All work and no play....

I was going to write an entry tonight about some recent things I’ve bought why I bought them and what I hope to do with them.  Before I get inundated with inappropriate suggestions of what I bought and what I should do with them I’ll ruin the surprise:  I picked up a VholdR HD camera that is mountable to my headset as a POV camera or just about anywhere else in the airplane.  I shopped frugally and got a sweet deal.  That’s what I was going to write about but simply put, I don’t feel like writing about that. 

How often do you find yourself getting caught up in the day to day malaise of your day?  There has got to be a reason that each and every one of us has chosen to work in whatever profession we currently find ourselves in.  Some of us might have to work because it was a job that was open and you were a person that needed a job.  End of story.  Others might be working towards what they’ve decided is going to be their career.  How often, in whatever endeavor we find ourselves in do we completely lose sight of the point of all of it? 

With all of my pushing towards the dream, as corny as that sounds, sometimes it gets pretty easy to remember to have fun.  I know that sounds insane but it is somehow true.  In my pre-airplane days I was involved in the music business.  No I wasn’t bombing around in Gulfstreams throwin’ down G’s screamin’ out money ain’t a thang but I was professionally employed in the biz.  I thought it would be fun.  I thought it would be excited.  It was work.  No fun.  No real honest excitement.  Just work.  I tried to have a go as a performer and guess what…work. 

I’m not afraid of work, I just don’t want to know I’m working when I am.  This goal that I’ve set myself out to reach is not an easy one.  It’s not always going to be fun.  Lately, I've just been...blah.  If you were to draw a chart of my fun level in a recent week it would probably go a little something like this:                                                                                                                                                                                                                   /\

                                                            /  \

    _______________________________/     \_____________

M         T         W       TH        F          S           S         

Guess when the flight occurred?  (Did I mention I love Vonnegut?)  With all the pressure that I put on myself to do this it’s pretty easy for the fun to get sucked right out of it…resulting in a rather dismal fun level chart. 

The trick as far as I can see is this:  Never concentrate on what you don’t have.  Focus on what you do have and the opportunities in front of you and never take anything less than full advantage of them.  I have to do this to myself every so often.  It helps with the focus and keeping things fun.  That’s the point isn’t it?  

It's a little trafficky...

Every pilot has a fear. There are hazards unique to flying but for some reason it seems that most pilots pick one as “their fear.” My original flight instructor was terrified of an in flight fire. Another was scared silly of icing conditions. Mine is a mid-air collision.
Flying in the Northeast is like flying around a beehive. It is so congested and busy that you constantly have to keep your head on a swivel looking out for traffic. Even so, you could have the most amazing vision in the world and things come at you quick. I have 20/10 vision but with a closure rate of over 200mph things can come in and in out view rather quickly. That is why whenever I am practicing I am absolutely religious about clearing the area before each figure. Yesterday was a little nuts.

I got to the airport pretty early only to find that the Decathlon had full tanks. This would be awesome if I were planning on traveling somewhere. But I wasn’t. The awesomeness of full tanks does not apply to flying acro. The extra weight of the extra fuel on board (aviation fuel weighs about 6lbs per gallon. The D can carry 40 gallons) makes the plane too heavy to pull more than 3 g’s. You can get a pretty severe stall buffet right at the start of a loop which if you know how to fly through it is fine, but not exactly ideal conditions for practice. I like to have no more than ¾ tanks.

To burn off the extra fuel I flew up to North Central airport to do some takeoff and landing practice. You can loop and roll all you want but if you can’t land…well you’ve got some problems. Practice is always good and I admit I don’t do it enough. It started off quiet in the pattern with only me and a Cessna 172 going round and round. Quickly more people came in though and it got nuts. I saw some of the worst airmanship I have ever witnessed in all my years of flying. Flying is a privilege. I don’t care if you have 100 hours or 10,000 hours, there is a reason rules are made and no amount of arguing will convince me otherwise.

