My first exposure to aerobatics was in 1956. That is when I was checking out in a Ryan STA, a low-wing monoplane with tandem, open cockpits. It also had a narrow, inverted, in-line engine that contributed to the sleekness of the pre-World War II trainer.
I was in the rear cockpit, and my instructor sat up front. We communicated using a gosport, a system of hollow rubber tubes that was the forerunner of the electronic intercom. The idea was to yell into a funnel at one end of a tube. The other end split into a Y such that the ends terminated at holes in the other pilot's helmet near where earphones would normally be. The instructor had a similar system for screaming at the student. This scheme made it possible for pilots to occasionally hear and understand one another. It depended on how hard one yelled and how well the other listened.
On one particular flight, I should have been a better listener.
"Hey, Barry," came the barely audible voice. "Okay if I do an outside loop?"
I heard only that the instructor wanted to do a loop, a mild aerobatic maneuver. I never heard the word *outside.* Nor would it have mattered. I had never heard of an outside loop.
"Sure," I yelled into the gosport. "Why not."
I had expected the throttle to advance and the stick to come back, but everything happened bass ackwards. The instructor shoved the nose down, and I began to come out of my seat. I was thankfully restrained by a gaggle of straps and belts, but considering what was to follow, it might have been more merciful to have fallen out and ended everything right then and there.
The negative Gs increased, and — as the blood rushed to my head — I began to see red, literally and figuratively. Redout, which I later learned, is the opposite of blackout and can occur during negative Gs. The victim apparently sees red as a result of blood vessels in the lower eyelids becoming congested.
The loop did not last very long, but its after-effects did. In the short term, I had difficulty climbing out of the airplane and walking without a wobble. I was violently nauseated and had a headache that lasted until the next day.
In the long run, it discouraged me from developing much enthusiasm for aerobatics. (It also taught me the importance of being considerate to passengers.) I eventually began to feel like an outcast because it seemed that I was alone in my avoidance of significant G loads (both positive and negative).
Aerobatics affects different pilots in different ways. Short people, for example, have more tolerance for G loads than tall people. The heart of a tall person needs to pump blood a greater distance to the brain. During aerobatics involving positive Gs, the effect can be like stretching a pilot's neck to a giraffe-like length.
I recently decided that I had hidden my feelings about aerobatics long enough and began to come out of the closet (so to speak). What surprised me, however, was discovering how many others felt the same way. During an informal survey of 42 pilots, I found that 25 did not care for the discomfort resulting from aerobatic flight. Some thought that aerobatics was an expression of masochistic self-flagellation. A psychologist suggested, however, that many do not openly admit these feelings because of a fear that they might be interpreted as a certain lack of machismo.
Flying is multidimensional and is different things to different people. Some prefer dizzying snap rolls and hammerhead turns, but others find it more challenging and gratifying to keep the cross-pointers centered during an ILS approach in a turbulent crosswind. It obviously is up to each pilot to pursue that which he considers the most satisfying aspects of flight.
Is it necessary to learn aerobatics to become a proficient pilot? Some would argue that a pilot should be capable of flying an airplane to and within every corner of its operating envelope. Others claim also that a pilot should know how to roll an airplane because this might be needed to recover from a low-altitude upset caused by wake turbulence.
I disagree. Even if a pilot did know how to roll, would he have the instinct to do so at low altitude? It probably is more likely that he would react the way the rest of us would, by attempting to counter any rolling tendency caused by wake turbulence with opposite aileron.
I do acknowledge that a course in light aerobatics can do wonders for a pilot's overall confidence and his ability to cope with unusual attitudes. Nor should this be interpreted to mean that I oppose spin training. Pilots should know how to both avoid and recover from spins, but this does not necessitate first winding up an airplane into a five- or a 10-turn spin. It requires only learning to recognize an incipient spin and then initiating timely recovery.
In the meantime, it really is okay not to love a lomcevak (even though I envy those who do).
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