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 inadvertent lesson.
I was doing oscillating stalls. Nose up at idle power until the wings stopped flying.
As a wing dropped, I picked it up with rudder, not aileron.
(Down aileron on a stalled wing steepens angle of attack on that wing, stalling it deeply and starting a crossover spin.)
I was late on the rudder, and the airplane oscillated, each wing dropping alternately as I stabbed belatedly on each pedal.
The airplane, still in a stall and dropping nose high, finally gave up.
The nose yawed left, tucked itself into an inverted dive, and the ground began to spin clockwise.
I asked blithely, “Are we in a spin?
“RECOVER!” Meynard didn’t quite shout it, but he sounded urgent enough.
On the ground, he told me that when the airplane starts spinning, I need to recover it immediately.
Seconds count.
Later, he talked to me about unusual attitudes, such as those caused by low speed maneuvering or wake turbulence.
“You can recover from a spin, right?
“When you’re in an upset situation, not sure which way is up, stall the airplane and put it into a spin, and then recover.”
Intentional spins as a lifesaving maneuver 😯
Whoa. Paradigm shift!
So we practiced spins until they became a cause for mere anxiety, not panic.
I also learned how to recover from spins on a specific, pre-determined heading.
It built self-confidence to recover so precisely.
In the sequence of pictures, the airplane has entered a spin, stopped the spin, and rolled in a vertical dive until the expressway in the upper left of the picture rotated to the right spot.
The next step is to pull out of the dive.
Over Tanauan, I tackled the chandelle. I had a tough time with that — a challenging coordination exercise, and a graceful maneuver to watch from the ground.
I did it over and over, getting the first half right but blowing the second, or vice-versa. The next day, at Clark, I did more chandelles until Meynard was satisfied.
“Clark Tower, one six niner one is at Charlie two, commencing aerobatic maneuvers from two thousand to three thousand feet.”
At the Charlie training areas, 15 miles east of Clark and Omni, I did loops and lazy eights, and Meynard showed me Cuban eights.
The lazy eight was intriguing. The airplane was on a down line half the time, and yet I was never supposed to push the stick forward. The airplane never flew straight and level, and yet the elevator input was constant.
Carlo listened to my stories and thought about the airplane lying on its side at the 90-degree point in the lazy eight. He thought about the rudder not being just a rudder, when in a steep bank. He thought about vertical and horizontal components of lift… . He was quicker than me.
Meynard was guiding Carlo and me through the deliciously intertwined relationships between pitch, bank and airspeed.
I wanted more and more of this discovery. I didn’t want it to end. 😦
Next: Restore Thy Youth As With The Eagles.
Posted from Bangkok, Nov 2, 2007.
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i could have read this in any other aviation website, but the mere fact that i know the author (even just online) makes it more exciting and my imagination became more vivid.
so we’re expecting another exciting hot air balloon fest, aren’t we?
good luck and make sure you recover always : )
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Hi Cris, thanks for dropping by again.
Yup, should be an exciting balloon fiesta next February, and I will thoroughly enjoy watching Meynards aerobatics, from my usual spot on the stage 🙂
Will certainly make sure there ares as many recoveries as entries!
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thank you, man
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Greetings,
Can any of you fine aviators give me an idea of what it takes here to build an experimental category plane….like a Zenith 801?
In US it’s pretty easy. Any EAA type groups in PI?
Thanks,
Bob – greenhawaii@me.com
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