My dream in life has always been to fly a plane, but with all the financial commitments in life, I could only afford starting my aviation journey in 2014, at the age of 46. A year later I had my RPL and was on cloud 9. After flying the Cessna 152 Aerobat, Cessna 172 and Sling Aircraft Sling 2 for a few years, I decided it was time for more fun in the air and in April 2021 started my aerobatics journey. What a thrill it was and still is! I was hooked and never looked back. I can still only afford to fly the Cessna 152 Aerobat, but what an amazing plane it is, once you've learnt how to do energy management with it. With this channel I just want to share my aviation journey and joy of flying with whoever may be interested. This includes scenic flights in and around Perth, Western Australia as well as aerobatics in the Cessna 152 Aerobat. Come fly with me...
Theses 152 aerobats are no "spring chickens" if they get a hammering like you are giving it every day is there anything you need to look out for to check the aircraft is safe?
Awesome stuff mate, i'm keen on eventually going for my aero rating soon. Just out of curiosity, what manoevres do they teach you on your first lesson?
Thanks 😊 You won't regret it. It is so much fun and improve your piloting skills. If I remember correctly, the order of the lessons were: loops, barrel rolls, aileron rolls, stall turns, spins. Later on I also did my 1500ft endorsement, which means you are allowed aerobatics down to 1500ft.
@@MyJoyInTheAir Yeah definitely seems useful and also just super fun. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i'd imagine going below 1500ft with say a 500ft lower limit or unlimited endorsement would be best reserved for if you were flying something with far more power and manoeuvrability like a extra 300 for example.
@@VolcanicBamboo I totally agree with you on those lower limit endorsements. Having said that, from my understanding you can obtain those lower limit endorsements (1000ft, 500ft and unlimited) in any aerobatic aircraft if you can meet and demonstrate the requirements for the endorsement. There are a few manoeuvres I would do in the 152 at lower than 1500ft (if I had the endorsement), but definitely not any of the complex manoeuvres. I agree that is best suited for the more powerful and manoeuvrable aerobatic planes. BTW, are you in Australia?
I look at my altimeter before going inverted, to ensure I have enough altitude to do the maneuver. I start the sequence around 4000 feet above ground level.
Hi @nickrowe3842. Thanks for your comment. Yes it is heaps of fun. Chase that dream of yours. I had the same dream and very grateful I could turn the dream into reality. I also can't afford to fly the high-end aerobatic planes, but you can still have a lot of fun in the affordable Cessna 152 Aerobat. Wishing you all the best in chasing your dream. Please subscribe to my channel to get notified of more of the fun videos. Thanks.
You're losing a lot of altitude. Get the speed, climb to 45 degrees count 2 seconds then roll and push to keep 45 degrees line, count 2 seconds and only then pull. You should finish at the same altitude as you started. In this specific maneuver it's very important, aft you start to pull, if you don't have enough room it might end badly
@RoyBenAnat thanks for your comment. While I do agree with your comment, putting it in practice with the C152 is not possible. It is very low on power and being fixed pitch prop, you have to be really careful to not exceed the red line RPM. With this plane you have to trade altitude for airspeed when doing aerobatic manoeuvres. In your comment where you say "Get the speed", it means you have to dive to get that speed (trading altitude for airspeed), in this case almost 600ft lost. That altitude is lost, you won't get it back as you don't have the power of a proper aerobatic plane like the One Design you are flying, which is probably fitted with an O-360 or something similar, producing twice (if not more) the power of the C152. When you start the 45 degree climb (at this point doing 120 kts or slightly more) you can't just give full power (full throttle). You have to bleed off some airspeed first otherwise you will overrev the engine. You can see in the video that my throttle is almost fully closed as I go into the 45 degree climb. Only when you reach about 100 kts can you slowly start to increase the throttle to full throttle to keep the RPM below the red line. Now you will be somewhere between 70 and 80 kts, just enough to do a proper half roll. By the time you rolled, there isn't much airspeed left to keep the nose up and not enough power to do anything about the declining airpseed. I do push at this point, but you can only push for a very short time, then you start to feel the buffeting and the nose gets very heavy, Time to let it drop or else... Yes, I know the risk of this manoeuvre, that is why I start at or close to 4000ft and my floor is 1500ft. BTW, have you ever done this manoeuvre in a C152?
