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View Full Version : Flying The 2012 Sportsman Known In a New Monoplane



WLIU
08-12-2012, 07:08 AM
A friend recently moved from flying a Decathlon to an Extra-300. He competes in the Sportsman category. At his first critiqued practice session he was accused of flying the Extra like a Decathlon and in response to his query on how he should be flying his new ship. I typed in the description below. It occurred to me that some of the readers here might be entertained by it, and it might actually be useful to other Sportsman competitors making a similar aircraft transition.

The Aresti diagrams of the flight program may be see on the IAC web site's "Members Only" area.

Regards,

Wes
N78PS

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First, fly a base leg at 4500' AGL maybe 1300' downwind of the downwind edge of the box. When you get to an X-axis line about 500' from the front of the box turn and dive 45 down and use the full stick deflection to do 3 wing wags towards the judges. Each wag should be at least 45 degrees of bank. Pull level at 2000' going the speed of heat and maybe the airframe red line speed. Fly a "one banana, two banana" line and pull into figure 1, the Hammerhead. Your speed should take you back up to the top of the box (3500') for the pivot. You should be looking down at the upwind boundary of the box after the pivot. Drive the down line for 4 "bananas" before pulling back to level flight going down wind. You should be at probably 2700'.

Count two bananas and pull to the 45. Since you built a little speed on the down line of the hammer, you might be able to use the time coasting back upwards to dial in the power setting that you want for the 180 turn. You can push over when you see your airspeed coming down to the target speed for entering the 180.

Push the stick over hard but not too hard to enter the 180. You have more speed going in than you will coming out. Ideally you want the roll rates going in and coming out to look equal. You will want to try for full stick deflection rolling out of the turn, but with less speed your roll rate will be less. So you can be slightly less aggressive on the entry.

Do the 180 away from the judges with the airspeed bleeding off towards your stall speed. The goal is exit the 180 and spin 2 or 3 "bananas" later. So pull the power to idle immediately after rolling out of the 180. See if you can make the airplane climb just a little as you decelerate. The judges won't see a very slight climb. Do not let the airplane settle at all. You turn away so that you can see the front of the box coming back into view as you get ready to stop the turn on the opposite heading.

The vertical line down from the spin can be 3 or 4 or more "bananas" depending on your altitude.. Go for some speed since you noted that all of the figures to go can be adjusted for your altitude in the box using your airplane's horsepower.

Spin to the judges. The 180 away should have bought you some room and now you get back in their face.

When your are driving down from the spin look at your box position. Plan on putting the rest of the figures at the front of the box, so if you can draw a 4 or five second line (bananas) towards the front of the box, feel free to do so. If you are in the back half of the box, no need to hurry into the humpty. Make the judges bend their necks back to look up at you right overhead as your finish the program.

If you enter the humpty with some speed you will go back up high overhead again. That lets you sit on the down line and count off 3 "Bananas" before you roll and 3 more after. Figure 6 starts with a 45 up line so you can gain back altitude if you think the you are too close to the bottom of the box. But you can be at 1800' here and be fine.

Figure 6 is the reverse half cuban. You should be able to drive up the 45 line 4 or 5 seconds, roll, drive inverted for another 7 seconds, and then gently round over into the looping part. You can make the loop large if you want to finish at the same altitude that you entered, or you have the option of pulling the loop tighter to exit higher than you start.

As you fly the loop down through the half cuban, look at your box position. With the nose down in the looping part of the figure, look to see if you need to drive up wind so as to start figure 7 in the upwind half of the box. If there is wind, you might choose to drive 6 seconds before starting figure 7 instead of 3 seconds.

Figure 7 also allows you to gain altitude if you want. If you make a larger loop, and short lines before and after the roll, you will exit higher than you started. But I don't think that is needed here and you should be able to count off 4 seconds before and after the roll. I should note that verbalizing keeps you honest. If you think that you are counting seconds in your head, you will find that your count is much farther from real time than if you speak the words aloud.

