Inadvertent Split S?

Out with a veteran USAF pilot well versed in aerobatics... Doing a couple aileron roles and not coming out real pristeen, not bad, just not crisp, he suggests I am giving some back pressure on my entry and suggests doing another that he is going to walk through with me... he reaches up for the stick about the time we go inverted and pushes forward, I release to allow him control, he doesn't take control, we drop back through the horizon inverted as I pull the power and pull back up to the horizon, adding power back in as we hit the horizon to maintain level flight. HEY, this is fun! I think I need to go get an aerobatic instructor pilot and play some more!!
By the way, we were 5000 agl during these maneuvers and never descended below 4k.
No inverted oil system, no flop tubes, how limited am I?

Stewart

You're not

limited very much at all.
First though, do get some real instruction and learn how to do acro properly.
You can easily and safely do all the gentlemans aerobatics. If done correctly you won't ever be at less that zero G, usually about 1/4 to a half going over the top in a round loop or cuban 8 so no problem with fuel or oil..
Enjoy and have fun..

7pilot said:

Out with a veteran USAF pilot well versed in aerobatics... (snip)... he reaches up for the stick about the time we go inverted and pushes forward, I release to allow him control, he doesn't take control, ........
Stewart

Click to expand...

Sounds like you and he need to thoroughly brief the "I have the airplane" procedure!

Ask me how I know! Same thing happened to me and my son whilst landing a T-6 "Texan". The plane landed very well with no one flying it, but the rollout was WAAAY too exciting! Pure luck, but no damage to anything but my ego!

"Y'all be careful now, y'hear?"

Ummmm....

7pilot said:

Out with a veteran USAF pilot well versed in aerobatics... Doing a couple aileron roles and not coming out real pristeen, not bad, just not crisp, he suggests I am giving some back pressure on my entry and suggests doing another that he is going to walk through with me... he reaches up for the stick about the time we go inverted and pushes forward, I release to allow him control, he doesn't take control, we drop back through the horizon inverted as I pull the power and pull back up to the horizon, adding power back in as we hit the horizon to maintain level flight. HEY, this is fun! I think I need to go get an aerobatic instructor pilot and play some more!!
By the way, we were 5000 agl during these maneuvers and never descended below 4k.
No inverted oil system, no flop tubes, how limited am I?

Stewart

Click to expand...

OK so just about every acro pilot on here is holding their toungue but allow me the slightly distasteful "pleasure" of waving the warning flag...

Aerobatics in an RV is not like most other airplanes..You may have noticed your airplane was picking up speed remarkably quickly during the inadvertant split S..I know more than one RV driver who botched an aileron roll and pulled back into a split S only to watch the ASI go well over VNE.

So if you are going slowly then a split S is ok..but if you are going anything like normal flying speed then you are at great risk of becoming a test pilot during this particular manouver.

The moral here is really do not do acro without training and if your verteran friend is not familar with the flying characteristics of the RV then please be very cautious.

Even if your Split S was excuted perfectly then I don't wan't somebody reading this and thinking its a good idea to go out and try one..Cus it ain't


Frank

Yeah, I gotta agree with Frank...I would not be "thrilled" at my first split-S if it happened by accident. I think that's a big warning sign to do a little introspection on flying and what is "good" and "definitely not good".

The split S's that I've done in RV's were all very slow indicated speed...somewhat below 110 mph.

I'll put it a bit more bluntly than Frank. Dropping into a split S out of a roll in an RV is asking for trouble and is not good...plain and simple. There is no good reason I can think of to end up like that when it's almost always faster/better/easier to roll on around and then worry about where the nose is at. Even if the nose drops in the roll, it's still pretty quick to roll on through. Pulling on through is a recipe for coming out the bottom screamin fast - not good. Most rolls start at a pretty decent speed (that being quite a lot faster than you should start a true SplitS). If it's a half cuban or wifferdill wingover or something that's a bit different, but then again that's a bit different!

