Aerobatics in a Champ

[Blakey]

Anyone have any experience doing aerobatics in an Aeronca Champ? The aircraft is rated but it's not an obvious choice for anything more than some simple rolls and loops. I couldn't find much online except a Youtube video of one extremely poorly executed roll! There is no mention of entry speeds or similar information in the manual.

[freakonature]

I have a book called Primary Aerobatic Flight Training with Military Techniques that can teach you a Whifferdill 8.

[Blakey]

Oh, I have that one. I'm looking for the second edition; it includes the Whifferdill 9.

[cgzro]

careful- its actually more difficult to do safe aerobatics in something like a champ than the fire breathing a/c. The slow roll rate and low g limits make botched rolls and pull through quite dangerous.

First - have you ever done rolls in a low powered high wing low g rated plane? if not go do time in a Citabria first.

Second - has plane got good solid newish spar?
Structure top notch? If shes getting on in years her ability to take G will be diminished

Anyway Citabria good starting point at least for technique.

Peter

[MUSICMAAN]

I've done some loops and rolls and such in my families Champ 7GCB. Ours has a metal spar though... if it still had the wooden spar, I would think twice about pulling any kind of Gs.. Roll rate is not all that fast, and loops are slow going, even with an 0-320. But good fun it is!!

MM

[cgzro]

Wood is fine if well maintained but glue does age and things come undone.
What I like about wood is you can tap the wing and hear bits that have broken off. metal tends to kinda stay together till it fails. Ive found a number of structural problems by drumming the bottom of fabric planes. Its a good preflight check in any small plane actually.

[MUSICMAAN]

oh, let me clarify my earlier post.... I only say to be leary of pulling Gs with a wooden spar is because you've probably not had the fabric off the wings and had a good look at the spar. Having not done that you have no idea what's in there.. I've seen a couple scary wooden spars hiding underneath good fabric, and a few really scary wood spar repairs.

MM

[Big Pistons Forever]

If by "Champ" you mean a 7AC/7DC/7EC then they are not aerobatic. The first aerobatic airframes where called Citabria's (aerobatic spelled backwards) and have an A at the end of their model number. That is 7ECA for the 100hp Continentals and later 115 hp Lycoming powered ones. The 150 hp powered one was a 7GCAA. After that things got confusing with the flap equiped 7GCBC and other models with non intuitive model numbers.

As a rule of thumb if it has a round tail it is a not aerobatic and if it has a square tail it is an aerobatic Citabria. One caveat is that there is strut AD that if not performed reduces the aircraft to a non aerobatic category.

[freakonature]

Blakey, The manual is for a 7eca as BPF mentions. If you are interested,PM me a shiping address and I will send it to you.
freak

[Colonel Sanders]

I guarantee you that if you remove the fabric
from a wood-spar Champ that has been doing
aerobatics, you will NOT like what you find. Pull
all the inspection panels and look very carefully
at the structure. ANY wrinkle in the wing fabric
is very bad news.

As Peter says, doing acro in one of these old
aircraft is not easy - low roll rate, low power
to weight ratio. And when you make a mistake,
and don't fly a maneuver perfectly, it's easy to
hurt the old airplane. Hopefully all the large parts
stay on, until you land. You will certainly use it
up, though.

Occasionally I fly acro in a Citabria - I think it's
on my card - but when I do, it's extremely gentle
and with great guilt. No snap rolls ever, just
"old man" loops and rolls keeping a careful eye
on the entry speeds and G's.

Taking one of these old girls out for an aerobatic
pounding is like taking your grandmother to a
sex club for a wild night with a hundred guys.
You can do it, I suppose, but it's kind of weird,
and you have to wonder if the old girl is really
up to it.

[Stallspin]

Taking one of these old girls out for an aerobatic
pounding is like taking your grandmother to a
sex club for a wild night with a hundred guys.
You can do it, I suppose, but it's kind of weird,
and you have to wonder if the old girl is really
up to it.

Probably the best analagy I've heard on these forums.......

[Old Dog Flying]

We sat in the patio of the Chilliwack airport restaurant and behind us was a local "expert" on aerobatics expounding on how anyone can do aerobatics in any aircraft ...all this to a group of ultralight buddies who probably thought that this "short-wing Piper" driver was the great west coast guru of all things aeronautica.

If it ain't certified for aerobatics...DON'T...even think about it because unless you are a Bob Hoover or the like it will bite your ass. And as Hedley, aka CS said above, even your old grandmother won't be able to handle it. Even the greatest acro guys piddle in the pickles sooner or later

[Colonel Sanders]

Even the greatest acro guys piddle in the pickles sooner or later

This is very important to realize: you do something very tricky,
very high risk for long enough, sooner or later something is very
likely going to go wrong. This is colloquially known as the "law of
averages", more correctly referred to as the "Convergence of
the Central Limit Theorem" if you have a mathematics & statistics
background.

Interesting data point: airshow pilots have around a 5% yearly
mortality rate, which is phenomenal. Not all of them are newbies.

I prefer to agree with what Charles Lindbergh had to say on
the topic. He used to "fly the mail" which made juggling running
chainsaws look sane.

[Jerz]

If you mean 7AC, please don't. Even Citabria with a wooden spar is marginal, and it wouldn't be certified "aerobatic" today. Proceed with extreme cation. Not much room for error.
Colonel, where do you get your 5% mortality rate for airshow pilots from?

