begin flying into the next part of a routine.
Though Max
Immelmann is credited with a classic, experts think that old Max didn't turn
completely upside down, which could have crumpled his frail Fokker airplane. He
might have flown very steeply up then made a very sharp turn down, which is
actually a ‘wingover.’
Jim says that the
Immelmann is one of the first maneuvers he teaches to new aerobatic pilots.
“You want to pick a reference line on the ground before you start to pull up.”
Just before the top of the loop, he eases back on the stick. “I look left to my
sighting device on the wing, to make sure I’m right with the horizon, to orient
myself when I go inverted.”
Jon Melby of Chandler,
Arizona, flies a knife-edge pass because it’s his way, “to fool the crowd.”
“I want to let
the fans know that you don’t need a wing to fly.” he says. In a knife-edge
maneuver, the airplane is banked 90 degrees to the right or left, so either its
belly or its roof is parallel to the crowd as it flies along the runway. Each
airplane handles differently. Jon flies his knife-edge from right to left,
because in the other direction his airplane drains all of its oil pressure.
“I take it down
to 250 feet. At the edge of the show line I put the airplane into a left
quarter roll, slowly input the right rudder pedal, and keep the ailerons
neutral.”
“The nose starts
to pitch up. That bleeds off the airspeed and the rudder essentially turns into
an elevator.” By banking 90 degrees from its normal flight attitude, the
moveable control surfaces of the airplane that were horizontal become vertical,
or vice versa. The pilot uses the “top” rudder pedal the way he would normally
use the elevator.
Though it seems that
the airplane is flying without any lift, the fuselage itself acts as a wing.
Airplanes with fat, rounder bellies like the Pitts biplane work best, though as
long as the airspeed is high enough to overcome the inefficiency of using the
fuselage for lift, nearly any airframe can fly knife-edge.
Jon flies nearly
a mile in the knife-edge position, until he's been from the far right of the
air show line to the far left side. “That’s when I start to sink.” he says. He
rolls to straight and level, adds power and climbs.
The hazard of
knife-edge flight is getting blown towards the crowd. “By pushing forward or
pulling back on the stick, I can adjust my distance, and with the ailerons make
sure I’m perpendicular to the crowd line.”
Though to fans it
looks cutting edge, Jon thinks of the knife-edge as one of the most relaxing
points of his routine. “I can look at the crowd during the pass, I can see
where the announcers are, and check out the air show center. I can relax and
enjoy the show.”
A snap roll is
like a spin because one of the wings is stalled, that is, it doesn’t generate
lift to keep the airplane flying. A stalled wing gives little resistance to the
air flow, and in the right hands that’s a powerful feature. Walt Linscott flies
an air show routine called Paramount Aerobatics.
“The roll rate
you can achieve in a snap roll is orders of magnitude greater than the other
rolls. It’s not unheard of to have a roll rate over 500 degrees. That’s
approaching two times around in one second,” says Walt. “That will scramble
your eggs!”
“The first time
you execute a snap roll as a pilot it’s certainly a ride to remember. In your
view the sky and the ground exchange places very fast. It’s the most violent
roll maneuver for the pilot and airplane.”
Snap rolls, which
some call flick rolls, are flown along a straight line. Pilots can “snap” to
the inside or outside wing.
“The snap roll is
initiated by actually stalling one wing on the airplane, by making one wing
quit flying. Apply rapid back pressure on the stick, raising the nose. Push the
rudder in the direction of the snap roll you want, to swing the nose rapidly in
the direction the rudder is pushed. This advances the opposite wing in that
direction, and makes the wing you want to stall retreat, and removes its lift.”
“What you now
have is ‘asymmetric lift.’ Normally an airplane in straight and level flight
maintains lift easily. In a snap roll you remove lift from one wing and the
airplane rolls very quickly.”
To recover, step on
the rudder smartly in the opposite direction of the roll. Neutralize the
control stick. “That puts air flow back on the wing that was stalled, and
everything returns to fly straight and level.” says Walt.
Air show pilot
Jan Collmer, who will turn 70 this year, likes snapping to the right, four
times—right at takeoff.
“In a regular
roll the airplane turns like it’s on a barbecue spit, but in a snap roll the
angle of the propeller is constantly changing, which makes a sound like
waaaahh, waaaah. It's my opening maneuver and it’s a radical one, and I’m often
the first to fly in a show. The combination of the noise and the unexpected is
a great starter.”
Jan is at more
than 150 mph when he pitches his nose for takeoff, then with each snap roll
loses 10 to 15 mph. “I watch the nose, and when it starts to drop, I stop the
rotation. It’s a real dance on the controls at low altitude.
The Cuban Eight
was named by Len Povey, an American barnstormer. He was flying in the All
American Air Race Meetings in 1936. In his Curtiss Hawk, on loan from the Cuban
Air Force, Len began flying a standard inside loop (see related topic). But at
the top of the loop, he realized he was flying too fast to safely finish the
circle.
