Another Cockpit Shot from the Thunderbirds Ride

Tim Reed has been working on some of the pictures he took at the airshow. Here’s a rather good one of me sitting in the cockit just before the Thunderbirds ride. Can’t say what I’m thinking, but it probably runs the entire gamut.

First Post-Thunderbirds GA Aerobatic Flight

This is a regular blog post. Looking for show notes or links to audio? Please check out the other posts. AND CHECK OUT THE THUNDERBIRDS POSTS FROM A FEW DAYS AGO! (Scroll down.)

Spending a lot of time with the audio from the Thunderbirds ride getting it edited down for another epic summary episode a la the DC-3 summary episode. Thinking 90-minute-plus extravaganza. Might even go into the studio to record original music for it. Will have more vide to post soon, too. Will Hawkins is helping with the initial production. Watch this space!

Got up on Tuesday for 1.5 in the Citabria with Barry Sutton. I should note that, since Tradewinds closed in February, I haven’t had any home FBO at which I am checked out to rent airplanes all by myself. And I’m finding that, for the time being, I don’t care! I am a growing Citabria addict.

I did about 1.5 in the 172RG over at Flight 101 and had a good experience, then there was the DC-3 training. Just before doing the DC-3 training, I went up with Barry in the Citabria because I had no tailwheel time and wanted to do a few wheel landings before flying the ‘three. I loved that flight and went back to do more tailwheel training with Barry so that I could say with a straighter face that I have a tailwheel endorsement (the ‘three is wildly tailwheely in the taxi, but behaves like a big tricycle-great airplane otherwise). I really need to master a smaller taildragger before I can feel good about claiming to be a taildragger pilot.

Barry allowed early on as how he does aerobatic training in the Citabria, which piqued my curiosity. We did two flights after I got back from Griffin and before the Thunderbirds ride. The first was about aircraft stability and the second was about unusual attitudes and energy management. In each case, my stomach had had enough by about the 20-minute mark and we did the rest of those 1.3 or 1.4-hour flights in the pattern working on landings.


I got pretty green toward the end of the Thunderbirds flight. Not dwelling on it and not saying that I didn’t have an outstanding experience. (Can I say it again? The Thunderbirds rocked and Maj Mulhare worked really hard to make it a solid experience! I will never, ever forget that flight!) But I was a little disappointed in myself about getting that green that quickly.

So I had low expectations going out again in the Citabria on Tuesday. We strapped on the chutes and headed to the practice area and I expected to get maybe 20 minutes of cranking and banking before having to come back to the pattern.

Surprise! Yours truly got a full hour of loops, rolls, and hammerheads (I love hammerheads!) and no tummy issues at all. In fact, it was Barry’s idea to head back to the airport. (Not that Barry had issues – He just wanted to get some landings in.)

I think that it might have something to do with being on the controls a little more. I flew most of the maneuvers instead of watching or just following along on the controls. I think that made a big difference.

And there’s some element of exposure that helps. Most aerobatic guys who take time off in the winter will tell you that it takes them about five flights to get back into the swing. There’s an extent to which you have to just keep at it and push through whatever barrier you’re experiencing.

I was really stoked after the flight. This is what I’d hoped aerobatics would be like! Not having to be limited by the stomach and just enjoying the outer reaches of the flight envelope. And getting familiar enough with the maneuver to be able to just watch yourself do it.


You know the aerobatic sequences from One Six Right? I used to just hang my head and cry (yeah, cry) when I saw those because, although I’ve had more flight experiences than most people will ever have, I feared that that real skydancing would just plain elude me. Can it be that I can reach it and that it’s just on the other side of a little push through that 20-minute barrier? Can it be that I just need to have my hands on the controls?

What is a barrier, really? The problem is that the most important barriers are unique to each of us and there is no way to see anything but this side of the barrier until you put your head down and make a run at it. Maybe many runs. Maybe even fighting your own physiological and mental limits each time.