I'm not trying to flame, just trying to stop any sort of "that's cool" discussion, because it ain't. Am I a bit jaded, yes...but then again I had the bad fortune of being almost first on the site of a J3 crash in a cornfield on Saturday after it stalled and spun into the ground (and trying to hold/calm a terribly beat up young girl and dazed pilot down until the lifeflight heli arrived), then spent yesterday helping haul the wreck back to the airport with the Feds crawling all over it. Like always, I try not to base my opinions on arrogance, but more on my experiences.

Please be safe and go get some training with someone who knows the plane. Things like falling out of a roll just aren't good. Falling out of a hammerhead into an inverted spin isn't fun either, but probably quite a bit less dangerous than pulling out of a botched roll. The simplest things can be the worst! RV's are infinitely enjoyable, but please respect their limits.

Cheers,
Stein

Same theme

RVs are not good aerobatic trainers - you can get yourself into trouble too easily, as you have seen.

My suggestion would be to get some proper instruction, in a more suitable aircraft type. When you are confident with the basic manoeuvres (say Loop, Barrel Roll, Aileron Roll, Stall Turn/Hammerhead), one or two more advanced ones (essentially combinations of the above), and most importantly, the "recoveries" from:

1. Nose low, speed increasing "Unusual Position"
2. Nose high, speed decreasing...
3. Nose very high, speed essentially reducing to zero
4. Incipient Spin, and take a look at full spins (2-3 turns)

then move onto converting to the RV and the "unusual" aspects of the RV (low drag, easy to exceed VNE, low VA, effect of CG in a tandem especially aft).

Andy Hill
RV-8 G-HILZ

7pilot, you guys made the "classical mistake" to pull through instead of roll-out! This gets tought in your earliest Aero Conversion Training.

You guys were lucky:
1) you had enough height; AND
2) you did not overspeed the RV

I love aeros in the RV, they are easy and effortless, BUT WITH A BIG SPEED WARNING, you need to be ahead of the RV airframe.

PLEASE Go get some training before doing another Split S.

Regards
Rudi

re: Similar experience

I had a similar experience in a 7A. I fell out of a loop at 5000' agl, I pulled the power off too soon. Didn't panic, just rolled upright, nose about 20 deg. below the horizon. Continued with the fun. I think one of the main things is to not panic.
Anyway, I had to clean oil off the bottom of the airplane when we landed.
I told Bob a few days later I flew his airplane and he ask "did you go negative?" He was grinning. I told him I thought I had all of it cleaned off. He said I missed a spot, there was a drop of oil on the step. We all had a chuckle over it & he said at least he knows he doesn't have an oil leak to chase down.

Marshall ALexander
RV10 N781DM

Is that blood on my shirt?

I must be biting my tongue.

Positive Change of Controls 101

The biggest thing I get out of this experience is a classic mistake many pilots make and that is giving up control of the aircraft with no positive change of controls. When with an instructor if the tell me they are taking control I always say "your plane" and be sure they have it visually (if able) and expect them to repeat back to me "my plane". When I am giving the controls to someone I expect them to say "my plane" and then I repeat back to them "your plane" and visually (if able) expect to see them on the controls.

If someone takes the stick and moves it, I'm going to keep my hand on it and fight it because there has been no positive change of controls. This happened to me last week as I was up with an instructor in my RV4 who did not repeat back to me he had the plane and then couldn't figure out why the plane wanted to stay level while he was trying to pull it up. He asked me if there was a problem with my trim and I told him it was me. He got the message.

Stewart, there are 10 good posts...

....before this one. Now go and implement the advice.

Stay safe,

Positive Change of Controls 101 +1

I couldn't agree more with the importance of making sure the change of control happens through the "Your Plane / My Plane" commands.

Back when I was working on my PPL a friend took me up for a ride in her father's Citabria. After flying around some she let me fly it back to our home airport where I flew the entire pattern. Rolling out on final at 500? AGL I relinquished control and she never took over until we were about 50? (or less) above the ground to make the landing. Thank goodness it was a calm day and that I trimmed that Citrabria just right because neither of us were on the controls for almost the entire final approach.