So, Len descended
at a 45-degree angle, while still upside-down. Then he rolled his airplane
upright, continued down that line, then pulled up into a second loop! At the
top of that loop, he again descended at a 45-degree angle, inverted, before
rolling back to level flight. His airplane had traced a perfect “8” as though
that figure was drawn on its side.
Today, air show
pilot Jim Peitz sees the symmetry of the Cuban Eight.
“Think of the
Cuban Eight as three quarters of a loop,” says Jim. “As you pull the nose over
you’re looking out over your sighting device on the left wing to see your angle
relative to the horizon. Instead of rolling upright like in the Immelmann (see
related topic), you keep that stick pulled back until you’re flying in the
45-degree angle, down the slope.”
Jim says to draw
out an eight sideways on paper, and see where the lines cross at center.
“That’s where you roll,” he says. “A lot of pilots use the Cuban Eight as a
‘centering maneuver,’ to get themselves back to air show center.”
Jim’s variation
includes five or six snap rolls (see related topic) while he’s flying the
45-degree downline. “As you come across the top of that Cuban Eight you’re
slow, maybe 120 knots. By the time I draw the 45-degree down line I have built
enough speed to begin the snap rolls.”
Jim can also keep
it slow, using the high altitude and low airspeed at the top of the loop to set
up parts of a sequence. “The Cuban Eight is well suited to maneuvers that are
fairly radical and need a lower airspeed at entry, to avoid structural damage
to the aircraft.”
The first spin
was an accident, and almost fatal. At the Larkhill Aerodrome in England, in
1912, Lt. Wilfred Park lost control of his airplane during practice. He tried everything
he could think, finally taking his hands and feet off the controls to brace for
a crash. The stick returned to neutral on its own! He stepped full on the right
rudder to counter his rotation, and recovered.
Pilots now spin
intentionally, anywhere from three-quarters around a circle to a record number
of rotations. But the spin is mainly for competitions, not shows. In
competition, the pilot needs to stop the rotation after a precise number of
turns. Sean De Rosier, of High Voltage Air Shows, practices spins apart from
his show routine.
“To begin a spin
I would pull vertical, go up and tap out the airplane’s energy, to set me up to
about 80 to 90 mph in the vertical line,” before pulling back the throttle and
the stick. Sean enters a spin after his vertical climb so as to leave plenty of
altitude to recover. “I maintain about 2,000 feet above ground level as it
begins to stall.”
Bring the stick
smoothly and fully aft, then hang on. The inside wing stalls and drops while
the outside wing speeds and rotates around it. And you're spinning.
Fellow aerobatic
pilot Mike Goulian says to look directly over the nose to the ground, rather
than at the horizon, which can be dizzying.
“Count each half
rotation. With one-half to one-quarter rotations left before you want to
recover, smoothly apply full opposite rudder to counter the ‘yaw’ and stop the
rotation, then when almost stopped from rotation apply forward stick to unstall
the wings, neutralize all controls, and the aircraft will be in a dive. Establish
a vertical downline and then smoothly pull out, adding power.”
In a tailslide,
the pilot pulls the airplane straight to vertical, slows to a stop for a
heartbeat or two, then slides backwards. Somewhere on the way down, the
airplane tips over—forward or back— and the pilot sees ground, lots of ground,
rushing at his face. Soon enough, he’ll add power and recover to level flight.
Sean De Rosier
flies tailslides as part of his High Voltage Air Shows routine. As the horizon
disappears under his nose, he looks along the wing at a sighting device to
measure his position relative to the earth, and uses peripheral vision over his
shoulder.
“You're going
straight up at full throttle. As soon as the airplane comes to a complete stop
you go to idle power. The airplane starts slowing down. Then, there are two
versions you can fly. You can flip forwards or flip backwards, by pulling the
stick back or pushing the stick forward.”
The pilot needs
to “cheat” the stick forward or back from the vertical so as to expose the
maximum surface of the tail to the air flow. When the airplane pivots around
its center of gravity, the tail will fly it to its belly or back.
“The transition
from up to down can be kind of violent,” says Sean. “I've hit my head on the
canopy.” The tailslide can easily go astray. “If you are not vertical
pitch-wise, you may actually pitch in the opposite direction as to what you
intended. During the climb or slide, if you don't have a good vertical line it
can slip off to one side.”
Most pilots
tailslide three or four airplane lengths—about 120 feet—before flipping, as
their speed builds to about 50 mph. Once on the “downline,” they add power and
rush nose first toward the runway for as much as 500 feet before recovery.
“I usually pull
the stick aft because it feels better,” says Sean. “Picture the airplane gently
falling on its back; but in a good flip it will almost swing like a pendulum,
all the way through to facing down the vertical line.”
Fellow air show
pilot Jim Peitz, of Pierre, South Dakota, lines up so the back of his airplane
is parallel to the crowd for full effect. Jim says to watch the speed of that
slide.
“The more speed
you have, the more carefully you need to hang on to the controls,” says Jim.
