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by Jeff Aranyos
Aloha. Welcome to yet another Aerobatic How-To. I have been to the field a lot recently and have noticed that the average pilot has considerably more aerobatic ability. I see more and more people doing increasingly difficult maneuvers. This is cool, and fun to watch. Some of you really put some G's on your planes. Now that the pattern season is in full swing, I have been doing very little sport flying. I have been to three contests this year, and have had good success at each. By the time you read this, the pattern contest at our field will be history, but at this writing, it is this coming weekend. There should be a good turnout, and the competition among members of Tri Village should be heated.

This month's aerobatic topic is stall turns. While many of you may have a grand ol' time banging the sticks around and watching your plane do cool things, some of the most basic maneuvers are overlooked. One of these is stall turns. One might have a great tome wrenching his plane around in high-speed snaps, but there are other maneuvers that look simple and prove challenging. First of all, what is a stall turn? Well, the best way I can define it is a 180 degree rotation of a plane from straight up attitude to a straight down attitude done at zero airspeed. The basic process seems simple enough. Go up, chop power, kick rudder, and go down. But there is a lot more to it. We'll get into that now.

For the first part, you must establish a vertical line. It is important that the line be as close to vertical as you can get it because the stall turn at the top will look real funny if you aren't vertical before applying rudder. Once you're going straight up, you can decide how long you want to extend your vertical line. Obviously, the longer the line the higher the stall turn will be done. Once you decide you are at the proper height, reduce power. As you do this it is important to keep the nose of the plane pointed straight up. When you slow down, the (ever-present) wind will try to throw you off your vertical line. Now for the meat of the maneuver.

Now that you are pointed vertical, at idle, you have to act fast but not quick. This may sound confusing, read on. You want to do the actual stall turn before the plane "flops" out of a vertical line as a result of not enough speed to keep it vertical, so you have to act fast. But acting quickly will result in a jerky maneuver. So act fast, not quickly. Now that the plane is about stopped at the top of the vertical line, you can begin to apply rudder. Here is where most people mess up the maneuver. There is a big façade that you have to apply the rudder quickly. This is not the case. A slow, smooth application of the rudder will result in a smooth stall turn as opposed to a quick, undefined wingover that would result from slamming the stick over. Also, one important thing to remember is to always apply rudder into the wind. For example, if the wind is coming from the right side of the plane, apply right rudder. Then as the plane goes over, slowly reduce the rudder. This minimizes tail wag after the stall turn and results in a straight down line. There is no need to slam the rudder out of it. That just plain makes it look ugly.

Now that the finer points of a stall turn have been explained to you, perhaps I will see more pilots at the field doing them as part of their standard aerobatic routine. I will probably be out at the field a lot in the coming weeks practicing for the Nationals, so if you see me out there I'd like some feedback on these articles. And, as always, the suggestion box is open for ideas of a maneuver that you would like to do and would like described in this article. See you next time, 'till then, see ya at the field.