Capflyer said:

The biggest thing I get out of this experience is a classic mistake many pilots make and that is giving up control of the aircraft with no positive change of controls. When with an instructor if the tell me they are taking control I always say "your plane" and be sure they have it visually (if able) and expect them to repeat back to me "my plane". When I am giving the controls to someone I expect them to say "my plane" and then I repeat back to them "your plane" and visually (if able) expect to see them on the controls.

Click to expand...

As I'm going through CFI-G training, I had it explained thusly to me:

"The aircraft is like a horse. If you're not in charge, it is, and it's got a mind of its own. Unless you want to get thrown off, make sure you know who's in charge. And as the CFI, YOU are ultimately in charge."

It's been really interesting to do control exchanges as a CFI-trainee, particularly in the tandem cockpit of the ASK21, where you can't really see what the student is up to. As a student, you're used to being on the controls all the time. As an instructor, you're normally off the controls. At one point, after my "student" in front made some bad steep turns and put us into a spiral dive, we exchanged controls properly, I recovered, and simultaneously explained and demonstrated a steep turn. I asked if he understood and he asked me some questions, which I answered. He then asked me "who is flying the airplane?" I had to admit that I wasn't 100% sure but thought it was me. This is why we practice.

TODR

Add my 2 cents to the "positive change of control." Should be briefed in ANY instructional flight or one where the possibility even remotely exists that change of hands-on-stick will take place.

My other question, though, is how anyone could perform an "inadvertent split S." Proper Unusual Attitude Recovery technique is to roll and pull towards the NEAREST horizon, and unless you had actually already allowed the plane to nose over past straight down that would be a conscious decision to do the wrong thing...

Aerobatic training includes-

breister said:

My other question, though, is how anyone could perform an "inadvertent split S." Proper Unusual Attitude Recovery technique is to roll and pull towards the NEAREST horizon, and unless you had actually already allowed the plane to nose over past straight down that would be a conscious decision to do the wrong thing...

Click to expand...

Yea!
Good aerobatic training course would include-Unusual attitudes, G- awareness, initial spin awareness with recovery and accelerated stalls-Include the maneuvers with the above and you will learn so very much about your RV. Everyone should go through it even if you are not interested in RV aerobatics!

AZtailwind said:

Good aerobatic training course would include-Unusual attitudes, G- awareness, initial spin awareness with recovery and accelerated stalls-Include the maneuvers with the above and you will learn so very much about your RV. Everyone should go through it even if you are not interested in RV aerobatics!

Click to expand...

I would argue that primary instruction should include all of this as well as fully developed spins - don't wait for aerobatic training to get this stuff. We teach all of this to all primary students at our soaring club.

TODR

Thanks!!

As a flight instructor, passing control is of course something that I have always made sure was clear... er, well, ok, not this time! Good points by all who pointed this out! It is also something my side-kick and I discussed, unfortunately after the fact!!

I accept all comments and criticisms in the light they were intended, that just in case there is someone out there that thinks they should go try this on their own, they shouldn't, and as I stated, I will find an aerobatic instructor familiar with RV's before attempting anything more than the simple aerobatics I have been instructed in. (not including the split S)

Since I pulled the power nearly immediately, there was little chance I was going to overspeed and remember, I said I was at 5000 agl so the ground wasn't going to bite me too quickly. Something I learned a little better than positive control.. no such thing as too much altitude, well, within reason!

I was actually pleasantly surprised that it didn't make me feel ill at all... more reason that I want to get my instructor and play some more!

I'm not about to jump on here and chastise anyone for experimenting with aerobatics (because I'm guilty!), but flying ALWAYS requires a plan, and if your plan when things go wrong is to "pull", you're going to die eventually. You better come up a new plan or do not get upside down again. You can certainly get this instilled through study, careful thought and disciplined practice, but as pointed out, qualified instruction is your best bet.

In the mean time, kick the urge to "always" pull....

T-38 ejection

Years ago two Instructors out on a training mission ejected from a perfectly good T-38 because each thought the other was flying and the plane appeared to be out of control.

Always brief and use a positive handoff of controls!