It got so hairy that I boogied out of there pretty quick to go get the practice session in that I was looking forward to. I managed to find the spot I had picked out but once I was there it didn’t seem all that great. I kind of wandered around for a few minutes looking for some good space away from homes, airports, towers, and other airplanes. I cleared the area and started working on my clover down, working right into the hammerhead. Again, I was clearing the area after each figure but there was a constant stream of airplanes passing through. It was annoying to say the least. I was thinking of moving to the deserts of Arizona after one too many sightings.

The flying side of things was great. I was working on the clover into the hammerhead. My clover is coming along nicely. I was talking myself through it making sure that I was pulling through the loop. The neat part was I was almost standing on the rudder at the bottom of the loop to keep everything coordinated (flying straight, not crooked). I wasn't thinking about it, just doing it. Little things like that make me rather happy.

I am starting to think that Alan Cassidy might not be lying about losing energy in a loop. My ending altitude is good but I’m short on airspeed by around 10 - 15mph. I am thinking that a slight descent from the clover into the hammer is going to work well to keep my energy level up. Since this figure is heading directly towards or away from the judges it will be pretty difficult for them to see a slight descent.

Setting up a practice session

One of the big challenges of flying acro in Southern New England is simply finding the area to fly! There are some regulations set by the FAA that you have to abide by. Sure you could go out and loop and roll where ever you want, plenty of people do but I want to have a long career flying and you never know who is watching you from the ground. Here is what I have to deal with:

“No person may operate an aircraft in aerobatic flight --
(a) Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement;
(b) Over an open air assembly of persons;
(c) Within the lateral boundaries of the surface areas of Class B, Class C, Class D, or Class E airspace designated for an airport;
(d) Within 4 nautical miles of the center line of any Federal airway;
(e) Below an altitude of 1,500 feet above the surface; or
(f) When flight visibility is less than 3 statute miles.”

To show you what this means I’m posting a photo of a chart I marked up showing all the legal and illegal airspace that I’m surrounded by. Pink highlighted areas are happy areas (no jokes please.). Black crossed out areas are license-revocation areas. (Picture to be posted tonight!!!)

In addition, I generally don’t want to keep going back to one spot. I don’t want to annoy the people below me and I don’t want to get too used to the same visual cues. Different areas are going to look different and offer different challenges. Imagine training for a marathon but only running laps on a track. You show up for the marathon and its not on a track; its on roads and has hills and all sorts of stuff you haven’t dealt with before. AND (I’m on a roll here eh?) To get to a practice area I have to fly some 20 miles in any direction. I want to find an intermediary airport where I can relax in between without flying all the way back to PVD.

I’m going to try an area up by Hopedale, MA tomorrow. It’s in the happy pink area and has a fantastic intersection of two power lines that is almost perfectly 3300 feet. That’s the size of an aerobatic competition box so I’ll have some awesome visual references. I could either land at Hopedale or head down to North Central which is only a few miles away. I know that North Central has an indoor lounge so I’ll probably head there since the temps aren’t going to be all that high.

I’ll be working on the clover again. I’ve done reading on the figure and I was right about some things, a little off about others. The most interesting thing I read though was from Alan Cassidy. He writes in his book “Better Aerobatics” that the loop will usually lose energy. You should finish the loop slower than you started. What? Really? In all my years of flying and all the instructors that I’ve looped with I don’t remember hearing that. I’m going to keep flying the loops the same way I always have abiding by the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mantra. I’ll be able to put it all together in the confines of a box for the first time. Tomorrow morning cannot come fast enough.

The Clover

Ever jump off a cliff or a high ledge into water?  There is great rush of adrenaline that comes because you don’t know how it’s going to go.  There is only one way to find out. 

Today was a lot like that.  I flew twice in the Decathlon.  The first flight was a dual lesson that I gave.  The second flight was me taking a whack at the clover.  The clover goes a little something like this:  a loop with a 1/4 roll that starts about 5/8 of the way through the loop.  (Yes I know it is going to be easier for you all to digest this with video. Sit tight.  Its coming eventually.)  So, instead of just doing a plain vanilla loop you end up 90 degrees off in heading from where you originally started. 

