I Acquire an Unusual Attitude

Carlo continues his story of flying with Meynard.  Over the course of two days, he is bombarded with new epiphanies on the theory and practice of flight.
   
  
  
  
The g-forces squeeze me into my seat as Meynard takes us through a loop, an aileron roll, a spin, and a hammerhead.  I follow him on the controls, trying [...]

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And We Haven’t Even Started Maneuvering Yet!

Carlo continues his story of flying with Meynard for the first time. 
In two days he learns more about aerodynamics than most pilots do in years.  He is in a fabric-covered aerobatic airplane, yet his best lessons have nothing to do with maneuvering flight.
  
  
  
  
There was a large, yellow, thing in the hangar.  It was a spindly, [...]

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The Invisible Important Thing

In January 2008, over a year ago, Carlo finally flew with Meynard. 
How time flies!  I remember every moment — watching him taxi away in the Decathlon with Meynard, and again in the Cessna 152.  And then watching him taxi back, cool as a cucumber, both times.
Carlo wrote about it four months later, April 2008, in Bangkok. 
It is [...]

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Meynard the Medicine Man

Last November, I texted Meynard, needing therapy.  I was in Bangkok, after a rough month at work, too much travel.
Meynard is my aerobatics instructor.
He replied by text… .
  
“We can use the Decathlon as a psychiatric couch.  Combinations this time.  Cuban 8s and Immelmans.  Sequence of 6 maneuvers.”
  
Salvation!  My home leave was only three weeks away. 
I went nuts when the [...]

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Close Your Eyes And Let The Force Be With You

I could only watch the aerobatic displays with envy.  But Carlo and I did actually fly an aerial dogfight, against the Navy, Malaysia and SEAir!  Well, sort of.
  
  
  
  
The balloon bursting boondoggle – airplanes prowling above the crowd and hunting down helium-fattened prey.
Most pilots quail at colliding with an object in an airplane! 
But there we were, chasing drifting [...]

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Real Men Do It Upside Down!

 So there we were, behind schedule. 
The gusting winds had grounded the hot air balloons, skydivers and paragliders.  
The crazed windsock threatened to rip itself off its pole and blow away altogether.
The morose crowd packed the ramp.  
Buddy Lopa, our untiring “Voice of the Fiesta” Program Director, kept apologizing for the wind.
We were stressed!  The airshow was dying.
     
That’s when [...]

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Thy Youth Is Restored Like the Eagle’s

Meynard’s Basic Aerobatic course was almost over.  I now had 9 hours of taildragger and aerobatic time, nearly 3 hours in the last sortie alone.  On graduation day, I practiced vertical maneuvers — loops and hammerheads. 
Then came the graduation exercise.
   
  

   
           
   
    
Graduation day was CAVOK after rain the previous day, and we regrouped for a briefing.  Meynard wanted [...]

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The Secret Love Triangle Between Pitch, Bank and Airspeed

 
 

    
    
What a kick it was to call on the radio:
“Manila approach, one six niner one is Tango four at two thousand feet, commencing aerobatic maneuvers from two thousand to three thousand feet.”
Meynard and I practiced aerobatics at Tango 4, a training area 20 miles south of Manila.  Here we did spins, loops, rolls and hammerheads.
  
My first spin was an [...]

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Psycho with Pedals

Meynard’s Basic Aerobatic Course runs to 10 hours of flight training, plus briefing, de-briefing and a bit of ground school, depending on how much the student already knows of aerodynamics… . 
  
WE went flying immediately! 
    
Flight training is done in the Bellanca Super Decathlon, a taildragger.  So I also got my tail wheel endorsement!
We wasted no time in [...]

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Tricycles Are For Kids. REAL MEN Drag Their Tails!

Taildragger.
Aviators mouth the word with humble respect or anxious disdain.  Taildraggers are viciously treacherous, they say.  “There are only two kinds of taildragger pilots — those who have already ground-looped their airplanes, and those who are about to.”
    
Most airplanes, from Boeing 747s to Cessna 152s, have tricycle landing gear — two main wheels and a nose wheel.  The [...]

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