[Steve R]

Four sorties ago I went up for a mess-around but this time trimmed nose heavy as suggested in these pages. Didn't like that much. I found that my little 'breathers' weren't relaxing because I couldn't kick back and relax for fear of losing height - I am (too) used to letting the aircraft get back some height while I collect my senses. Also, I came out of a couple of loops much too fast. I am (too) used to knowing how hard to pull in the second half and was reluctant to pull quite a lot harder than usual. (Of course, it should be my bottom telling me how hard to pull.)

Three sorties ago I was messing about (with my usual neutral trim setting) with a friend who was loving being upside down briefly, so I thought I'd have another bite at the Alan Cassidy exercise (stop a loop at 45 degrees up, roll inverted, pull as in the top of a loop, 45 degrees down roll upright, pull for a loop again, repeat as many times as you like). I wasn't going to do the whole exercise, just the roll-inverted-while-going-steeply-up-and-slowing-down bit. Didn't like that either. I rolled inverted at about 110 kts, nose dropped, I let it for a bit, rolled upright steeply nose down and going very fast.

I went home and thought about it.

I worked out that I have to get over the aversion we all have to pushing the stick HARD forward. Loops are easy, pull hard and feel heavy. Rolls are easy, pull a bit, stop pulling, then hard left or right. Even diving for speed winds up being a gentle stick forward to be kind to everybody on board.

I resolved that I need to get used to trimming 'a bit' nose heavy at first, and I need to get used to going light and -ve 'G'. So I'll do more bunts, I'll stretch the top of the loop to get it rounder and go lighter, I'll get used to the rate of speed decay when going steeply uphill, and I'll start getting used to the roll rate at lower airspeed.

I did two sorties of this sort of thing, and the vid is of the second one. You'll see bunts at the beginning, third bunt resulting in -ve G. In these I'm trying for 45 degrees and I'm judging the speed decay. A loop or two, trying to stretch the top a bit. Three or four half rolls with attempts at getting some sort of speed decay while inverted. A little burst of rolls just to loosen up a bit, and then, just about the last manoeuvre, a successful half roll with the horizon a reasonable distance up the canopy and I believe the speed decayed to 90kts.

Conclusions.
Nose down trim helps, must continue with that
Pushing HARD, even with helpful nose down trim, is WEIRD and requires real determination. Doing it inverted is a very extreme sensation.
Henceforth, all dives for speed will be determined pushes and will induce -ve G. Not Svetlana rough, but not gentle either.
I'm gonna need a bigger wallet.

The busy stuff is all over after about 13 minutes, but the approach and landing is interesting if you want to hear a hurricane pilot getting really anxious about just how many aircraft are sharing downwind with him. I was worried enough that I couldn't see a warrior which I suspected was downwind on a bomber command circuit while I was tight downwind. No way was the hurricane going to see either of us in Dorset, since he was in Sywell's circuit.

Edited to add. Despite the deadly serious expressions, I am *loving* this, and am only a bit petrified sometimes...

[davef77]

I think you are right to persevere with the down trim. I have got to the stage now where I even fly in the cruise with down trim, so I am "holding the altitude" all the time. (My controls are quite light so this isn't onerous!)

I think you are right too about the odd feeling at first about the need to push quite significantly. The practice you are doing of holding the inverted is a good idea. For several of those, when you roll back to upright, I think you are a bit slow getting off the down and onto the aileron. It looks as though you are waiting for the nose to fall through the horizon before applying aileron. So you are loosing more height!

The way to go is for more axial rolls. That means coordinating rudder and elevator through a "slow roll". It is much trickier to coordinate, but if is the only way to more axial rolls.

I thought that your earlier ballistic rolls looked quite a lot better than in your previous video, so the extra down trim is working

A couple of other points, your 45 degree up and down lines look a little bit shallow to me - not really important if you aren't aiming at competitions and if that is what you intended, but if you were aiming for 45...

I recommend that you get into the habit of pulling to straight and level, briefly, after diving for speed before starting a manoeuvre.

You are pulling into loops and rolls from the dive. There are several reasons for this I think, it looks nicer to pull level first, if you fly in comps in future you will need to start and stop each manoeuvre from S&L, but most importantly it gives you a stable consistent start to each manoeuvre. Pull to S&L, pause, then pull.

On the slow rolls, I may be way off beam and you have them in your locker, but I haven't seen you fly any in your videos. If not in you locker, it may be worth getting some instruction on those, they are tricky at first but an important foundation for other things.

They will help you a lot, including getting comfortable with the necessary push when inverted, but also flying more axial rolls in manoeuvres like the half Cuban eights.

Congratulations, this looks better to me

[davef77]

Oh, and one more thing

You hold your 45 up lines quite nicely (though a bit shallow), but as soon as you hit the 45 down, you begin pulling out. Take a look from around 5:20.

Draw a nice straight line for a bit (count to three, perhaps), then a positive pull, you kind of creep into the pull-out as soon as you hit the down line.

[Ridders]

Steve I can't say Ive ever trimmed nose heavy in a bulldog, I trim for 25/25 s/levl for aeros. I will be interested to see how you continue to progress.
I do suggest you get up with one of the many experienced instructors (on Bulldog), The UH crew for example, some of the independent dog instructors on here, Phoenix at Shoreham or as I have done take to the skies with John Taylor (the other half of the Microlease pair with Brian Lecomber and also a UH instr) at Skyhawk Aerobatics for a brilliant few hours of fun and learning.