Dave Hadfield wrote:
Or, to continue Vlado's thought, when it comes to Cubans, loop away from the earth, not towards it.
Other thoughts...
Ask the photographers and well-wishers to leave you alone for :15 min before engine start. Ignore distractions.
Snap maneuvers are safer done on an up-line, not a down-line, when at low altitude.
In North America the cardinal rule is to never project your energy into the crowd.
And as was said, there's not much point in going so low that only the front rank can see you.
Dave
The trick with doing 1/2 Cubans as repositioning maneuvers off level 1 is to know your numbers FOR THAT DAY AND DENSITY ALTITUDE, nailing the entry speed, using the first 90 degrees of pull to maximize your desired g line, then easing off the g into the second half of the vertical up line to meet SOLIDLY FIXED high gate parameters for the top transition through the maneuver into the down line. Density altitude can and will kill you quicker than anything else when it comes to low altitude vertical recoveries. It increases BOTH your TAS and your vertical radius. HIGH GATE parameters MUST be altered to compensate for density altitude. The numbers you use doing a display at sea level will kill you doing a show with high density altitude.
Reverse 1/2 Cubans are especially dangerous in this environment as there is a tendency to generate positive downline nose rate as you come through inverted doing the roll entry as opposed to concentrating on hitting the high gate numbers required.
Smart display pilots know their airplane's numbers and alter those numbers accordingly for density altitude displays. REAL smart display pilots actually will work out a high density altitude routine that differs from their normal routines both in content and execution, softening the display by changing or even omitting certain maneuvers to conserve maneuvering energy such as omitting an extra downline snap and replacing a 1/2 Cuban reversal with a position transition turn (Wifferdill)
Dudley Henriques
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