The limits we impose on our Vargas for dogfighting are +/- 60 degrees of bank and +/- 30 degrees of pitch. Any more than that and we’d be in aerobatic flight, upping our insurance premiums and forcing the use of parachutes.
Which, who needs that?
I have come to the tentative conclusion that while demonstrating the bank angle limit is appropriate and in fact necessary (bank angle plus g turns the machine), demonstrating the pitch limits is probably a bad idea. I’ve got a very high correlation between showing a guest pilot the transition between 30 degrees nose high to 30 degrees nose low on a hot day – a self-evidently stomach churning sixty degree change taken all together – and himself speaking into the white plastic megaphone.
Jim the fadder it was today, and Jamie his own son, ten years old at a stretch. Both of whom embarked for to go flying full of piss and vinegar, but only one of whom came back flushed with victory. While the other one came back looking more or less like death warmed over, without the warming.
I won’t say which is which, but his initials were “D.A.D.”
He was actually a good sport through most of the hop, although clearly just this side of miserable – making a good show of it for his young man, I reckon – but lost the plot on the way back home.
I’d gotten acute of the rendezvous bearing line with another 45 degrees of turn or so to go between where we were and where we’d be going. We were about to enter Miramar’s class D airspace (embedded well within the San Diego class B), so it was all about hard altitudes and talking to tower during the transition. No time for fooling around trying to rejoin from the front, so I swooped into a hard, diving turn back to the bearing line, recovering with a nose-high, cross-controlled hai-yaka to perfect, stabilized position. Pretty dern proud of myself, too. Or was, at least, until I looked over my shoulder and saw your man having that one-way conversation.
So there’s that.
The second hop was another one hour “learn to fly” with Ken, a good fellah transplanted here from Boston. I asked – as I had to do – whether he was a Yankees fan, just for the inevitable testosterone surge that was in it. Nay, nay, good friend – bridle down. I was just having you on. It’s in my nature.
Level speed changes, turn patterns, power-off stalls. That sort of thing.
But then there was our man Earl the Pearl not so very far away, having rented of a company Varga on his own, and carrying with him a friend, like. Both of ‘em eager for a bit of the old swirl. As was our Ken, good man himself.
We met in the old accustomed place in a left to left pass, and got right down to it. All even Steven for the longest, until your correspondent got a wild hair up his, em, bonnet, and decided that it might be fun to lever the flaps down a bit and power above the fight, like.
It worked in the old A-4 Skyhawk, this manipulation of the flaps. One third to one half down below blowback speed (~300 knots) and hook the slats out below 250 and your properly handled scooter could turn inside it’s own rothole as many the incautious Hornet or Tomcat pilot learned to his dismay. We thumbed ‘em out in the F-5, and all of that took care of itself in the Hornet.
In the Varga Kachina, not so much, alas. I found that I could fly quite slowly while turning not at all. Not exactly a recipe for success, and once you’ve committed to lowering the flaps near the hard deck it isn’t like you can take them back up again and call for a do-over.
There’s a moment when you’re about to get your butt handed to you, but it hasn’t happened yet. You keep fighting because that’s what you do, but you know that it’s only a matter of time and in a secret place you want it all to just be over and done. Kill me, already.
It was like that.
Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.
Live and learn.
I’ve got a suggestion, Lex, mein schatz. You’re scaring me here. Why don’t you take up sabre fencing again? Challenging as it is, it’s a lot safer than flying that Varga airplane. And if you hit that “hard deck” you’re talking about, it’ll only scuff you up a bit, not kill you. We, your loyal readers, want you around to keep writing. For a long time.
Marianne
This one?
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/middle/2/3/5/1354532.jpg
This is what you’re horsing around in? Looks like a hoot.
So, that’s the critter! I was meandering about the tarmac at Arlington, WA, a couple of weeks ago and spotted a flight of four parked alongside one another. Found a SportStar in another location, which, from what I’ve read is a lot of fun to fly and a bit of a beast to put back on the pavement…it just can’t stand not flying, dontcha know.
Of course, there I am thinking “Great place Arlington is, a guy could really spend some…ALL STOP…WTH?…”as my eyes caught a shape in the distance across the field. No way! Pulled out the camera, zoomed in (yeah, it’s that age thing), and there was this F-8 Crusader sitting there all by its lonesome. Yeah, Arlington’s great. A guy/gal could spend a lot of time here…lots of vintage winged creatures making their way through the sky…frequently.
Ahh, the motion sickness. I think there may be a faint vomit smell in every combat aircraft ever built. One can train the vestibular system to ignore it by turning his head sideways, I’ve read, but I would take it easy with a first-timer.
‘specially if he is the one paying.
