amazing aerobatic video, how to fly like that?

check this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39OXcx-BZTw

i'd love to be able to fly like that. i understand the basics of stick and rudder control and can kind of figured out what he's doing by looking at the control surfaces, but it would be great if a real aero pro could break this video down, stunt by stunt.

i see the author of the video hasn't posted on it for over 1 year so i doubt he's interested in explaining it

Aerobatics are just a matter of repeated hard practise, but they're not really my thing and I'm too lazy to learn..:)

"True samurai are fearsome because their training is fearsome" (old Samurai saying)

Zippy has a good point on the video editing. Also, the person who performed the aerobatics likely fine tuned the joystick controls to fit the Edge 540....joystick sensitivities,etc. I have tried the knife edge with the default Extra but always lose altitude fairly quickly, which is not typical in the real aircraft.

I got to fly Kirby Chambliss's 2 seat Edge 540 some years ago and it was head and shoulders above the capabilities of what I was use to with the Pitts S2B. I never tried rolling the Edge 540 at 420 degrees per second, however :) A few torque rolls, Lomcevak, square loops, etc, is all I did in the 540. Nothing too extreme, as I didn't want to get whip lash my first time flying this incredible aircraft. At any rate, understanding basic stick and rudder control is one thing. Applying them to work in harmony in multiple aerobatic maneuvers is quite another. It takes time for your brain to re-wire itself, to be come acclimated if you will, to the incredible amounts of information it has to send to your muscles....for proper timing of stick and rudder inputs during complicated maneuvers. It can't happen in a one day seminar :)

I have tried the knife edge with the default Extra but always lose altitude fairly quickly, which is not typical in the real aircraft.

The rudder is the big (not only) problem since, in default aircraft as well as many others, the rudder operates for a moment, then it's as if you relaxed your pressure. There are parameters in the 1100 section (perhaps others, too) of the .air file that can adjust this and make true knife edge possible.

In any case, I fully agree that aerobatic skill doesn't come overnight. In fact, years of daily practice, often with instructors and external observers, are usually needed to attain sufficient skill (real world) to safely do low level aerobatics. There's a very good reason why the regs say no acro below 1500 feet AGL, though for airshows they can get waivers if they're good enough (it's quite a process).

Duane Cole's book Roll Around A Point is one of a handful of books that can guide you through the learning process (with instructor, for real world).

Wolfgang Langewiesche's Stick and Rudder is an excellent read for actually understanding the aerodynamics of flight from a pilot's perception viewpoint, not from an engineering standpoint. I'd recommend understanding what it says prior to any real world acro, and it would be very beneficial for the sim, as well. Both books are on my bookshelf, along with several others.

Steve,

You can do it. 'Practice...practice'?. Well, yes, BUT: you have to 'fix' the flight dynamics first for things to go your way. Just loading a Pitts or an Edge (any-even payware) without tweaks to cfg and air file and your controller is hopeless and waste of (practice) time (plus you get bad habits). I am not good at it but I manage to enjoy SOME of it after tweaking FDEs. Here is (years old) videos to prove it.

Pitts S-2B and Edge 540, http://youtu.be/1NqyhYZshyQ .ARX-5 FS9,

Chuck B

Napamule

(If you enter 'napamule' at youtube you can see my other videos). Oh, I lost the FDEs in a 2011 HDrive crash/burn so don't have them anymore and have not tried to re-do. Sorry.

Oh yeah. I almost forgot this one (you would never find it in search at YouTube - they messed my file names/author name that's why..).

Sukhoi 26 Aerobatics in FSX .FSX model by Ricardo Batalha. Ferrari paint by Stephen Browning. Link: http://youtu.be/9bodec2Ycn0 .

Chuck B

Napamule

PS: The HDrive crash was in late 2012, not 2011. Lost these FDEs too. Drats.

nice videos napamule. did you use fsrecoder to make that so you could fly once and direct the camera angles after for the video?

what i'd like to find is an aerobatic tutorial (either real world or sim) where someone goes through the stunt like an instructor would, i.e. get such and such an airspeed, gentle back on the stick, full left rudder, etc, etc. i haven't found anything like that.

maybe if i get any good i'll make one

PS, i can't find a downloadable version of Duane Cole's book but this looks good

http://what-when-how.com/flight/aerobatics/

this one is a good description of the maneuvers but not much explanation of how to do them https://www.iac.org/legacy/aerobatic-figures

found another with nice explanations and lots of details

http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/TD/td1801/bythrow.pdf

Steveh . Have a look at http://www.justflight.com/product/airshow-pilot-download

I've got no idea how good or bad it is, but it says it has a demo mode so you could try risk free.

After flying some medium-bad aerobatics, I had a look into the file format of the Flight Recorder flights to see if I could program a flight path, plane orientation etc for perfect (or impossible) aerobatics, but it wasn't looking so straight forward.

I'd like to have an hour of airshow playable as Flight Recorder traffic at some airfields so that you can jump in your own plane and go and join the fun.

The red bull plane can do a lot of fun stuff if you turn off auto-coordination, keep the fuel level below 40% and never let the plane get below corner speed with it trimmed tightly for corner speed. That puppy will rattle your teeth. Takes hours of flying starting with barrow rolls and working up to train your reflexes to rely 100% on visual and instruments. 3D is the only way to go so you can use head movement to judge G-forces while looking at the g-meter. Once you get your brained tuned to equate head movement to G, you can take eyes off the g-meter and concentrate on the three most important instruments- AH, Speed, and vertical rate. My arm aches for hours after only a short time flying like that.

-Pv-

yep, i have the auto rudder off and i've been having a lot of fun with it. i'm trying to do the knife edge stunt he's doing around 1:56. i've got into a 90 deg bank with the ailerons and full opposite rudder but i'm not getting that sideways angle he's getting. i've tried a few different speeds from about 100 and above. maybe i need slower.

is there a trick to getting that sideways angle or do i need to tweak something in the airplane config?

my other problem is i don't have rudder pedal (planning to set some) so i'm using the twist grip which isn't ideal