Hal's Skybolt.

Until I've actually climbed in one and experienced it myself I can only steer you to a page on Steen Aero Lab's site. It has quite a few articles, by different writers. The ones written by Budd Davisson are especially good.

Click here to go to Steen's article page.

Hopefully I'll be able to give you a report on flying the 'bolt in the next few months.

First aerobatic flight.

If flying the Skybolt is anything like flying a Pitts S2C I have a story to tell here. It's my first flight in a Pitts S2C and my introduction to aerobatics.

I take the first steps to unlimited flying . . . . I make the call to Dent-Air to schedule a lesson for tomorrow, Friday, June 25th. Bill isn't in so I leave a message. Waiting all day for a return call. At 4:30 I call again, hanging up when there is no answer.

A call back at 6 pm from Bill. He has a lesson in the morning so we set-up a session for 1/1:30 on Friday afternoon. He says that its going to be a nice day for flying.

Hanging up, I begin to think of myself and the Pitts. I smile as I think of flying the S2C tomorrow. I see a responsive, agile, powerful, fast aircraft, sensitive to the touch, squirrley to take off and land. Thoughts of coordinated stick and rudder, slow rolls, loops. Flat spinning out of a hammerhead... don't get too worked up about it - everyone starts like this.

Friday morning... driving there. A beautiful day. Clear Blue Skies, no humidity. A line of clouds far off in the distance.

Thoughts - how will I ever learn to coordinate all the controls to do a perfect loop, roll, hammerhead? I think that I can - everyone started at this point, the same unknowing place that I stand now.

I arrive at 12:30. I wait until just before 1 to drive up to Bill's hangar. Bill is speaking to FSS getting a flight plan in for my first akro lesson.

We talk for abour a half hour. My background with planes, what I've done up until now in akro. Where I want to go with this. Bill gives me a brief discription of what he has plans on doing for the next hour and some of the techniques to flying the Pitts.

To center the ball on the slip skid you need to be like the prize fighter and jab at the rudders then allowing them to fall back to neutral. You only need to hold the stick with your thumb and two fingers, no more.

Bill helps me strap into the Pitts. He starts the engine and we taxi to the end of the 2500' strip at Lee Airport. We wait for a canary yellow 152 to land. Bill lines up with the center line and gives gas to the IO-540's 260 hp.

The tail immediately lifts from the runway, as the Pitts does its dance down the runway.

I am pushed further back into my seat as we accelerate, roaring down the runway. (big grin at this point)

The Pitts leaps off the ground and we begin our rocketship ride up. At about 400 feet AGL Bill gives me control of the plane. Remembering what he mentioned earlier I reach for the stick with my thumb and two fingers, holding it ever so lightly. I'm surprised at the control and responsiveness with this "approach."

As we head to the practice area we climb to 7500'. I can only compare this to the plane that I've flown for the past 200 hours, my Taylorcraft. Its no real comparison, each was made for a different purpose and I don't want to take anything away from the beautiful aircraft that the T-craft is, but the Pitts has got to be one of the easiest, yet one of the hardest to fly airplanes that I've flown. I can see where it will fly the manuevers easily but would take a lifetime to perfect flying those manuevers.

As we make clearing turns Bill shows me what I can look at for a 20 (horizon just below the wing tip near the strut), 45 (center cabane 90 degrees to the horizon) and 60 degree turn (center cabane . . ... . .)

Bill calls for the controls and brings the power back and puts the Pitts into a stall. As had he explained earlier on the ground, he begins to dance on the rudder pedals to keep the wings level. He then put it into a one turn spin to the left followed by a one turn spin to the right and then back straight as he continued to keep the ball centered. He then has me climb back up to 7500'.

As he brings the power back he instructs me to pull the stick back while keeping the wings level. The power comes back to the stops as I have the stick firmly back and I start to kick the rudders to keep the ball centered. At times the wings of the Pitts were pointing toward the ground I was leading or lagging so bad. but even in those instances, which were quite frequent, it never went into a spin. (Thinking back on it now I remember being too focused on the slip skid on the upper wing and not looking out at the wings.

Climbing back up to 7500' Bill had me line up with Rte. 301 leading up to the Chesapeak Bay Bridge as we climbed Bill explained how to loop and how he wanted me to look out the left side of the plane as we pulled up into a 4G pull, keeping the stick back as we flew over the top and then pulling out with that same 4G pull.

As we lined up on 301, Bill had me follow him through the first go around. My stabs at doing loops seemed to be pretty good. Of course I did the usual "not pulling enough Gs into the loop, not keeping the stick back, not pulling the 4Gs out of the loops." I can only imagine what they looked like. More like a football standing on end rather than a circle. I was surprised how it didn't fall off at the top and was happy with how easy I "thought" that it was.

It's not finished yet... more still to come.