Page 26 - Sept 19 TNT

Professional pilot Jared Jacobs preparing to taxi out for his first aerobatic flight. eerily quiet in the cockpit as the aircraft falls straight towards the earth while rotating around its vertical axis. The airspeed indicator in front of me reads “0” as the altimeter is unwinding like a clock. It is an oddly beautiful thing to experience. After a few rotations, Dan follows the same recovery procedure that I did, and we are quickly back to flying straight and level. Roll Maneuvers “How are you feeling?” Dan asks. “Really good, actually,” I re- spond honestly. This will be one of many wellness checks that Dan performs throughout the flight. To be honest, if I had been feeling bad and called it quits at this juncture, I would have felt that it was a successful day. Getting to know the Extra and exploring some slow speed and even no speed envelope flying is a real proficiency booster. But the first few maneuvers peaked my appetite – I wanted more. With no previous experience in rolls, I assumed I would start with slow rolls then progress the roll rate as I became comfortable. But in reality, slow rolls are one of the more complex aerobatic maneuvers which require precision and a thorough understanding of how to dis- connect the flight controls from their typical roles (e.g., rudder can serve as pitch in knife-edge flying), so my first attempt was the simpler aileron roll. “Start by pitching the nose up slightly, then try to push the stick all the way to the stop,” Dan explains. I complied and finally got to see the full effect of the roll rate that the Extra is known for. When I shoved the controls of the fingertip flyer and pushed the control stick to the left-hand limit of its travel, there was no possible way for my eyes to track the horizon as it spun rapidly around me. I overshot my intended roll- out point by at least 20 degrees. After another a couple of attempts, I can time the release of the control forces to cease the roll rate right as we return to wings level after the full 360-degree roll. Dan then shows me the appropriate way to perform a slow roll. He talks me through the complexities of starting the luck! My eyes dart back outside as I try to set a sufficiently steep bank angle. As if he were sensing my every thought, Dan says, “Just look outside and try to maintain your altitude as you continue to roll. I’ll tell you when you have enough in.” I keep banking and pulling, banking and pulling. I feel that I am nearly at knife edge in the turn and my body is getting heavier and heavier in the seat when Dan finally instructs, “Good! Hold that” at what I would estimate is 80 de- grees. We continue around in the turn until my inputs become less frequent and jerky, and instead more steady. I then roll straight from the left steep turn directly into one to the right, with Dan and the airplane providing ample feed- back as we go. Next, we proceed into a normal pow- er-off stall with full recovery using only a reduction in angle of attack. Following this we go through another stall maneu- ver known as the falling leaf. In this pro- cedure, the stalled state is maintained by keeping the stick back and the wing drop is combatted by using the rudder. As the airplane falls through the sky, with the wings dipping alternatingly, we are causing one wing to be slightly more stalled than the other but then reverse the condition through the use of the rudder. After a few cycles of hanging on the ragged edge of the envelope, we simply reduce the elevator back pressure which reduces the angle of attack of both wings simultaneously, allowing for a full recovery from the stall. “We have just flown a coordinated stall and a slightly uncoordinated stall. Now let’s see what happens when we are completely uncoordinated,” says Dan. We set up for another stall, but this time I add in left aileron and right rudder pressure. If my cockpit was equipped with a turn coordinator, I imagine that the ball would have been roughly half deflection out of center skidding to the outside of the turn. Predictably the “less stalled” left wing comes up and over the top as the “more stalled” right wing falls. I follow the same procedures I followed years ago in a Cessna 152 to recover: power idle, ailerons neutral, full opposite rudder pressure and elevator forward to reduce the angle of attack. No sur- prises there. But what Dan shows me next I have never seen before. This time it is an uncoordinated turning stall to the right, but once we enter the incipient phase of the spin, he further aggravates the spin by doing everything wrong. He pulls the stick back and to the right as he pushes the left rudder pedal to the stop and guns the power. We have entered a flat spin. Except for the sound of the motor, it is 24 • TWIN & TURBINE / September 2019