Aerobatics
How
Aerobatics Works
By PATRICK J. KIGER
It's pretty amazing that anyone
can fly an airplane in the first place.
But for an elite cadre of
exceptionally skilled and extremely nervy aviators, plain old straightforward
flight isn't thrilling enough.
Instead, in the parlance of test pilots, these aviators push the envelope, doing exotic midair maneuvers -- loops, rolls, spins, abrupt changes of direction, and even flying straight up like a rocket.
These tricks are so
gravity-defying that even birds would be envious.
This type of flying is
called aerobatics, and it's almost as old as the airplane itself.
In fact, the very first
aerobatic flyers were Orville and Wilbur Wright, the two men who invented the
airplane itself.
In September 1904, only nine
months after their first-ever heavier-than-air powered flight, the Wrights
successfully performed the first aerobatic maneuver, a 360-degree banked turn.
The feat was more amazing than
you might think because ailerons, the hinged panels that go up and down to tilt
a fixed-wing aircraft to the left or right, hadn't yet been invented.
Instead, the brothers utilized a
cumbersome system that actually tilted the entire wing.
Aerobatics soon morphed into
hair-raising, daredevil entertainment for spectators at county fairs and air
shows.
And it's now evolved into an
established international sport, with rules and regulations and records.
In this article, we'll look at
the types of tricks aerobatics pilots perform, and how they manage to pull them
off safely and land in one piece -- or not.
But first, let's take a closer
look at the history of aerobatics and the sport's true pioneers.
Aerobatics
Inventors
Orville and Wilbur Wright may have been the first to perform an aerobatic move, but the real aerobatic pioneers were the barnstorming American and European pilots who performed exhibitions for paying audiences at fairs and air meets in the 1910s and 1920s. Spectators grew bored with mundane, everyday airplane maneuvers, so the entertainers began attempting increasingly fancy stunts. The scarier the stunts, the better.
One of the great showmen of that
era was American pilot Lincoln Beachley who startled crowds with his
"death dip," in which he flew to 5,000 feet (1,524 meters), turned
off the engine, and then dove straight down at the ground, only to pull up at
the last second.
At times he added to the
difficulty by flying under telegraph wires or through a grove of trees.
After Russian military flyer
Petr Nikolaevich Nestoy invented the loop in 1913, Beachley had aviation
designer Glenn Curtis create a special plane made for the maneuver.
He began performing the trick at
shows, charging a fee of $500 for the first loop and $200 for each one
afterward.
After World War I, many returning fighter pilots,
who used aerobatic maneuvers to win dogfights, began second careers as air show
performers.
In 1927, the first international
aerobatics competition was held in Zurich, and trick flying gradually morphed
into a sport with rules and standards.
Aerobatics has continued to
evolve over the years.
After World War II, the aircrafts' increased speed
and other capabilities actually made some of the early pilots' maneuvers too
dangerous to perform anymore.
But clever pilots soon developed
other moves to take their places.
In the 1950s, Czech aerobatics
flyers, for example, invented a maneuver called the lomcovak, a
series of bizarre gyroscope twists during which the plane
rotated on all three axes.
Aerobatics pilots also have
developed the ability to fly in nearly perfect circles and accurate figure
eights, and to do maneuvers in formations so close that their wings almost
appear to be touching.
Next, we'll take a look at some
of the tricks aerobatics pilots perform.
Aerobatics Maneuvers
Aerobatics tricks often have
exotic names, like the Pugachev's Cobra -- names that are puzzling to all but
those who are steeped in the sport.
But listed below are some of the
more familiar maneuvers. If the descriptions are too hard to visualize, check
out the Web site of Sunrise Aviation, an aerobatics school, which
provides animated graphics that illustrate most of these maneuvers.
Chandelle: This is a
combination of a vertical climb and a turn. It's actually a basic flying
fundamental, rather than a true aerobatic move. But you'll see stunt pilots do
it as part of more complicated maneuvers.
Dive: This one's
just like it sounds. The plane's nose is turned downward, though the plane is not necessarily completely
perpendicular to the ground. Diving causes an increase in air speed, which the
pilot can use to pull up at the right moment.
Loop: A loop is
when an aircraft flies upward and then, at the top of its arc, begins to slow
down, so that it turns down and completes the circle. You can do an inward or
outward loop.
Roll: A roll is a
360-degree revolution along the plane's longitudinal axis.
Barrel roll: A barrel
roll is a combination of a loop and a roll. The flight path is the shape of a
corkscrew.
Wingover: A wingover
is a left or right 180-degree tight turn at the top of an upward quarter loop.
Hammerhead or stall turn: Contrary to
its name, this maneuver doesn't actually involve stalling. The plane soars
upward and then abruptly turns 180 degrees and descends.