[Colonel Sanders]

5% mortality rate

My estimate, from over the years. At any one time,
there are roughly 100 serious airshow pilots in North
America. I don't mean anyone with an SAC card - only
guys that do serious aerobatics down low, on a regular
basis, of which I estimate there are probably 100 in
both Canada and the USA.

Roughly 5 of them will die every year. This includes
more than just airshows - it also includes flying
aerobatics at other than airshows, and also other
kinds of flying which I suspect be pretty high risk.

Heck, just getting to and from a contest can be
very high risk. Didn't one of the russian gods
crash a sukhoi into rising terrain in very bad weather,
and have to sit and wait until the canopy melted
from the heat from the resulting fire, so he could
escape?

If that isn't high risk, I don't know what is.

[Jerz]

My estimate of active air show pilots in N. America is more then 300. Not all are surface level, but then not all surface level guys are ICAS members. And most accidents were by less experienced pilots. There were 71 air shows fatalities in 20 years (1991-2011). That`s 1.18% fatality rate.

BTW, GA crash rate is 1.31 per 100 000hrs . Rate for fresh non-IFR pilots is about 10 times higher.

The ``Russian god`` flying into a mountain on a x-country flight is not an air show accident.

[Colonel Sanders]

``Russian god`` flying into a mountain on a x-country flight is not an air show accident

Yeah, but it would hurt pretty much the same.

My point was that the 100 serious airshow pilots statistically
indulge in some very high risk activities - and not just at airshows.

And it kills them. Paul Lopez and Eric Beard would be good examples.

[cgzro]

Paul Lopez

A super nice guy and a very good pilot. I watched a number of his contest flights in the US the year before his accident and he was awesome in his MX. One practice flight in particular stands out .. it was raining cats and dogs and there was lightening all around but the vis was still ok and the ceiling ok so he finiished his sequence. I still remember the rain pouring off the wings in the spins with lightning flashes behind .. was downright spooky.

Paul used to have a Pitts S-1T and had it rebuilt by an outfit in Florida I believe. He had it done up in the same colors as that Cox control line 'Penzoil' .049 powered plastic model that many of us had in the 70's. I think I still have scars from trying to get those damn little motors running!

RIP.

[Jerz]

Blakey, sorry for highjacking your post. I have too much time on my hands - only two flying days per week.

Statements like "Even the greatest acro guys piddle in the pickles sooner or later" and "you do something very tricky, very high risk for long enough, sooner or later something is very likely going to go wrong" make us look like some adrenaline junkies with a death wish. And we must all end up in a smoking hole. I don't subscribe to that theory.

My primary focus is on competition aerobatics, but I have a surface level ticket and fly occasional air show. However I don't have a death wish. For me flying airshows is about risk management. No question it is a risky business, but like free climbing it is one of the true honest activities - you fu*k up and you going to die. Something along Hemingway's saying about true sports - bull fighting, auto racing, and mountain climbing, rest are only games. No "better luck next time". Don't get that from your Nintendo. Solution is simple - don't fu*k up.

It's been a very long time since I sat in probability class, different hemisphere, different language, so excuse my laymen terminology. As far as I understand statistics , repeating the event doesn't increase probability of mishap, only the chance of mishap being closer to 1.31, or 5% average rate, whatever is the number. And one could argue that each airshow flight is not an independent event - you get more experience, therefore your chance of mishap gets progressively lower.

End of rant

[Colonel Sanders]

each airshow flight is not an independent event - you get more experience, therefore your chance of mishap gets progressively lower.

That sounds good, but there's more to it than that.

I might remind you of:

Jim Leroy
Bobby Younkin
Jimmy Franklin
Amanda Franklin (nee Younkin)

They were very, very good at what they did. I can't
think of anyone more experienced or skilled.

I am not a psychologist, but I remember a couple of
decades ago when GM brought out ABS as standard
equipment on one of their car lines. You could almost
hear the statisticians salivate, because here we had a
large sample size - one year of production no ABS,
next year of production had ABS.

Well, "everyone knew" that the identical cars with ABS
would have a much lower accident rate. Except they
didn't. What they found is that people drove to a constant
level of risk. As their brakes improved, they started using
ABS as part of their normal routine - they braked later
going into a corner.

Similarly, as a pilot's level of skill increases, and his ability
to perform more difficult maneuvers more proficiently increases,
he will continue to perform more and more difficult maneuvers
at progressively lower altitudes, to maintain a constant level
of risk.

And when something goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong.


NASA once had a manned space program (really) and back
in the 1960's, they selected the hottest test pilots as astronauts.
The problem was, those guys were used to operating at a
very high level of risk, and got bored sitting around waiting
to ride a rocket, so they went out and did all sorts of foolish
things like race airplanes. So many of them killed themselves
off that NASA put the kibosh on any extra-curricular activities.

Heck, remember how Pete Conrad died? On a motorcycle.

For that matter, anyone here remember Leo Laudenslager?
I really doubt anyone reading this will have ever heard of
him, but he was supernaturally good. He also built
the Laser:

He is the only person to have won seven national aerobatic titles and is one of only two Americans to win the World Aerobatics Championship title.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Loudenslager

Leo would have to rank in the Top Ten aerobatic
pilots of all time of North America, IMHO.

Of course, he died - in a motorcycle crash. That's
part of the 5% mortality of the 100 airshow pilots,
because even though it didn't happen at an airshow,
Leo is still quite dead.

In closing, here's a superb pilot who routinely took
on a very high level of risk:

http://www.bulldogairshows.com/video/20 ... 0water.mpg

I think it's fair to say that he was a better pilot than
anyone on AvCan. And, he's dead now.