PIREP time!
I completed my upset recovery training at
CP Aviation in SoCal with CFI Mark King. We did two lessons a day ranging from 40 minutes to an hour for each with a nice long preflight briefing for each one so we got through all three training modules (and each module is 4 lessons) in under a week. We flew in Citabrias and Decathlons. Super Decathlon was used for the last few lessons which was introduction to aerobatics.
We didn't do a lot of pattern work because almost all of our time was spent in a dedicated aerobatic area so I never really got used to landing a taildragger, but I did get better at taxiing without a steerable wheel over the week. When I started I still had a nosewheel mindset so I'd drift off the line to the left even though I was full right rudder, but opening the throttle just a little fixed that. By the end of the week I could taxi straight enough, but I'm glad to be back home and flying an airplane with the little wheel in front of me! I wish we got to spend a little more time doing landings but that would have taken away from the upset recovery training.
Module I (days 1 and 2):
The first lesson was just orientation with me getting used to the characteristics of the Citabria so we did simple things like dutch rolls, steep turns, and stalls. The second lesson was spins. Recovering from simple spins was a lot easier than I expected. The spins weren't particularly disorienting and even the multi-turn spins were easy enough and recovery was quick. It was the aggravated spins in the 3rd and 4th lessons that caused most of my disorientation due to the G forces but I could usually recover at a specific heading (+/- 45 degrees at worst) after a little practice. For the first few days I thought that pulling a mere 2G was my limit and I would be getting very uncomfortable very quickly. But after a few days I started to get used to 2G, just in time to do spirals where I was experiencing a sustained 2 to 2.5G. The takeaway for all of this was just how important unloading the wings is when recovering from both spins and spirals.
Module II (days 3 and 4):
We reviewed spins and performed some other maneuvers such as steep turns, aerobatic turns, and rolls (mostly aileron rolls). The rolls themselves were pretty easy to do especially because the Decathlon has symmetric airfoils and I learned them pretty quickly. It became almost routine: accelerate to 140 mph, pitch up to prepare, then execute the roll. But it was all supposed to be a building block for recovering from severe overbanks and wake turbulence so it got a lot harder when I had to make a split second decision to either simply right the plane back up or continue through the partially completed roll.
On the second day of module II we did lots of slips and slipping turns. I was already very comfortable with slips because I've done them so much in a SportStar (I fly a tight pattern in case of engine trouble so I sometimes come in too high but never too low) but this is the first time I practiced slips in a sharp turn, because I had always waited until I was straight and level before starting a slip and exited a slip to begin a turn. Slipping turns were a lot easier than I expected but stall buffeting didn't always happen in that configuration.
We also practiced a full pattern using no controls but trim, rudder, and throttle. This was one of the most enlightening parts of the training because I got to do not just a landing, but a full pattern without touching the stick at all. Before this I thought that a mechanical breakage of controls to the elevator and ailerons together meant certain death.
Module III (days 5 and 6):
These 4 lessons were introductory aerobatics. We did loops, several kinds of rolls, Immelmans, hammerheads, Cuban eights, and humpty bumps. The Cuban eights we did near the end of the lessons so that was when I was most fatigued and exhausted so I never got them down well enough. For this module I was glad I got used to G forces earlier because this time we were pulling 3.5G and it felt subjectively the same way a 2G turn felt in the first lesson. The final lesson was the least comfortable because it had a lot of inverted flight and we did an inverted spin (the G meter told me it was -1.8G or something after the fact). Right as the stall broke into a spin I began to grey out and might have even blacked out for a second.
All in all this was expensive, exhausting and intense but SO very worth it. But this is only the beginning. I'll plan for recurrent training so I can keep these skills fresh so they won't fail me if I find myself needing to use them for real.