P.s. I have also read that the way to deal with motion sickness when afloat, is to stare at the horizon when on deck, and keep eyes shut when below.
Owhell, Nelson was always seasick, and he did OK.
Seems to me, what’s important is, can you keep yer wits about you when losing yer lunch?
-Jtg’s scatterbrained thoughts
lex – “You keep fighting because that’s what you do, but you know that it’s only a matter of time and in a secret place you want it all to just be over and done. Kill me, already.”
“It was like that.”
“Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.”
There is something extraordinarily special about one’s integrity – one that can and will put understandable pride aside, behind and below his or her integrity where it belongs, and honor the rule when no one is looking.
Indeed it is especially admirable for anyone who has been formerly screened, selected, and trained to give no quarter, and even cut some edges when absolutely necessary under real and exigent circumstance and lives depend, to then realize and respond correctly to the change of venue and circumstances, perhaps contrary to their former training, conditioning, and ego.
While I can recognize it, I confess I can’t quite always do it. Perhaps you may be a better man than I… and I do really mean that. [At least just for tonight, anyways
]
_______________________________________________________________
As an interesting aside, I have a daughter who holds an ATP.
She also happens to be extremely competitive, having been born a short few 9+ months after her “first-born-male,” athletic and straight-A student, older sibling. (would’ve been born sooner, but we couldn’t get a private hospital room). Instant and forever jealousy was guanteed. Although we were and remain all extremely close, we have always engaged in friendly but combative discussions, even today. (Maybe a la The Great Santini).
On occasion, she and I have discussed availing ourselves to your (lex’s) competitive flying services. But we have decided not to, fortunately for ALCON.
For me, it might blow my cover here, which I do ‘wimpily’ value. For her, she would probably enjoy it…. and horrors, could she prevail?
But for you, your company, and your insurance, the last thing you need is a feminist female pilot expressing in air, decades of pent-up frustration for her chauvinistic and sometimes inattentive father, and wanting desperately to put imaginary airborne bullets into his excessively inflated, narcissistic ego!
She once seriously considered applying, and may have made a successful naval aviator, but she was too concerned about the length of the commitment at her then young age. Too bad, for all.
But trust me now. You would not want to endure the over-banks and excessive G-stresses, hard deck excursions, and a to-the-death-to- win competition of a daughter long beleaguered by three decades of inferred oppression by her father.
Conversely, she did buy a very expensive dinner the other night, for her “loving father’s” birthday. So go figure?
Although I love her dearly, I once considered naming my sailboat, “Never have a daughter!” or, “Cheaper than a daughter.”‘
Daughters! Gotta love ‘em. ‘Nuff said!
Airsickness is not necessairly indicative of anything. Appros of Admiral Nelson, the #1 stick in my pilot tng class got sick frequently. (He got a 105 out of UPT but was KIA on his 23rd msn.) I on the other hand never did, but finished every msn, tng or combat so ashen-faced everyone thought I’d had a near death experience (of course that was the sort of fun experience exclusively reserved for anyone who crewed with me.) You just never know…..
Fliterman, you speak truth. I have a daughter, now, and I’ve an ego that’s…. well…. Some folks are conceited? Not me — I’m merely convinced.
Some days I actually fear what I’m going to do to her, the poor dear, by raising her. Other days I fear for the rest of the world when I finally set her loose.
And I have plans, oh yes, plans, for the local school system. The general trend is between 9 and 12 kids per class, and I’ve noticed a distressing interest in laptops and a remarkable lack of oscilloscopes in their list of priorities.
Oh, I’m going to be an embarrassment to her in school, I can tell already.
Ain’t fatherhood great?
Which reminds me, my kid sister just completed her instrument rating. My kid sister, who’s been a flight attendant for a decade, can’t change a tire without help, and had to spend 2 hours on the phone with me to understand vector sums, plus another hour to grok carb heat.
I gotta go up with Lex. Or her. Just so I can put all this book learning into practice. Be nice to actually fly some day instead of knowing all about it like some Monday morning quarterback. Who knows, might even get this ego of mine under control, about the time I find my book learnin’ don’t amount to much.
– Max
Max,
Read “Anathem”, by Neal Stephenson. You just might enjoy it.
Best,
Craig
Craig, I think I will. I really enjoyed Snow Crash, and have lately been following Charles Stross to the exclusion of other works.
Winter approaches, reading time is upon me.
– Max
Max,
Son, son if you liked ‘Snow Crash’ you’ll love ‘Anathem.’ And also ‘Cryptonomicon’ and ‘The Baroquoe Cycle.’
‘Cryptonomicon’ is the best novel I’ve read (that was not written by Evelyn Waugh) in the last 15 years, and I read books for a living, its a little dated now but still first rate. Laptops AND Oscilloscopes.
