ON THIS perfect blue day I have just watched a pilot – the proud proprietor of a Pitts S2 – contrive to make his passenger thoroughly airsick before they even walk out to the aircraft.
Which is a pity because the passenger is a she of pleasing profile and amiable of face – or at least she was amiable of face before becoming somewhat pale and uninteresting by the end of the pre-flight briefing. I wasn’t kibitzing, of course – but from the first words of Lothario’s briefing it was clear that this flight was most unlikely to result in a favourable de-briefing behind the bike sheds afterwards. For the first words the keen young aviator uttered were: “We’ll go up for an hour’s aerobatics….”
Oh, Lothario – you are not going to have a good day. Nor is your passenger. Look…. NOBODY – not me and certainly not you – ever goes up for an hour’s aerobatics. You might ascend for an hour’s aviation with a few loops and rolls thrown in – but NOBODY ever does an hour’s aerobatics. And yet Lothario has, with his first words, sentenced his victim, who has never before been in anything smaller than a 737, to a whole hour of unknown violence in what looks to her like a cross between a Formula One car and a chicken coup. It is not going to be an hour, of course – not unless Lothario doesn’t mind getting a litre of vomit in his eager face – but the point is that his passenger doesn’t know that, and her spirit of adventure is shrivelling down to the thought that an hour in Sainsbury’s might actually be much more desirable.
It then turns out that Lothario has breakfasted on safety manuals. He talks about how to don and operate a parachute; how to jettison the canopy; how to help with the lookout so you feel part of the team; how to keep hands and feet clear of all controls….. Not a good start. But it could have been different.
You may say it is not possible to take a complete non-flying person for an aerobatic flight and have them enjoy it. But it is. Our little company flew – and much aerobated – maybe 5000 corporate guests over the years, of which perhaps a whole dozen were sick. There is a way of doing it, both on the ground and in the air.
It starts with the briefing in which you must know not only what you need to tell your victim – but equally importantly, what you don’t need to tell them. Your pax briefing is not so much to impart knowledge – since they’ll only remember 10 percent of it anyway – as to induce a warm and fuzzy feeling of confidence in both you and the aeroplane. So introduce the aeroplane: “This is the Extra 300L. It is half the weight and twice the power of most of the other aircraft parked out there. It is built for worldclass aerobatics. It does a complete roll in under one second. You can tumble it end-overend, slide down vertically backwards, you name it. In display we normally pull about + 8 G and push – 5 G”.
At this point you will have the undivided but whitened attention of your audience. So this is where you smile quietly.
“BUT …. the other side of the coin is that the Extra can also be the most gentle introduction to aerobatics – because with all this power you never have to hurry in conventional manoeuvres. You want a vertical? You can e-as- e up to it ever so gently and still have time to light your pipe on the way up”.
And the vital punch-line…..
“And anyway, any and all aerobatics are totally optional. We can do as much or as little as you like – or indeed, none at all. You can have a go at flying it, and we’ll just fly around the scenery if you want”.
Obviously this schmaltz varies according to the aircraft you’re flying. (Indeed if you’re in a Cessna Aerobat it’s probably best to forget the whole stanza, since stating: “We need to dive the thing to Vne to make any sense out of anything, and don’t worry about the windscreen creaking when we pull”… does not quite have the same ring).
DO NOT spread alarm and despondency by dwelling on safety aspects they actually do not need to know since they can’t do anything about them anyway.
Ask yourself – what does the pax actually have control of? The answer is not a lot. In fact, it usually comes down to not walking into an idling prop (not yours of course, because you’ll never do an engine-running turnaround) and emptying their pockets before they get into the aeroplane.
Strapping in? “I’ll talk about the straps for a moment ‘cos they’re interesting, but you don’t have to remember it all ‘cos I’m going to strap you in anyway.” Which, of course, you are. Parachute, if applicable?
Well, you’re going to strap them into that, too.
“We wear parachutes mainly ‘cos the seats were designed for them and if you don’t wear one you can’t see out. In the impossible event of me saying ‘Bale out’ just hit the two harness clips, jump out, and when you’re walking on air pull this D-ring. Do not do this just out of interest because it’s a kind of elaborate way of avoiding landing fees”.
Inadequate briefing? Yes, of course, by training standards. But you are not training. You are joy-riding. You are talking to a passenger who WILL NOT remember any more than that. Emergency canopy jettison? What on Earth do they need to know about that for? “There are these couple of frame tubes in the cockpit you can hang on to if you want.
There is also a lever coloured like a barber’s pole. Do not hang on to this, because it is the canopy-latch, and if you heave on that it suddenly gets a bit drafty….” DO, DO, DO, brief them on flying the thing. Brief them on the stick and how to control in pitch and roll, then at a safe height let them have a go.
This, believe me, makes a huge, enormous difference to the experience. It shouldn’t be surprising – after all, that turned you on when you first started flying – but people like Lothario tend to forget it. Rudder is different. This an aerobatic joyride, remember, not a lesson. Rudder – especially during aerobatics – is not something they are going to take in. So you say: “Keep off the rudder pedals – I’ll look after them”. Yes?
NO – and this for a real safety reason. If you tell someone to keep their feet off the pedals they may obligingly try to move the beetlecrushers inboard or outboard – and this can result in a foot jamming a back-coming rudder pedal by getting squidged between the pedal and a fuel tank or frame tube. So just tell ‘em to leave their plates o’ meat on the pedals, that they’ll feel said pedals move under their feet, and to kindly refrain from impeding same unless they are particularly desirous of a smart whack on the back of the skull. Smile as you say it.
Clearly you have to brief them on the normal rigmarole of “Follow me on the stick”, “You have control”, and “I have control” – and this leads, of course, to how to use the intercom. Which is, especially in a tandemseater, where you can’t see the victim’s face, it is well worth telling a couple of minor porky pies.
“You will have no difficulty hearing me because I’ve been talking into intercoms for years and there’s a sort of knack to speaking from the back of your throat. However I may not be able to hear you quite so clearly….”
This is a slight porky. In fact it is amazing how many pax do speak too softly to be understood – and even more amazing how many completely forget where the bloody intercom button is. But even that is not the main point….
“I’ll be speaking to you quite a lot, but in fact there isn’t a huge need for you to speak to me. If I ask you how you’re doing, you give me a great big thumbs up, both hands. If you gave me a thumbs down I’ll take that as ‘Okay, that was super, now let’s go home for a G&T’. So just remember the thumbs”.
THIS is the point. Staring at the back of a helmeted head does not enable you to read the mind within it. But two things never lie. When the thumbs – which you call for after every manoeuvre with a cheery “Howya doin’?” – start to waver…. go home. If the head stops moving and looks fixedly fowards…. go home. These – believe me – these are the signs that really matter.
The flight itself? Never more than 20 minutes. From top of climb get them to fly it around gently, building confidence. Work your way back until you are as close as is reasonable to the aerodrome before you start any aerobatics. Loop it – and then get them to loop it while you talk calmly.
“Pull back…. now ease the pull a bit over the top…..excellent…. now pull a bit harder round the bottom….”
You may have to help out a bit, and of course you’re doing the rudder anyway – but they won’t notice it. They’ve looped an aeroplane themselves! Yee-hah!
The progress from there is, of course, entirely individual. Some will want to head for home. Some will get to rolling it – obviously crudely without rudder, but what does that matter in an Extra rolling at 400 deg/sec, especially if you give the stick a surreptitious tap to get full aileron on? Yee-hah, I’ve rolled an aeroplane! Some will even want to be shown a Lomcovak…..
You just do it. And watch the thumbs and the head...
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