I started off by doing a few of the plain vanilla loops just to warm up.  They went well.  If you do it right, you should finish the loop precisely where you started it at the same altitude, and the same airspeed.  Loops in the Decathlon can be done really nicely at 140mph showing in the airspeed indicator.  You don’t need to pull more than 3.5 g’s in the D.  A quick word about g-loading:  it is virtually impossible to accurately describe what it is like to feel a “g”.  The most common description is to say that under 1g, I weigh 175lbs; under  g’s and I weigh 300lbs.  This is all true but it doesn’t describe what it really feels like or why the amount of g you pull is important.  Obviously, this is a good rainy day discussion for the site. 

With two loops done pretty well it was time for the clover.  I had only done this once before and only a few months ago with Marc Nathanson as the instructor.  This was my first attempt at doing it by my lonesome.  Just like standing on that ledge, I wasn’t 100% sure how it was going to turn out but there was only one-way to find out.  I pulled up into the loop, floated over the top as you normally would and just as the nose hit the horizon inverted I started a roll to the left.  You don’t pause the loop for this roll to take place.  You want the nose to keep working its way around the loop making as close to a perfect circle in the sky as you can.  There I was hanging 4000 feet in the air, upside down in an airplane saying to myself “here goes!”   I started the roll, kept pulling through the loop and ended up perfectly 90 degrees from where I started, at the right altitude and the right airspeed.  At this point I let out a ridiculous laugh because a) that is insanely fun b) I pulled a perfect clover out of nowhere.

That’s not to say the rest of my attempts were good.  Actually they were fairly horrid.  The big problem was that I was finishing the figure about 100 feet higher than I wanted to, and about 15 – 20 mph too slow.  This is a big problem because the next figure is a hammerhead and I want at least 130mph to start that, nothing less.  I did a few clovers with hammerheads and it worked out fine but there was a significant delay in getting to the hammerhead while I built up some more airspeed.  Not good, but that’s what practicing is for!  I came back and landed after repeating the same error a few times.  I wanted to walk through the figure some and wrap my head around how I was managing to come up with same result each time.  The best I can figure is that I am not pulling through the back half of the loop as I should be.  Once I start the roll I am holding the nose up just enough such that the back half of the loop gets shortened.  This would lead to coming out higher than I started but also a slower airspeed because I'm not giving the airplane time to build up energy on the way down.  I'll go up next time and look for a Eureka! moment with this in mind. 

All in all, it was good day both in the air and on the ground.  We don’t get many 80 degree days in March but I was glad to take full advantage of it.  Mel Harick snapped a photo of the G-meter in the airplane after my flight.  I pulled 4.4 g’s coming down out of a hammerhead.  I love this stuff!!!!

Almost Ready, Almost Set, Almost Go

With money not exactly pouring out of my ears I have to be pretty picky about when and what and how and where I practice.  I’m taking a page out of just about any training program and writing my own syllabus to work off of. 

The Sportsman sequence consists of ten figures:

1)    45 degree upline

2)    1.5 rotation spin

3)    Reverse 1/2 Cuban

4)    Clover, Loop with a 1/4 roll

5)    Hammerhead, 1/4 roll downline

6)    Wedge; 45 upline, roll 1/2 roll, vertical down

7)    Humpty

8)    Immelman

9)    Goldfish

10) Aileron roll

I know that most of this sounds like jibberish.  To help, the IAC has adopted the use of Aresti notation to help clear things up.  You can view the above sequence in Aresti here: http://members.iac.org/knowns/knowns2010/Sportsman%20Known%202010.pdf.  I’m sure that helped. 

There are different takes on practicing.  Some people practice the whole routine all at once.  Others work on individualized figures.  Some break it into segments.  I’m combining two approaches; individual elements and segments.  Legendary acro coach John Morrissey commands that practicing the whole sequence is pointless.  If you are doing the elements properly stringing them together should be less of a challenge. 

I am going to keep it simple and practice 1,2, and 3 together, 4, 5, and 6; and finally 7, 8, 9, and 10.  The second segment is going to be a challenge in that I’ve never really done a clover. The last segment could be pretty nasty because there is a significant G-loading going through a goldfish.  Putting that at the end of a sequence will make it pretty hard to do well since you are pretty worn out by that point.  By only practicing a few figures ahead of it you give yourself to see the figure with fresh eyes and with your wits about you. 

