Sounds great. Welcome to the club. Be careful that you don't get addicted.
I did.

A few general and Decathlon-specific tips to help you:

1. Don't worry about being wiped out, or airsickness. After my first 2
lessons, I had to go home, turn out the lights, and lay down for a few hours
to recover. Within 5 to 10 flights, you will not feel tired at all after a
sortie.

2. The trick to doing a nice roll in the Decathlon is to pitch the nose up
a bit just as you start the roll. Not much at all, just goose the stick
back for a second right as you start to roll, and move it forward to neutral
as you reach full aileron displacement. Then you don't have to push the
nose up when inverted; you just have to keep it up. That is the difference
between a -2G and a -1G roll in the Decathlon. Also, don't use top rudder
on the first knife edge, and use plenty of top rudder on the second knife
edge. Finally, pick a distant terrain feature on the horizon and use it to
keep on heading as you roll.

3. If the owner will let you, mark your windscreen with 2 pieces of tape to
show you where the horizon should be; one for upright, one for inverted.
Trim the aircraft for level flight at roll entry speed, then put the tape on
the vertical metal frame in the center of the windscreen, to mark where it
meets the horizon. Do the same inverted. Make sure the aircraft is in
straight and level inverted flight, not losing any altitude, then mark the
horizon. Imagine a circle between these two pieces of tape. That's what
you roll around.

4. When you apply the ailerons in a roll, concentrate on feeling the stick
go all the way to the control stop. Same for elevator and rudder inputs in
a spin.

5. There are two general approaches to rollout on the immelman. Both use a
visual cue. For the standard by the book immelman, come forward with the
stick in time to stop the horizon right on your inverted tape mark, then
roll. For competition, to avoid getting docked for "drawing a line", start
the roll when the horizon is about halfway between the top of the windscreen
and the inverted tape mark, or a bit sooner. Don't use any forward stick,
and the nose will fall to a perfect level attitude as you reach upright
flight.

6. For the cuban, do you have a sight gauge? If so, look out your wing at
the sight gauge and come forward briskly with the stick just as you reach 45
degrees inverted. Hold it a second, then roll. As you roll, look out the
top of the greenhouse roof and align the horizon with the frame member
between the greenhouse roof and the windscreen. That helps you hold your 45
line, and also ensures you roll all the way around. Hold a split second,
then pull out.

7. For reverse cubans, use the frame between the greenhouse roof and
windscreen as a guide to set the 45 inverted upline. Pull to 45, hold a
split second, then roll and align the frame member with the horizon. Again,
this helps you to avoid over or under rolling.

8. Join the IAC and take up competition at the sportsman level. With about
15 hours of lessons and practice you could fly your first meet and have a
great time. It will force you to learn all kinds of details about how to
fly the maneuvers that you will never pick up if you just go out and fling
yourself around. Not that there's anything wrong with flinging yourself
around.

Keep having a great time!

Ed Haywood


"David B. Cole" wrote in message
m...
Well I just returned from my second acro lesson in as many days and
all I can say is that I'm wiped out. Having an opportunity to fly
with Rich Stowell on two occasions and performing a number of spins
and other maneuvers certainly helped with endurance.

The airport that I flew from is Van Sant in Erwinna PA, just across
the Delaware River from Frenchtown NJ and about 50 miles north of
Philly. This is a gorgeous area with numerous 18th and 19th century
homes and old mills dotting the riverside. The airport is inhabited
by a number of beautiful planes including a Great Lakes, Cub, Super
Cub, a couple of Stearmans, and a number of planes I didn't recognize.
I also witnessed my first glider tows, followed by another, then
another. The gliders are extremely graceful and it was almost
impossible to resist looking as they soared skyward following the tow
plane as it provided it with its precious source of energy.

I too wanted to go for a glider ride, but today my destiny was with
the Super Decathlon, a plane that I had flown before. I met Azar the
owner and after talking for a few we discussed my goals and he
reviewed my logbook and the maneuvers that I had already had flown.
After that we headed out to the plane and performed a preflight,
followed by a safety discussion regarding the chutes and other
matters. It wasn't long before we had the plane started and were
taxiing over the very rough and hilly field on the way to the runway,
which itself was as bumpy as the "taxiway" we had taken to get there.

After takeoff we headed out over the Delaware where Azar asked me to
perform a loop. No big deal, as I had performed one recently with
Rich and they were still fresh in my head. Just about 4G's and my
final altitude was within 100' of my starting altitude. Azar told me
that it felt right, so I didn't complain. He walked me through an
aileron roll, which I proceeded to botch. The problem was that I
wasn't giving it full aileron due to the cramped conditions and my
legs getting in the way, plus I wasn't pushing the stick gradually
forward near knife edge and therefore pushing too hard while inverted,
which isn't the most comfortable feeling. Azar demonstrated a few
after which I followed, and they started to improve. He also
performed a two point roll, stopping at inverted to show me where the
nose should be. I then realized that inverted flight would take some
getting used to.

After a few additional loops and steadily improving aileron rolls we
strung together a loop followed immediately by an aileron roll, which
was cool. That was followed by a half Cuban 8 which I managed to
execute without too much butchering. Before heading back he
demonstrated a couple of barrel rolls, which are a nice gentle
maneuver and a good way to start winding down the first lesson. On
the way back to the airport Azar asked me to demonstrate a few spins,
which I did with no problem. The first was only a one turn spin so on
the second he asked me to make it a two-turn so that I could really
see it spin up. Again I recovered with no problem and I think he was
pleased with the spins and the session overall. I made a good
three-point landing on the grass with 1 hour on the Hobbs.

Today we started with loops, but spent most of the time doing ailerons
rolls and two point rolls to really help me get used to being upside
down. Hanging by the straps is certainly something I will have to get
acclimated to, I'm just glad I listened and tightened the straps. To
help convince me that I wouldn't fall out of my seat Azar put the
plane on its back for a few seconds and then had me place my hands on
my head. Those straps really do work huh? As with the previous day
we combined a loop with an aileron roll, but instead of doing a half
Cuban 8 we combined two a did a full Cuban 8. Again, very nice.

He also introduced the Immelmann, which became the maneuver of choice
when we wanted to reverse direction. Yesterday we also performed a
hammerhead and while it was my second time doing one, it was much
worse than my first attempt. But today we worked on those as well and
I managed to get it under better control.

What I found most difficult with the Immelmann and the half Cuban was
determining when to push forward on the stick to arrest the loop
before rolling without some coaching. With regards to aileron rolls
it's a matter of not being timid with the aileron deflection and
getting the stick forward before reaching inverted in order to prevent
large negative G. In summary I had a great time and look forward to
continuing. Azar's plan was to introduce most of the maneuvers within
the first few lessons and then start to fine tune them. I've
therefore pulled Goulian's "Basic Aerobatics", Kershner's aerobatics
manual, and Rich's aerobatics tape from their respective storage units
and will chair fly given my experience from the last two days.


Thanks to Tom Parsons for his help and to Rich for helping start the
addiction.

Dave