Upset recovery training

[JimParker256]

Great PIREP! Thanks for sharing all that detail. Makes me want to do the upset recovery training again... Yours was a bit more "broad" than the course I took mumble-mumble years ago...

[fatsportpilot]

Yours was a bit more "broad" than the course I took mumble-mumble years ago...

Did the course that you took not include aerobatics intro?

I found some other courses that I didn't take which were even more broad than what I took but they're for people who planned to fly aerobatics so they included things like inverted flat spins and tumbling recoveries and tail slides and other situations that you can never get into by accident unless you botch an aerobatic maneuver. They seem really cool but probably aren't going to be useful to someone like me.

Most of the intro aerobatics I did at CP Aviation was to prepare me for realistic situations I might find myself in.

[JimParker256]

Sorry - was out of town for a Covid-delayed memorial service for my mom...

My upset recovery training was two 1.5 hour sessions many years ago. I had already done spin training with my CFI, so we spent most of the 3 hours in his Pazmany PL-4 (EAB) recovering from "truly" unusual attitudes, after doing a few rolls and accelerated spin entries (not quite snap rolls / spins, but close). We didn't do any real "aerobatics" training (how to do maneuvers the right way), but mostly intentionally did them wrong to generate the "unusual" attitudes.

Mind you, this was a really long time ago, before "URT" became a popular course offering. (And before anyone mentions it: No, he did not charge for either his time or the use of the airplane for these flights. He was just a great guy who took a lot of interest in me, and when I asked some questions about more advanced recoveries, he took me up in his plane that could handle the loads. (Out flying club had a C150 Aerobat available for rental, but the useful load was almost non-existent – we could only legally fly with enough fuel for about 30 minutes of "action"...)

His Pazmany PL-4 had an interesting history. It was one of about a dozen of them that were built here in the US, licensed as EAB, had the Phase 1 completed, then were disassembled and shipped to Taiwan to be used as "ab initio" trainers for the Taiwanese Air Force. He was one of the US Air Force pilots who went over there to train their pilots, and decided he liked the PL-4 a lot. So when the TAF decided to replace them with "real" trainers, they offered him this one for a ridiculously low price. He purchased it, and had it shipped back to the US. When I flew it with him, It was still painted the TAF trainer colors (blue and yellow, similar to WW2 primary trainers).

The cockpit was a bit bizarre: There was a "Master Arm" switch (that did nothing) and a "guns" switch on the stick (that also did nothing, but was very satisfying to dispose of "enemy aircraft" or "ground targets" when you were out farting around... And even though it was a fixed-gear airplane, it had a landing gear switch with a built-in 3-5 second delay before it would light up three green lights on the panel. At random intervals, it would NOT turn one of the lights on, and you would have to "recycle the gear" to get it to light up. The intent was to reinforce from day one the need to extend the gear and confirm it was "down and locked" before landing. My CFI kind of liked that, and kept it in the plane.

Good memories.