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PA-18 aerobatic maneuvers, is this possible and safe?

Gotta ask, what film is this clip from in that Sierra Hotel compilation?


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Transmitted from my FlightPhone
License to kill James Bond film from 1989
 
OK, Don't do anything that might hurt you. If you want to leave the training wheels on your bike forever then do it. I don't even stand up in the bathtub anymore.

Glenn
OK, the mental image of you standing up in a bathtub, or of me standing up in a bathtub, pretty much scars me for life. Thank you for that, Glenn.:roll:

Randy
 
I had around 300 hrs in a Citabria, wrung all the acro out of it till It got boring.
Then decided I wanted to get into off airport stuff, beat the poor thing up pretty good till I wised up and realized that it was not designed for off airport work. Traded it in on a cub, about 10 minutes into my cub career tried an aileron roll. Cub is about as worthless at acro as a Citabria is off airport.
Right equipment for the mission...
 
This brings up a pet peeve of mine... My mom had to do precision spins in a champ to get her commercial ticket. I think the problem is that we may have the blind leading the blind. Pilots are becoming button pushers, more and more all the time. Witness the Cirrus... Sputter? Push the red button. When I was training a lot of banner pilots, the first thing I asked them to do was to spin the airplane. If they didn't know how, I either taught them, sent them for instruction, or sent them packing. Lots of the successful applicants are now senior Captains. There will always be some fool who doesn't understand the function and the limits.


I completly agree, spin recovery training should be mandatory. Just because it's no longer required doesn't excuse one from persuing a lesson or two in unusual attitude recovery.
 
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I had around 300 hrs in a Citabria, wrung all the acro out of it till It got boring.
Then decided I wanted to get into off airport stuff, beat the poor thing up pretty good till I wised up and realized that it was not designed for off airport work. Traded it in on a cub, about 10 minutes into my cub career tried an aileron roll. Cub is about as worthless at acro as a Citabria is off airport.
Right equipment for the mission...

See, anybody can roll an acro airplane. You need to be on your game to roll a regular airplane, what makes a better trainer. The easy one or the tough one.
And guys like Andy Crane in his flapped Citabria will beat 90% of you short field in your SC/CC every day of the week. It's not the plane that performs.

Glenn
 
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There are rolls, and then there are rolls. I do slow rolls, mostly, which I believe is the x-axis staying parallel to the route of flight. If you do not have an inverted system your engine quits and oil pressure goes to zero.

My impression of an aileron roll: accelerate to 110, then pitch up 30 degrees. Park it there and put full left aileron and a lot of left rudder in. Do not pull back, ever, until right side up. That is a positive G maneuver with almost no load factor. I doubt it exceeds 1.5 the whole time.

The caveat: get some instruction first. If you pull back while inverted you can indeed get in very real trouble. Most students ease off on the ailerons about exactly the wrong spot, and then it takes aileron and forward pressure to get straightened out.

The Stearman takes about a week to do a decent aileron roll. Probably better with four ailerons instead of two.
 
The guy who checked me out in a Stearman liked to get a run at it. He rolled 45 to the right then rolled to the left.
I didn't time it, but it took about a week.
 
The guy who checked me out in a Stearman liked to get a run at it. He rolled 45 to the right then rolled to the left.
I didn't time it, but it took about a week.


Nic and I lived through teaching ourselves spins, loops and hammerheads in the Stearman so we figured we could move on to rolls. I could do a sloppy roll in my 11 so we figured the Stearman would be the same or easier. We fell out of or stalled 3/4 of the way around a bunch of times but finally made it all the way around. We could roll it from then on but it was never pretty and rarely came out on the same heading but would only lose about 4 or 500'. We had a friend visit who had a S2? Pitts that he had been competing in and had won some contest with. We asked him for some help so he jumped in the front seat of the Stearman with Nic in the back and off they went. They were at about 3000' Agl with the Pitts driver flying and showing Nic the correct way to roll the Stearman, It was ugly and about the longest lasting roll attempt I had ever witnessed and didn't level out till about 800'. My Pitts buddy never came back to another flyin.