The entry altitude for figure 8 should be maybe 1800'. With some speed you will drive pretty high on the vertical line. You should be able to draw a solid 3 second line before and after the roll.

The loop should be right in front of the judges, both on the X and Y axes of the box. Keep the stick coming back as you reach vertical so the loop stays round and does not elongate upwards. At about 20 degrees before inverted start letting off of the back pressure and think about floating across the top. At inverted, a little push will keep the nose from falling and stretch the curve out to make a loop as wide as it is tall.

The concluding roll looks great if you can make the stick hit the stop.

RetroAcro
08-13-2012, 09:10 AM
All great advice. At least in the Pitts, I've noticed that the potential roll rate out of a competition turn tends to be greater than the entry roll rate due to the top rudder used to hold the nose on a point an instant before levelling the wings. This produces a noticeable increase in roll rate, such that I might need to make a less aggressive aileron input on the rollout than roll in. It's the same thing that occurs during a slow roll when the roll rate increases slightly in the last quarter due to rudder input in the same direction as the aileron input, which may require a slight relaxation of aileron input to maintain a perfectly constant roll rate.

AcroGimp
08-13-2012, 12:23 PM
Very close approximation of how I have been working to fly the Sportsman in the Extra 300L - good advice and great points from RetroAcro on the 180 comeptition turn - I have been focusing on a very slow slow roll after the loop (figure 10).

RetroAcro
08-13-2012, 12:46 PM
I have been focusing on a very slow slow roll after the loop (figure 10).

Yeah, doing very slow rolls is a great training and practice exercise. Just remember that in competition you'll want to do them as fast as possible with full aileron deflection...unless your technique is absolutely flawless, you know it, and you just want to show off by doing them slowly. :-)

WLIU
08-14-2012, 08:47 AM
For what its worth, I have been told repeatedly that slow at the end of the flight program is bad for your score. You want to start with something that makes the judges go "oh, wow" and you want to end with something like also leaves an impression. Since the individuals offering that advice have national championship trophies on their wall and I do not, I am trying to listen and implement the advice....

Super slow rolls are OK for glider programs, but leave them out of your power flight.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

AcroGimp
08-14-2012, 10:31 AM
Thanks for the feedback guys, I misunderstood the intent of the 'slow' roll, and I think my instructor did too - makes sense now, slow means 'not a snap'. The Extra can hit 400 degrees per second at full deflection (it really is surprisingly fast), so I will make that adjustment in my training efforts.

RetroAcro
08-14-2012, 11:41 AM
makes sense now, slow means 'not a snap'.

Yep, you nailed the misnomer. :-) In competition, we just say "roll", since besides the snap there is no other type. Besides the top monoplanes, aileron rolls really are slow rolls...hit a decent snap in the Pitts and it will roll twice as fast as what you'll get from the ailerons alone. That's one way to know some airplanes truly did snap...and that it wasn't just a pull and roll cheat. Of course, the judging criteria make no allowances for roll rate in judging the quality of snaps and whether or not the pilot truly snapped rather than cheating. The monoplanes are much more likely to get away with this.

WLIU
08-20-2012, 02:23 PM
For what its worth, this weekend the former Decathlon driver flew his EA-300 in the manner described above at the Kathy Jaffe Challenge. His first contest in the new ship. Max +G was 8. The result was a second place finish (9 competitors) and scores in the 82% range.

Fly it like you stole it. See you at the box.

Wes

AcroGimp
08-20-2012, 10:37 PM
8 G's in Sportsman? That is definitely flying like you stole it.

RetroAcro
08-21-2012, 08:51 AM
8 G's in Sportsman? That is definitely flying like you stole it.

That's where you want to be though, regardless of the Category. Gotta fly the Extra as god intended. :) 8G in an Extra is like 5G in a Pitts. I don't put any more G on the Pitts flying the Advanced sequence than I would if flying Sportsman.