The day Dick Bevington, pilot extraordinaire, gave me my mock check-ride, he made me promise to do an acrobatic flight with him after I was licensed. I promised.
Two months later, he had "almost" cornered me at least three times at Air West. Each time, I genuinely had other commitments and excuses. Yesterday however, he managed to physically put a parachute on me as I was heading out on another flight! I finally committed and agreed to a flight at 9am this morning.
First stop... A ground lesson, complete with VHS tape of maneuvers.
Am I too young to remember VHS? No. But I can't remember the last time I actually watched one either.
Dick gave me the run down on pre-flighting the Super Decathlon, what made it different and what we were going to do this morning. He was sure to remind me that I was going to be doing most of the flying and he had "very little control from the back seat". I told myself he was kidding.
Next, we did a pre-flight inspection and pushed the aircraft from the hangar. Then it was time to get fitted snuggly with a parachute - and learn to walk semi-normally in it.
Dick tells me that fitting parachutes is one of his favorite parts... then later confesses, with a smirk, that he thought that might have sent me running to my car.
There is a proper way to get into the plane and I learned it. Dick went about making sure I had my seat belt correct fastened and tightened. It was at this time he said, without a smirk, "I hope this turns out well."
I know what you were thinking. You read the title of this post and automatically assumed that I was the one having this thought.... Well, maybe given a few more minutes, I would have gotten there.
But yikes! The
instructor hoped, out loud, for a good outcome!
We had been previously discussing doctors and Dick had said "It's never a good sign when you hear the doctor say Whoops!" I told Dick that a flight instructor saying "I hope this turns out well" is akin to a doctor saying "Whoops!". Was that surprise I saw on his face? Really?
I was front seat, Dick sat behind me. He familiarized me with the instruments and controls and told me to "Memorize this attitude, Dallice... this is how we will land.", "Keep your feet over the rudder pedals so I know where those clodhoppers are at all times" and my favorite... "Don't touch the brakes. If you do, there is nothing I can do to save us."
Along the same lines (as sure death) we covered the procedure for an emergency evacuation from the aircraft. How to get rid of the door and dive out toward the tail, before pulling the D-ring on my chute. Apparently if one is "fluttering toward the ground, in a spin", there may only be one hand to release the seatbelt, so that's how we practiced it. Nervous much? Me?
We were ready to go.
Upon take-off we headed north and sought to gain altitude over a low population area.
It wasn't long before Dick took the controls and demonstrated my first loop. It was my turn next!
I watched the horizon disappear under the nose, then turned my head left (with difficulty under that amount of force) to see land under the wing through the mounted reference site. Then there came the point in the loop when I heard Dick's voice over the intercom calling "look up" and I watched the horizon come into view through the top window... from the back, slowly working its way to the front windscreen again.
He repeated the process with an aileron roll. Demonstrating, then talking me through it.
Like me, you may be wondering if I really got to fly the acrobatics, or was Dick subtly controlling the stick and rudder from behind me. Dick was
not a backseat driver. He asked me afterwards, if I had felt his hands on my shoulders. This was Dick's way of proving to a student that the instructors hands were no where near the controls and the student had completed the maneuver alone. Yikes, I did it!
Before calling it a day, Dick demonstrated other maneuvers for me.... A hammerhead and an inverted spin to name a couple.
I watched the airspeed indicator plummet from over 80 to 0 mph. Interestingly the stall warning only came on briefly, despite the crazy pitches and low airspeed. Also fascinating to me was that didn't feel very queasy... although a little more so after we landed. The only "side effect" I felt, seemed to be a brief hot flush during one of the spins and a few seconds of mild dizziness.
Dick told me afterwards he wasn't surprised that I didn't pass out. The thought had never occurred to me, but I looked at him, wondering why he wasn't surprised, anyway. He read on my face, the need for him to elaborate and asked, "Were you afraid at any time or did you trust me?" I responded that I did fully trust him.
According to Dick, apparently the highest risk of passing out (known as G-LOC/G-force loss of consciousness) comes when an increased G-force is coupled with fear. Positive G-force increases blood pressure in the brain, but decreases the intraocular pressure within the eyes. The first symptom is darkness moving slowly inward from the person's peripheral vision, until the tunnel of vision becomes smaller and smaller. At the point at which there is only darkness, the person is still conscious... for a bit longer. Then with a lack of consciousness, the once balanced headset, slips off. A return to consciousness, which happens fairly quickly once the G-force is relieved, will invariably result in a sudden awareness of cabin noise!
I learned a lot from Dick today. Plenty about flying in general, plenty about wings designed for flying inverted. But one of my favorite things, without question, was the insight into a man, who's blunt honesty and sense of humor had me smiling for a whole lot longer than the two hours we spent together.
I'm very grateful to Dick, for his generous introduction to acrobatic flying and my first Super Decathlon experience.
