Aerial Acrobatics

My friend, Blake, was a Navy fighter pilot but has recently finished that career. Now that he's back in the Bay Area, he's going to start teaching airplane acrobatics down in Hayward. He's been putting some extra time in the plane so he'll be ready to start teaching and he took me up last Friday.



The plane was a two-seater and I sat in the front and Blake flew from the backseat. We each had a parachute we strapped on before getting in (just in case) and then cinched ourselves down with the seat and shoulder belts. It was a claustrophobic little aircraft and with the headphones on there really wasn't enough headroom. It is pretty nimble, though. As soon as we hit the runway, Blake accelerated and we were off the ground only a few seconds later and into a sharp banked turn to come around 270 degrees. From there we headed out towards Mt. Diablo to do the fun stuff over a golf course (you can't do acrobatics over a populated area...apparently golfers aren't people.)

Once we were over safe ground, the first thing Blake did was the loose coin test: flip the plane over to check for anything that might fly around in the cockpit. So flip the plane over he did and there we were flying upside down. I've never flown upside down and it was pretty surreal to be looking up and seeing the ground.

From there he went into a series of maneuvers. The first was an aileron roll, which was what we had just done but instead of stopping half way, we just went all the way around. The next was a loop, which may have been the most uncomfortable because of the increase in G's. Blake pulled the plane up and I started sinking into my seat as we went vertical, then upside down, and then facing straight down before returning to level.

The final move, which I think was the most fun, was the the hammer roll. For this one Blake pulled the plane straight up until we were completely vertical. The plane then slowed and came to a complete stop. As we started falling backwards towards the ground Blake rolled the plane to the side and pointed us directly towards the ground before coming back to level. We did that one a couple times.

Since they charge you by the minute we headed back, which was fine with me since I don't think my stomach could handle much more. I loved all the maneuvers but it messed with my equilibrium and made me pretty queasy, which stuck with me for most of th rest of the day. It probably just takes some getting used to.