First Aerobatic Contest

Going to our first aerobatic contest back in May, Mike and I thought we were just going to watch. When we arrived in Giddings (TX), we learned that we could compete, using a Safety Pilot in the airplane if we wanted to. Debby Rihn-Harvey came in her national champion airplane, a CAP 232, and one of her flight school instructors brought a Decathlon, an aerobatic training airplane, for the competition. So most people were competing in Debby's Decathlon, using different Safety Pilots.

Mike flew in a Decathlon owned by Kevin Rullman, and I flew in Debby's Decathlon, with Jeff Stoltenberg, a surgeon from Brenham. Jeff and his wife, Lynne, are both aerobatic pilots - and you won't believe what Jeff did.... I'll tell you about it shortly.

In order to compete we had to join the International Aerobatic Club, and the local Houston Chapter, #25. Aw darn. :-)

This particular contest was called a "Two Design" contest, meaning that two different general aircraft design types could compete. One type was the Decathlon/Citabria/etc., and the other was Vans RV series and similar.

Then there were two levels of pilot skill competing that day (although there are higher levels); Primary (novice), and Sportsman (the next level up). Mike and I competed in the Primary class.

There was enough time in the day for each competitor to make two flights, and then the scores would be added together for a final. In Round One, I was in 5th place and Mike was in 6th. Round Two saw a flip-flop of that, as 4th and 5th. In the end, when the scores were totaled, I came out just 15 points ahead of Mike to finish 3rd place overall.

Debby Rihn-Harvey made us laugh when she came over to offer her congratulations and encouragement. She said, "You know, I finished third in my first contest too!" and then she turned to Mike and said, "Those darned women pilots!" with a huge grin on her face.

In aerobatic competitions such as these there is a box on the ground and you have to stay within the boundaries of that box. It's marked on the ground with bright orange markings at the corners and midpoints along the box. There are also altitude limits. We had to stay between 3,000'-5,000' or points would be deducted. (As a technical note, the FAA grants waivers for these aerobatic boxes to exist).

There are two types of routines, the Known and the Unknown. Pilots competing in the Primary category will only fly the Known routine. Unknown is for more advanced pilots. The Known routine is published by the IAC at the beginning of the year and is good for all year long. So you can practice, practice, practice to your little heart's content. The Unknown is handed out at a contest about 15 minutes before you go up to compete.

Still, neither Mike nor I had any opportunity to practice the Known routine because we didn't know we were going to compete until we got there that morning. Not bad for going up "cold".

So here's what we did flying the 2008 Known routine in the Primary category: take off and climb to about 4,000', come around lined up to enter the box, do a quick seatbelt check (we do a roll to check the seatbelts), rock the wings to let the three judges on the ground know we're ready, then get a short dive going to enter the box with some speed; aim for the center of the box and start the routine, which has six maneuvers.

The first maneuver is a simple 45-degree angle upward. Just shows the judges you can keep that attitude of the plane in a perfect 45-degree. Then put it in a stall, which goes into a spin. Nose down to the ground and do one complete turn in the spin and stop it exactly at the end of one turn. That's maneuver #2.

After breaking the spin, pull up and go into a half-cuban. Let's see, how do I describe that... okay, start a loop, so that you are pulling up, going upside down, then just as you reach a 45-degree angle coming back around you roll the airplane over right-side-up so that you're on a downward slope.

Then enter maneuver #4 immediately, which is a full loop, and when that's fully executed do a 180-degree turn with 60 degrees of bank. The final maneuver is a roll, and then exit the box.

You can see all these as a diagram, as well as the box, on our Chapter 25 website, http://www.geocities.com/rpetec/iac25/2008Knowns/sequences.htm
and you can see pictures from the Gulf Coast Regional Aerobatic Contest in Giddings at http://www.geocities.com/rpetec/iac25/Pictures/pictures.htm

Also, if you click on the "News and Results" page you'll see that my Safety Pilot, Jeff Stoltenburg, finished 2nd in the Primary RV contest. There were only two contenders. Remember I said I'd tell you more about that? This guy cracks me up. The Chapter was trying to get more RV pilots to join and compete so that's why they included that design category in the contest. Only one showed up, rather disappointing to the organizers. So Jeff decided hop in his G-200 (similar design) to give Luis, the lone RV pilot, some competition. However, he didn't want to win, so he did the entire routine backward and outside. Now that's a feat! Of course, he couldn't receive any points because that's not how the published routine goes, but the judges did give him 10 for overall performance, because it sure was a great show!

(Another technical note: "outside" means, for instance, when you do a loop, you, the pilot, are on the inside of the loop; he was outside, a whole different way to do that maneuver.)

So there you have it. I'm in one of the pictures, holding my little trophy with the two guys who placed first and second. Whomever wrote the captions accused me of being a "fierce competitor." Gee. Where'd they get that? ;-)