I plan on getting started this weekend with a fairly steady schedule of flying.  I haven’t solidified my training syllabus just yet.  I’m thinking that I am going to take a stab at the loop, hammer, and wedge first.  I’ll start by looking at the figures individually and hopefully stringing them together by the end of the weekend.  I’m not gunning for 10’s this weekend, just basic proficiency and polishing them up as the season gets closer.    

Just keep spinning, Just keep spinning, Just keep spinning...

The past few weekends I’ve been giving some instruction in the Decathlon.  It’s a bit of the best of both worlds:  I get to fly and show someone some unusual attitude stuff and I don’t have to pay for it.  Good deal!

I took Joe Roy up twice.  He is working on his Certified Flight Instructor license and, as a prerequisite for the certificate, needs to have some training in spinning an airplane.  The first flight I treated as an intro to spins.  Joe is a fantastic pilot but had never really done any spins…ever.  The first time you spin an airplane it is quite the experience.  Luckily for me, and luckily for you Joe recorded BOTH flights and graciously let me link them here for you.  Yes, at the end of the first flight I do a go-around coming in to land.  Why?  Because I didn’t like how it felt coming into land.  Go-arounds are your best friend and I have no problem doing them.  Ego?  No room in the airplane for an ego.  At first the video camera was clamped next to my right shoulder.  You can get a sense of how blind it is in the backseat of the aircraft.  Just imagine if the camera were placed 8 inches to the left. 

 

The second session was a full on spin session.  Again we were dealing with basic entry and recovery.  To really go through the whole gauntlet of spin training, proper spin training I think requires multiple flights working up to the more complex entries.  All the spins you see in this video are normal upright spins.  Joe was quite cozy doing spins by the end of it.

The interesting thing to note here is that the camera was clamped directly to the airplane for both videos.  There is almost no vibration at all.  I've been shopping around for a good camera option for myself in the Decathlon and it's nice to see that this is an option.  I'm either going to pick up a GoPro or a Vholdr.  Both have their goods and bads.  If anyone has had experience with either I'd like to hear from you!  

Ed Viesturs: Not a pilot but he's been to 29,029 feet

I will take guidance from any source I can find even if its not aviation related. A good story is a good story.

The best book I’ve read in recent memory is Ed Viesturs “No Shortcuts to the Top.” Viesturs is the Michael Jordan of high altitude mountaineering. He is the first American to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000 meter peaks WITHOUT supplemental oxygen. Just for the record, 8,000 meters is 26,246 feet. At those altitudes you are slowly dying. Your brain essentially starves itself. Your muscles stop working. You are more susceptible to hypothermia. It’s just bad news no matter which you go. To say that Viesturs is a badass is a gross understatement.

There are a few keys to Viesturs’ success. He says that he always made very conservative decisions while in the mountains. He was never afraid to turn back if things didn’t look right. Any expedition that he was on usually took weeks if not months so turning back before you reached the top was never easy but it was oftentimes the smart decision.

I think he understates the other important factor. When I read his story I was struck by his absolute devotion and love of his sport. He gave up a career as a veterinarian so that he could climb mountains. He literally gave up a career, after he had his veterinary doctorate, and a job as a practicing vet; moved into a basement apartment with no windows; took a job building houses; ran 7 miles a day after he worked all day on a construction site; all so that he could be the best mountaineer that he could. It just so happened that “the best mountaineer that he could” was of a world class level.

He worked and worked and worked at it. Everything else was a second tier priority. I realize that it’s a crazy measurement to hold yourself up against but then again, he had a dream and he made it happen. He didn’t wait for it to happen; he made it happen for himself. Important lesson.

I just finished watching two weeks worth of Olympic events. Each athlete shares the same trait. There is no glory in some of the events, no sponsorship deals or magazine covers. Just the glory and pride that may be theirs for having worked so hard and achieved their goal.