“Airplanes aren’t meant to fly backwards. If you let it slip there’s a good
chance you’ll do structural damage. Sometimes with the wind, I get far more
tailslide than I bargained for. It’s not an exact science.”
The torque roll
was created by aerobatic pilot Charlie Hillard, before his world championship
in 1972. The move makes use of the gyroscopic force of the propeller, called
torque.
Jacqueline Warda,
who flies “Jacquie B” Air Shows, laughs about her nickname, “the torque queen.”
She says the move is just junior-high physics.
“The aircraft has
a natural pull to the left as it climbs, because the propeller turns to the
right. The equal and opposite reaction of the airframe is to roll to the left.”
In the torque
roll, which is also known as the rolling tailslide, the aircraft is rolled
continuously left as it follows the vertical line. Airspeed drops until a
critical point, when the aircraft hangs on its propeller like a helicopter.
“Begin with at
least 180 to 190 mph. Pull the nose to the vertical, with your heading right
along the runway. When the airplane has run out of energy to climb—it can no
longer go upwards—it starts to slide down and the torque of the prop takes
over, to keep rolling,” says Jacquie. The weight of the aircraft pulls it down
to the earth and it slides backward as it keeps rolling left.
“My eyes are
outside the cockpit the whole time and I don’t look at the altimeter to know if
it’s holding altitude. We have a string hanging from our sighting device on the
wing; I feel the aircraft shudder as soon as that string changes direction to
slide backwards. I can’t see much of the ground behind me, but some of it
peripherally. I’m watching to see that the wings are still tracking at the
right angle to the horizon.
“When the
aircraft is perfectly vertical, it will stay cleaner; there is very little
drag,” says Jacquie. She breaks the slide by causing drag, by pushing the stick
forward or back to move the nose out of the vertical, to pitch it onto its
belly or back. Jacquie gets an average of 3.5 rolls in her Pitts biplane,
though monoplanes roll faster and longer.
There is no
Aresti symbol for a torque roll. Each pilot describes and flies it with nuance.
“What the
spectator wants to see is the aircraft going straight back down. For me it's not
about how many rolls; I want it to roll slowly to keep the airplane on a
perfect vertical line.” She warns against gaining excess speed during the
slide. “The elevators and the ailerons are designed for wind to come at them
from the leading edge, not the trailing edge. If I let go of the stick the wind
might snap the elevator right off.”
The word lomcevak
is Czech, from the aerobatic team that invented this kind of wild, tumbling
headache. Pronounced “lumcheevack,” the phrase means a drunk person who sways
off balance, losing all sense of position. The maneuver is gyroscopic, meaning
it uses the spinning force of the propeller to whip the airplane along.
Jon Melby, an
aerobatic pilot from Chandler, Arizona, sets it up.
“About halfway
through my routine, getting ready for the lomcevak at the end, I’ll ratchet up
my seat harness until it almost hurts.” Jon flies with his right hand, while
with his left, pulls the already tight belt two more notches. “The initial
point of a lomcevak has caused a blood vessel to burst in my eyes. It’s like
using the airplane to slap yourself in the head.”
“Before entry,
I'm shooting for about 1,500 feet above the ground. I turn my smoke on, then
make a right or left turn depending on where the crowd is at. I start rolling
the aircraft as I descend to about 800 feet. About 300 yards before air show
center, I pull the nose up, go into a left knife-edge (see related topic), at
about 150 to 170 mph.” Jon is now ready to tumble.
“I give it fast,
full right rudder, and aileron with full forward left stick—push it all to the
front left corner. That puts me into a high negative g-force state.” The tail
flips up and over the nose, and the airplane tumbles over like a wrestled
steer. “The pain is instantaneous from the negative g’s. All I see is
blue-brown-blue brown! Until it stabilizes, and I see something on the ground I
can recognize.”
The aircraft
tumbles end over end across all three axes of flight: vertical, lateral, and
longitudinal, until it runs out of gyroscopic energy. Rarely the same way
twice.
“To recover, the
airplane kind of slows down...you might be upside down and starting a flat
spin—or it could be doing an outside snap roll toward the end— or it might be
an upright flat spin. Your view just goes bluebrownbluebrown until the airplane
doesn't want to do it anymore.” Jon has practiced recovery from every possible
flight attitude.
“The higher the
airspeed I have at entry, the more tumbles I get. Maybe three tumbles at 160 to
170 mph. It ends up shoulder-rolling,” says Jon.
He adds that the
lomcevak is a freestyle maneuver, so there is no Aresti symbol to depict it on
paper. “I just drew a line at a 45-degree angle, kind of like an A-frame, a
quarter roll to the left, after that I draw three curly-cues like a spring,
then it just stops. It’s not normal flight, let’s put it that way.”
Count Jose Luis
Aresti of Spain drew symbols for three-dimensional maneuvers on paper. An
"Aresti" begins as a dot/circle, with loops, solid lines for 45 and 90-degrees,
horizontal or vertical, and dashes for inverted flight. Pilots connect symbols
to invent a sequence within airspace called the aerobatic box.