Cuban eight: The plane
does five-eighths of a loop to the 45 degree line, a half-roll, another
five-eighths of a loop back to the 45 degree line again, another half roll, and
then three-eighths of a loop to level out. If that's too complicated to
picture, imagine a Hot Wheels car doing a figure eight on one of those
loop-de-loop tracks. The variations include the Half Cuban Eight and the
Reverse Half Cuban Eight.
These maneuvers sound pretty
dangerous, and we'll cover that topic on the next page.
Aerobatics
Dangers
So how do stunt pilots do those
maneuvers without spinning out of control -- or worse, crashing and being
killed? Sometimes they can't.
Some of the most illustrious early aerobatics pioneers, like Lincoln Beachley, for example, ended up buying the farm via aerobatics.
The possibility of injury or
death performing a stunt is something a stunt pilot learns to live with and
respect. Aerobatics isn't a sport for milquetoasts, or fools.
As explained in Geza Szurovy's
and Mike Goulian's how-to textbook "Basic Aerobatics," one secret of
staying alive and looking good in the process is to adeptly calculate and
manage the amount of kinetic energy -- that is, airspeed -- used in a maneuver.
If you don't go fast enough, the
aircraft won't have enough kinetic energy to perform the stunt properly.
On the other hand, if you're
going too fast, you'll overstress the physical limits of the plane's structure
and components. And the result can be very, very bad.
Adept stunt pilots are masters
of conserving energy by balancing the plane's air speed-kinetic energy against
the potential energy in its altitude.
During a typical aerobatic
maneuver, an increase in air speed is balanced by a decrease in altitude, or
vice versa.
If that's a bit too abstract for
you, here's an example.
When an aerobatic pilot pulls up
into an inside loop, he or she is converting kinetic energy (air speed) into
potential energy (altitude).
As the aircraft floats at the
top of the loop, the potential energy is at its maximum, but the aircraft is
slowing down, so that its kinetic energy is at the lowest point.
As the aircraft descends, the
potential energy decreases and the kinetic energy increases again.
Of course, that's just one
greatly oversimplified version of the scores of complex, delicate physics
equations that a pilot must make while he or she is doing hair-raising tricks
thousands of feet above the ground.
He or she also must deal with
other hazards, like the effect of acceleration and the resulting G forces on
the human body.
Too many Gs and the blood can be shunted away from the brain, causing a blackout. Inducing negative
Gs, on the other hand, can pump too much blood into the brain, interfering with
vision and hearing.
For more on airplanes and flying, visit the links on
the next page.
Aerobatics:
Author’s Note
I've flown as a passenger in
small aircraft and helicopters enough times to understand how precarious flight
actually is.
So it's utterly amazing to me
that some pilots have the nerves and skill to attempt hair-raising stunts in
the air.
It was interesting to learn
about the long history of stunt flying and that it dates back practically to
the invention of the airplane itself.
Those early aerobatics pioneers
really had to have a lot of courage, since the aircraft they flew were far less
sophisticated than the planes used for stunts today.
It was also fascinating to learn
that what appears to be random craziness in the air actually is an elaborately
structured sport, with rules and standard maneuvers.
Aerobatics:
Cheat Sheet
Stuff you need
to know:
· Aerobatics is a type of flying in which pilots demonstrate their
skill by performing exotic midair maneuvers, including loops, rolls, spins,
abrupt changes of direction and even flying straight up like a rocket.
· Aerobatics is practically as old as flying itself, and the first
aerobatic maneuver -- a 360-degree banked turn -- actually was performed by the
Wright brothers in 1904.
· Since the late 1920s, when the first international aerobatics
competition was held in Zurich, aerobatics gradually evolved into a sport with
rules and standards.
· Standard aerobatics maneuvers include Chandelles, dives, loops,
rolls, wingovers, stall turns and Cuban eights.
· To keep from crashing, aerobatics pilots must carefully
calculate and manage the amount of kinetic energy used in a maneuver.
· Some aerobatics pilots are so skilled that they can fly in formation so close together that their wings appear to be touching.
Patrick J. Kiger has written for
HowStuffWorks since 2008 covering a wide array of topics, from history and
politics to pop culture and technology. He worked as a newspaper reporter for
the Pittsburgh Press, and the Orange County Register in California, where he
covered one of the biggest serial murder cases in U.S. history, and also as a
staff writer at Baltimore Magazine. As a freelancer, Patrick has written for
print publications such as GQ, Mother Jones and the Los Angeles Times, and on
the web for National Geographic Channel, Discovery News, Science Channel and
Fast Company, among others. In recent years, he's become increasingly
interested in how technological advances are altering urban life and the design
of cities, and has written extensively on that subject for Urban Land magazine.
In his spare time, Patrick is a longtime martial arts student and a fan of
crime fiction, punk rock and classic Hollywood films.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/future/aerobatics.htm
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