I want instruction from this guy. ~https://youtu.be/RB5nYlKd-Dg

Glenn
 
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I want instruction from this guy. ~https://youtu.be/RB5nYlKd-Dg

Glenn
I had a friend who did airshows with his 450 Stearman. That first roll on take off was his start. One day when the density altitude was up with heat and humidity he started his take off with the roll getting most of the way around and SPLAT. Good by old friend with his wife watching.

I had a Stearman with National high lift wings. It had excellent slow speed lift and maneuverability. Diving to get enough speed for a loop was painful with the top of the loop barely making it over the top.
 
Doing loops in a 450 Stearman was a hoot. Big honkin' roar going up, complete silence on top, cough-puke-spit-smoke when positive again. Huge fun.
 
Doing loops in a 450 Stearman was a hoot. Big honkin' roar going up, complete silence on top, cough-puke-spit-smoke when positive again. Huge fun.

That would be awesome, maybe someday? The one we played with was a Lyc 225hp with the wrong prop. It had the steel Mac GA prop that was a great prop but the 100hr AD killed it last time it was off. They stuck a 2B20 at a fixed pitch on it and it was doggy after that.

Pete, we needed to start at 130mph to make it over and be positive at the top. First couple we were too slow and stalled inverted and it takes awhile for the nose to drop and build enough speed to recover.

Glenn
 
Glenn,
That sounds about right. I don't think I could get the one with the high lift wings over 115 mph. The speed would bleed off below 100 before the nose was pointed very high. The other one that I had with the stock wings and a 300 Lyc turning a 2B20 had not trouble at all doing loops.
 
Rumor has it if you hesitate just a tad too long at the top of a loop that you'll need to land and clean the oil off of the windshield.
 
There has been talk in this thread about J3/PA-11 and PA-18 Super Cubs doing acro. An important issue is that the J3 & PA-11 are CAR 4 Aircraft and have no limitations regarding doing acro. There were no Normal, Utility, or Acrobatic category within CAR 4. The designer established a V/N diagram and designed the structure based on the V/N diagram. The PA-18 series is a CAR 3 airplane and is certified as Normal and Utility, and legally is to be operated per the FAA Approved Flight Manual, so the only maneuvers approved for a Super Cub are those listed in the Flight Manual in the Utility category.


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What makes a Cub a great stol performer is also what makes it suck at aerobatics - Dissipates energy very quickly.
Most aerobatic manouvers are preceded by a dive to build energy. A good clean aerobatic manouver is also an excersize in energy conservation. Cubs, (sounds like Sterman too) run out of energy half way thru a manouver, not a comforting situation to be in.
Yes, you can modify a cub like "Sky Magic", posted earlier, but at the end of the day you have a very expensive plane that can't do anything well.
 
What makes a Cub a great stol performer is also what makes it suck at aerobatics - Dissipates energy very quickly.
Most aerobatic manouvers are preceded by a dive to build energy. A good clean aerobatic manouver is also an excersize in energy conservation. Cubs, (sounds like Sterman too) run out of energy half way thru a manouver, not a comforting situation to be in.
.

Exactly, that's what makes it so enjoyable. I would love to fly an OTW because it does things even slower then a Cub

Glenn
 
I have witnessed that there is nothing quite as lovely as a basicslly stock Cub flown by a decent stick doing lovely one g loops and spins on a summer eve in Maine. Long may that live.

Sent from my [device_name] using SuperCub.Org mobile app
 
Reading through this thread just makes me smile!!
you can’t!!!.....you shouldn’t!!!..... and then there’s Glenn..... Man I hope one day I get to meet up with you someday. Clint
 
Reading through this thread just makes me smile!!
you can’t!!!.....you shouldn’t!!!..... and then there’s Glenn..... Man I hope one day I get to meet up with you someday. Clint

I just try to keep up with the other kid I fly with who's 84. Joe has taken over looping every time he's out. My guts don't seem to enjoy it as much anymore.

Glenn
 
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