But the happiest times of life are when you realize that the barrier is surmountable. That you can do it. Or at least peek over the other side.

Hey, I’m no steely-eyed missile man yet. In fact, in many ways, I’m just a poser. I have a lot to learn. I’ll always have a lot to learn. But, on Tuesday, I transcended what I though was going to be an ongoing personal limitation. Or at least made a big-ass dent in it.

Car-dancing on the way home. Liquid Tension Experiment blaring. Windows down. Yeah!

Flight will transform you. Flight finally let me give my undivided attention to a burning blue-green horizon as the brilliant yellow nose of the Citabria fell through it and then the wings were like they were on straight vertical detents for a moment before pulling out.

Poser though I may be most of the time, for a little while this Tuesday, I was Superman, Harry Potter, and Fletcher Seagull. I am Stephen Force and I love this stuff.

________________________________

Contact information for Barry Sutton:

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive
Waterford, Michigan 48327
248-666-9160
http://www.sutton-aviation.com/

Building Possibly the Coolest Logbook Page Ever

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio, please check out the other posts.

I think that I might be working on the greatest logbook page ever. It just happened that the DC-3 training in Griffin started on a new page, so I start out with five lines and four flights in the DC-3.

(By the way, the DC-3 course documentation took the form of a completion certificate, but no logbook entries. I made the entries myself based on the in-flight recordings I made while covering the type rating course for the show.)

So that’s DC-3, DC-3, DC-3, DC-3, Citabria, Citabria, F-16D. And Maj Mulhare was kind enough to sign that F-16D entry and even filled it out as being dual received!

Not sure there’s much else I could get in there that would make it cooler. The Tri-Motor would have been cool and I paid for the right seat, but Detroit City Airport wouldn’t make the proper arrangements to accommodate the EAA’s Tri-Motor and they had to cancel.

So I’ll put a little more Citabria time in the book tomorrow afternoon. And, to be honest, that’s plenty good enough for me. What a great summer so far! Maybe ASES in August with Tom Brady, but I think I’m through adding stuff prior to AirVenture Oshkosh in a few weeks. It’ll be hard enough to live with me as it is.

I’m hard at work editing and I’ll have a summary episode for the Thunderbirds F-16 flight up soon. Watch this space!

Thunderbirds Ride – Full Description Episode

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedThunderbirdsRide3.mp3.

Photography by Tim Reed.

Here it is! The full-length episode with all of my initial reactions from the USAF Thunderbirds flight!

I have a lot of audio and video yet to post and I plan to do a full summary episode with audio from the suit-up, the briefings, and the flight. But, in the meantime, I think it’s important to get the story out as soon as possible.

And what better way to do that than by using that age-old journalistic technique: Hangar-flying!

For this episode, I’ve invited friend, Civil Air Patrol (USAF Auxiliary) captain, and confessed Air Force and F-16 fanboy Rod Rakic to take over the flight controls and the microphone and interview me. This is a roughly chronological (but otherwise free-flowing) discussion of the media ride that I took with Maj Tony Mulhare, Thunderbird No. 8, this past Friday. We departed the Battle Creek Field of Flight Air Show and Balloon Festival just before the rest of the Thunderbirds team began its demo and returned just before the demo was complete.

In the intervening time, Maj Mulhare put the F-16D through its paces in the Hersey Military Operations Area about 80 nm and 12 minutes (!) of Battle Creek and I was along to observe the capabilities of this outstanding aircraft.

Listen in and you’ll hear my impressions just over 24 hours after the ride. Plenty to talk about, but it’s still gelling, so this episode contains from-the-hip, honest, and gut-level commentary about the flight, the Air Force, and how the experience expanded the way I think about aviation.

See the links on the right side of the page for links to US Air Force and Thunderbirds resources.

Thunderbirds Ride Video – The Takeoff and Climb

We got the video issues ironed out (mostly) and we have a post of the takeoff sequence!

Check this out! 0 to 350 KIAS in a matter of seconds and then a 4-5 gee pull-up.