S

spuds

Member
The Houston Chapter of the International Aerobatics Club is going to sponsor a One Design (Citabria/Decathelon and RV) aerobatic contest in Giddings Texas, 62H (just a bit west of Brenham) May 17th.

The idea is to foster interest in aerobatics in the RV community. RV primary-no spins for you 6 and 7 guys, and Sportsman will be flown.

Safety pilots will be available. I'll have more details soon, but for now, start practicing. Sequences are shown below. Email me if interested so I can keep you up to date.

Let's show 'em RV's can do some great acro!

rvprimaryknownar9.jpg


sportsman08ug2.jpg
 
No spin?

My 7 spins very well (if you really make it angry) and recovers very nicely...THis is for right side up spins and snap rolls...Have not done an acceptably good inverted spin ...Yet!

Frank
 
Got the T Shirt...

For you guys that haven't competed in an IAC event, it's a hoot. I competed in my RV4 back in the mid 90's at a few local CA events and the sportsman category is a cinch in the RV4. My competition normally was Cessna 150 Aerobats, Citabria's or the occasional Clip wing Cub or Tcraft. I practiced at home per the FAR's (off airways, above min altitude, chute, etc), studied the maneuvers and talked to a few dudes about techniques. Pretty straightforward and highly recommended...

It's not as much fun as doing a 4V4 in the F16 but hey, what is...:)

My Dos Centavos

Rob Ray
 
spuds said:
The Houston Chapter of the International Aerobatics Club is going to sponsor a One Design (Citabria/Decathelon and RV) aerobatic contest in Giddings Texas, 62H (just a bit west of Brenham) May 17th.

The idea is to foster interest in aerobatics in the RV community. RV primary-no spins for you 6 and 7 guys, and Sportsman will be flown.

Safety pilots will be available. I'll have more details soon, but for now, start practicing. Sequences are shown below. Email me if interested so I can keep you up to date.

Let's show 'em RV's can do some great acro!
Click to expand...

Looks like you've made the One Design sequence fairly friendly to non-inverted systems aircraft. This is a great idea. Let us know how it goes!
 
acro in English

In plain English

RV Primary

1. 45 degree up line to level flight
2. split S
3. ? Cuban 8
4. loop
5. 180 degree turn
6. roll
7. 270 degree turn

Sportsman

1. ? loop to vertical down line to level flight
2. vertical up line to 45 degree inverted down line ? roll to 45 degree down line to level flight
3. immelman
4. 1 ? turn spin
5. ? reverse Cuban 8 to 45 degree up line to level flight
6. 2 point roll to split S
7. 45 degree up line ? roll to inverted 45 degree up line to vertical down line to level flight
8. loop
9. hammerhead
10. 270 degree turn

Smokey: I no longer have radar for a 4v4, but BFM spoken here!
 
Fights On!

They took my radar away(and everything bolted behind it) in Sept after 25 years and a bunch of trips to the desert...I really miss it.
I'd love to do some BFM( 1V1) My fini flight in the Viper was a 1V9, the bosses approved it as they knew I would be out of gas before it got too out of hand...:)
The Rocket is a good BFM platform, lots of power and does a decent vertical fight although the RV4 is a much better turning airplane and a much lighter nose. When I sadly sold my trusty RV4 The Bandit to an F18 Super Hornet driver last summer, we did a quick set of BFM on our way to get gas before he headed home. The coolest thing is to fight your own airplane you built flown by a worthy opponent. Maybe they could add BFM to the IAC event category, send up your champions!

See ya!
Smokey

There is no hunting like the hunting of armed men. Those that have hunted long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter...

E. Hemingway

 
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Smokey, you need the shortened elevator bellcrank for your rocket. It makes the pitch feel lighter at the same time increasing the travel, and it feels perfect for the airplane. There are several F1's flying with this mod and a few HR2's I know of as well. Trust me, you'll like it. You'll think you're flying your RV-4 again.
 
smokyray said:
There is no hunting like the hunting of armed men. Those that have hunted long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter...
Click to expand...
Indeed.

For those close to 62H, get out there & have a good time! Even if you don't want to compete, IAC competitions are very cool to watch. You'll probably even have an "I can do that" moment.
 
I'm There...

Count me in bros, have Rocket, will travel...

BTW, the bellcrank sounds like a plan, retrofits easy?

Smokey
 
RV acro

Just had a chance to fly an RV-8 with a Dick Demars IO 360 short deck engine and full inverted fuel and oil. What a nice flying plane! It does beautiful and easy rolls of all types. Point rolls are a blast and very easy to stop precisely. We did only two spins but both were very conventional and recovered easily and promptly. Inverted flight was a delight - the wing performs well and not much change in deck angle was required for level flight and turns - a surprise to me. The 3g neg limit does mean you have to be really careful. Excessive speed build up generally did not seem a problem since keeping the wing loaded up a little generates plenty of drag. You can't do longer down lines as in a Pitts, however. Hammerheads were more of a challenge, at least for me, to execute precisely. The pivot is slow compared to our Pitts. Probably just some practice and better timing would fix everything. It's a wonderful plane for fun acro and could be flown in the lower levels of competition, I think. Staying in the box might require very carefull flying. At one time IAC was either discouraging or prohibiting RV's in their competitions, reportedly the result of a structural failure in an RV-3, causing (I was told) the only fatality to occur during an IAC sanctioned competion. Don't know their current stance on RV's. Bill
 
RV's OK for acro

The RV one design contest is aimed toward us-RV guys! You can fly the sportsman sequence and never exceed 4 g's.

An unmodified RV-3 is an issue, because it is limited to utility catagory.

Spuds
 
smokyray said:
Count me in bros, have Rocket, will travel...

BTW, the bellcrank sounds like a plan, retrofits easy?

Smokey
Click to expand...

Yes its pretty easy, F1 builder Danny Melnik is making them. I came up with the idea of doing this and we put it on a friends F1, it snowballed from there. Your stick geometry will change a bit with more elevator stick travel. It might take some adjustments with the elevator pushrod between the front and back seat to keep the back seat stick from hitting the front seatback. Everyone that's done it seems to like it.
 
Crank it up...

Thanks Bob, I will email off line to aquire one of these beauties.

Thanks...

Smokey
 
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