Best,
Craig
I suspect that in the Varga all dropping the flaps would do would be to lower your stalling speed, thus allowing you to crank on some extra bank angle. As you’ve already limited your bank angle to 60 degrees anyway, the net effect was simply to increase drag. Worth a try, though, right?
Baroque
Flit,
There’s rules and then there’s rules. Aviators are notroious for turning their blind eye to most rules. They usually do OK for those rules that pertain to actually flying and landing aircraft but all the rest of them are just sort of guidance really, not real rules.:)
Fliterman, Max, et al,
I have 2 daughters, ages 22 and 10. My father had 5. I completely understand why he drank.
I thought that being an aircrewman in the Navy was sometimes stressful. Nope. Not even close. Daughters will grey you in no time flat, and take no small measure of satisfaction in seeing it. Sigh.
I got airsick from time to time. Not the heaving, empty your stomach kind, but the nauseous, cold-sweaty slightly vertigo kind.
It came with the job. Sitting amidships on the P-3, facing out over the port wing, and having multiple sensor displays ahead, and below and above your sight line was just asking for it. Couple that with low-altitude in poor weather and lots of turns and banks down low, and you get the picture.
Heck, I once saw a Sensor-3 (radar operator) nearly fall right out of his seat from vertigo during a low altitude night prosecution. It happens.
But you know, it was the greatest job I ever had, bar none, and I’d do it again without pay if they’d let me
Respects,
Max,
You need to make the promise to your daughter that I made to mine.
“I will never embarrass you in front of your friends. On purpose.”
She’s 14 and might even live to see 15.
Best
This M.O.M would have looked like that D.A.D. My inner ear is shot. Just reading about the yanking and banking makes me turn a light green…
Wow… all the cuts on daughters. Sheesh. I think I did my Dad OK, like father like daughter and all that. Then again… I have said frequently, I am glad I have three sons.
I don’t think God gets into much in your life — I am certain he doesn’t care how I drive home, what I watch for TV, etc. I am as certain as this christian agnostic can be, that he is right smack dab in the middle the gender distribution of your offspring. Flight Lead is the youngest of three girls — her Mom would have been incapable of dealing with the perpetual disorder that is boys. Oldest SIL has three boys — would have been locked in continuous wars to be the sole princess crown wearer in the house had there been a Dos Equiis in the bunch. I needed one of each — a girl to spoil, and a son to carry on the family warrior tradition (
— heaven help the people that would have had to stare her down, had she become a distributor of state sanctioned violence)
Is Earl the Pearl the same Wederbrook I used to fly with in the Phantom back in the ’70s when he was a nugget, and not yet famous?
If so, tell him “Batar” said hi.
The very same, and I’ll pass it along.
filterman & virgil have it right: as important to survival as a serious talent for tactical aggression in the extreme, come those experiences that make one aware that a certain fraction of aerial activity are thoroughly inhuman – body & mind rebel, rendering one helpless as a babe.
An ET Thunderbolt ace I knew once told me of his initial transition flight to the P-51. As wheels were again rolling on the Marsden matting his trembling innards succumbed to the steep curve of unique physical challenges recently incurred and instantly projected a young man’s rapacious portion of early morning chow over screen, panel, knees and boots.
Shutdown completed, opposite a crew chief, he braced for the worst and began apologizing profusely, punctuated by guilt-ridden insistence that he assist in the necessary corrective action. The astute sergeant, while surveying the fuming aftermath, mercifully absolved, “Eh… I’ve seen worse.”
He went on to enjoy a long lifetime filled with brilliant aviation achievements. His clear message in the telling to me was that the occasional measure of humility is an extremely good and healthful thing.
Like Bou, speaking as a daughter I don’t think I was all that bad.
Though that talk about “prisoner’s rights” back in the mid 70′s did make my dad lose a little hair. I did manage to make it up to him by supporting Gerald Ford over Jimmah Carter a couple years later.
Then there was my first car – being a total “daddy’s girl”, I got alot of free passes for those escapades, daddy being a motorhead and all. What my mom still doesn’t know…
My mom used to say if I had been born first (a boy was, several years before me) I’d have been the last.
Girls and breaking the mold – it’s what we are all about!
Me gots myself two girls.
Which I thought was good cuz I wasn’t quite sure what I would do if I had boys. BUT. Oh, yeah. BUT…. Does anyone know the details of the exchange policy? Please tell me there’s an exchange policy.
We’ve got two girls (and their baby brother, now 25), and they’re simultaneously very different and almost twins.
Joy and terror and pride and panic generated at will by the both of them. More of the better and happier responses awaken in us as time passes, thankfully.
Still wish I shot as consistently well as #1 does. Maybe with more practice…