As a former Citabria owner I've spent my fair share of hours trying to master the basic inside manuevers. Watching that sequence I have two observations:

1) Max I've ever pulled was FOUR g pulling out the bottom of a loop. I returned to the airfield, landed, thanked my instructor, went in the bathroom and puked then spent the next three hours laying on a picnic table with the airport cat until I felt fit to fly home, Four g is TOO MUCH; and

2) Low level acro is about the most dangerous thing possible. One wingtip on those pylons, whatever they are made of, and the party is OVER.

That said, hell of a video. The telemetry of the g is particularly neat.

A scary one for me was doing spins in our old 39 J4, it started winding up a little too fast, shoved the nose down, rudder to stop it, almost went inverted, lots of speed, had to pull out hard, maybe about 5 g's and you could hear the fabric on the wings, sounded like someone was pounding on the tops of the wings. Never spun it that hard again! All the controls were still centered so I guess I was OK:D

no true, they can, and have clipped the pylons and they are fine

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That is pretty cool. Still too close to the ground for me.

played around in a super decathlon..i am an acro noob tho. didn't ever pull more then 4 g's doing acro because with only 180 hp energy bleeds quickly.(i think it was 140mph entry for a loop and it would get pretty slow on top)

Heading to and from the airport was fair game tho.. My instructor used to point at things on the ground and as soon as you turned your head he would roll 130 degree's and pull to 6g.. if you wernt ready for it = goodnight. :( I don't think I would do that if it wasn't a brand-new aircraft.

Also we would spin,climb,spin,climb until one of us got sick. Became very comfortable with spins.

On the way home it was fun to do slow rolls and fly upside down for a min at a time... hard to wrap your brain around coordinated turns upside down.

http://www.erau.edu/db/flightdb/imag...alon-large.jpg

it was all fun and games... but should something go wrong we had a limit of 3000ft above the ground... looks like they are only limited by the ground.. those guys have massive balls

Seahawk, hopefully not more gs in a HELO; mastbumping. I've pulled 7.5, but it hurts like hell and the blood pools in my right foot. I A-LOCKED at 7g twice; that ain't fun.

Just after the start of the second lap, after "half cuban" did the announcer say

"this is where the wingtips failed yesterday..."?

That sounds puckery...

Red Bull Air Race World Series, nothing short of awesome. These guys roar into the course at over 200mph, incredible stuff to watch. The Detroit race had over 275k spectators!

I hope they come to Seattle someday...

Not in a helo:eek:...the H-60 I flew had no mast bump issues (it has a fully articulated rotor head) and was limited to, if I remember correctly, 3.5 positive g's. Pulling over 2 g's in a helo at low levels is still sporty.

I've got a lot of fixed wing time, both private and military, so my g'had was in fixed wing:cool:

I love what these folks are doing.

too cool. flys that thang like he had a MIG-29 on his arse! no desire ever to replicate his dysfunctional unorthodox style, but i'd watch it any day! no pilots of that caliber at this aeropuerto!

I heard that too.

"..so lets do exactly the same thing today and see if they hold up!"


..would probably not be the first thing I thought of.

Aw comon' John, you don't like LL Acro?:rolleyes:;) Yeah, I hear ya on that one. I got a LL waiver one, but never excersized it. I have lost two friends in T6's doing LL acro and another one almost took he and his wife's life horsing around LL in a J3. Did a dog bone reversal after a low pass and ran out of room at the bottom. Lucky to have lived. I had my first lessons from the famous Gene Littlefield and, like you, had to chill out for a while after. Followed that up with the equally famous French Connection team school. Lovely people. Was scheduling my second visit when they crashed and were killed during practice. Broke my heart.

No doubt this LL stuff is extremely dangerous, but these guys and gals are real pros. Kind of like F1 - that's dangerous too, but populated by equally professional sportsmen. It still does not take away from the inherent dangers though and you do run the risk of the horrible happening.

I will say that acro has made me an exponentially better pilot. I am totally comfortable in most attitudes and airspeeds. The experience really makes you understand the energy/airspeed relationship. I got to the point that I was able to perform two consequetive slow rolls in a T6 without the engine quitting (gravity fed carbs quit under zero g) or losing altitude.:) If you know a T6, you will understand how really hard that is. Snaps on top of a loop are pretty sporty too, but I wouldn't do that often in the 'six. Lots of altitude just in case...

Don't get me started on this flying stuff, I will never shut up.:rolleyes: