Why Aerobatics? And why compete?

Yep, that's me in the Pitts, awesome picture by a grinning Victoria Neuville who was snapping shots of everything including herself when not actually flying.


So here's a blog about setting up an IAC sanctioned aerobatic competition and some of the details of flying aerobatic competition maneuvers and how contests and judging and flying it all works and maybe it begs the question of why we do this in the first place.  What sort of crazy impulse would inspire someone to depart "reasonable" flight attitudes for the world of high g's loads, weird attitudes, spinning horizons and potential nausea?  And then do it in front of others?


Here are a few reasons why aerobatics are cool.  There's a lot of press about this right now (AOPA articles and such) and a movie in the works (AcroCamp) and more.  It seems to be in a renaissance - after years of backing away from spin demonstrations and accelerated stalls in the Practical Test Standards, the benefits are again appreciated.

1)  Aerobatic experience helps maintain a broad field of vision and attitude awareness through fast and extreme pitching or rolling. Without experience, vision narrows and blurs and awareness of aircraft attitude is often lost when things happen quickly - especially if unexpected.

2)  A theoretical understanding of sensations and control inputs for unusual attitude recovery is rarely sufficient to accomplish the task if needed. A little aerobatics will develop appreciation for the forces – both on the yolk and on the body – to minimize altitude loss and recover from all attitudes safely and without bending the airplane.

3)  Aerobatics training will help to gain a lot of faith in the aircraft – it is generally tougher than we are, but some experience will help the nerves and the nausea abate.

4)  After some aerobatics, the comfortable level with “normal” flying on turbulent or uncomfortable days goes way up. Compared to spinning and rolling and pulling serious g’s, what’s the big deal?


5)  Aerobatics training exposes the pilot to safe operations within the full operations envelope - from red line to stalls, normal and accelerated.  The safety afforded by this experience for normal aircraft operations is invaluable.

6)  Who knows, this figure skating in the sky might actually be addicting. Advanced aerodynamics and energy management in spades. Comfort and control in any attitude. Grace balanced with forcefulness. Freedom. Fun. And membership in the club of a rarer but special breed of pilots that constantly challenge themselves to fly more precisely and more completely, whether in competition or just for fun.


There's flying aerobatics way up high for fun.  Then there's learning the precision of competition maneuvers.  Then there's doing it in about 2000 feet of vertical workspace with a 1500 foot minimum altitude.  Then try to keep a sequence of maneuvers in a 3000 foot square box over the ground (it looks like a postage stamp).  Then throw in people watching and judging...it messes with your mind...and you've got a competition.  Fast thinking and precision flying.  Besides great flying skill development, the surprise of competition acrobatics is the camaraderie and support of all the other pilots.  It's a great group.

The neat thing is that it doesn't really take very long to get started.  Some fly their first competition after a half-dozen lessons.  You can fly it with a safety pilot, so jump in the deep end two feet first and have fun.  You'll be glad you did.

Or just get some basic aerobatic training with advanced spin recovery work and be a better pilot for it.  It's unusual attitude recovery and more.