This will be my last post about aviation for a while. I want to shift to sailing. Think of sailing as two dimensional flying. We’ll get back to three dimensions after a while.
The owner of the “2-hole” (two-place) Pitts had not arrived when I got to Henley for my third aerobatics lesson. While Steve and I waited in the diner, I told him about an article in EAA Sport Aviation by Gene Beggs. Gene had devised, and extensively tested a simple method for recovering from spins.
Here’s the method: 1) Take your hands off the controls. 2) Stop the rotation (spinning) using the rudder only (push on the rudder pedal that is out the furthest if you don’t know which way the plane is spinning). 3) Recover smoothly from the ensuing dive.
Much simpler and more reliable than the conventional method.
Steve said, “Yes, let’s try that. I was down in Texas last week advising Gene about rebuilding Stearman wings, and he told me about his method.” Steve does get around in sport aviation circles.
When the S2-A Pitts owner arrived, he was flying a brand new S2-B. He told us he had sold the S2-A, but that it was in a hanger at Henley. The paperwork hadn’t gone through yet, so we could still fly it.
Steve and I went around the corner to the hanger and rolled the door open. There was no airplane in there. Did someone steal it? Back we went to the diner to report its absence. The owner figured the buyer took it for a spin, and offered to loan us his brand new, $90,000 S2-B for my session ($175,000 for one today). I think Steve was as excited as I was.
The S2-B has a six-cylinder engine, while the S2-A has only four. That’s 50% more power, with little increase in weight. We took off and circled around to go to our practice area. On the way Steve told me to do a loop so we could “see how this thing performs.”
I spotted another plane below us as we entered the downside of the loop. Someone had been following us, probably to see what we were going to do. I finished the loop and flew past the interloper at 185 knots (210 mph). We continued on our way, and never saw him again.
After practicing some maneuvers and trying Gene Beggs spin recoveries, Steve asked me what I wanted to do before we went back. I said I wanted to try an inverted spin. He asked me if I knew how to do that. I told him I thought so, rolled the Pitts inverted, pushed the nose up, waited for the airspeed to drop off, shoved the stick all the way forward, and kicked one rudder pedal.
The next thing I heard was, “Phil, hold it right there! Don’t move a muscle! When we get back down, we can tell everyone we survived an inverted flat spin in a Pitts Special!” At first I thought we were in trouble, but Steve told me to keep the stick forward, and watch. The Pitts continued to spin in an increasingly elliptical path. Then the flat spin converted to a conventional inverted spin. All that was left was to use Gene Beggs’ recovery method.
Steve got excited because there is a persistent myth that you can’t recover from an inverted flat spin in a Pitts. That’s what killed Wayne Norton. The difference was, we had a few thousand feet for recovery.
After landing we went back to the diner, and Steve regaled the audience with our tale of heroic survival. That ended the last lesson I had with Steve. I wasn’t polished, but I was confident I could now do aerobatics safely. I’ll take up the next phase of my flying adventures after some sailing stories.
Didit.Live 