Thanks Glenn 😊 Still need some refinement. That Immelman is particularly hard with the limited power of the 152. There is a big class G general training area to the south of Jandakot (D104C on the Perth VTC). Within that airspace there are 3 "Caution Low Level Aerobatics" areas marked on the VTC. One about 10nm south east of Jandakot, another one at Serpentine airfield, which is about 20nm south of Jandakot and the third is at Murray Field airfield which is about 27nm south of Jandakot. Murray Field has an official aerobatics box directly south of runway 09/27. I often practice there and most of the WA aerobatics competitions is held there as well. Some of my videos were taken there. The salt lakes where I fly in this video is about 15nm SSW of Jandakot, just outside of the D104C area. It is a popular aerobatics training spot. What is the setup at Moorabbin? Do you have an aerobatics box nearby? I see Moorabbin is rated the busiest training airport in Australia.
I recall an aero club instructor who'd lost a very expensive, engraved gold plated steel ball point pen which his wife had given him on their 20th wedding anniversary. He thought that he'd dropped it inside one of the club aircraft but wasn't sure. He and another club member searched the interior of that aircraft high and low. He and the CFI even asked the base engineer to carry out a more extensive search for the pen in and around the rudder area and the underside of the seats. He'd been told on more than one occasion by the CFI not to use metal pens when he went flying. Imagine his surprise when, about a year later, he was instructing in a Cessna 152A. During a stall turn that wasn't managed too well by the student, a similar thing happened, and he ended up with a steel ballpoint pen lodged between his left air muff and the head strap of his David Clark aviation headset. We were told that he was almost speechless. Here's where it gets quite bizarre. The steel ballpoint pen that got stuck there WASN'T the same pen his wife had given him. However, it was the same brand and it was also gold plated. Nobody ever claimed that pen or even reported it lost to the aero club. Whether it was because whoever had lost that pen didn't want to tell the club CFI that he/she'd been using a steel pen whilst flying, I don't know. I do recall the instructor mentioned keeping that pen ("for safe keeping until it was claimed'), and he never took it flying with him again. I guess that his wife never even noticed that there was no anniversary message engraved on it. And I do know that the CFI produced a notice which remained on the pilot briefing board next to the cross country planning desk in a corner of the clubhouse, reminding all pilots that metal pens were not to be used when flying club aircraft.
@@MyJoyInTheAir My pleasure. And thanks for the brilliant clip you posted here. It brought a few memories rolling back, and hence my recollection regarding the lost and found pens. Cheers.
Definitely not! I somehow missed this sampler when checking the cockpit before the flight. It must have been hiding in a dark corner under one of the seats.
@@grasuh The reason I mentioned that was in reference to the helicopter crash that happened within the past couple of years in which a dropped iPad got wedged in the controls, was unable to be removed, leading to a crash, which killed both occupants.
Opposite aileron is required to counteract the secondary effect of the rudder, which is a rolling motion. Applying full rudder to do the stall turn, causes quite a big rolling motion in the same direction and you have to counteract that, otherwise you will end up facing more than 180 degress opposite of your entry into the stall turn.
Ailerons neutral only in aircraft with fully symmetrical wing. Ailerons opposite rotation in a flat bottom wing or you'll roll 1/4 turn and miss heading on pull out. Reason symmetrical wing doesn't generate lift when 0 g loaded. The flat bottom wing will lift with forward speed through air. In hammer turn, outboard wing flies faster than inboard generating asymmetric lift and inducing roll
Heroes? I must have missed the part where they saved someone through an act of bravery. Oh, was it the part where there recovered the lost fuel sampler that wasn’t properly secured as it should have been in the first place? Got ya!
The plane we are flying in the video is a 152 Aerobat. The 152 was based on the 150, but they are not exactly the same. The normal 152 is not aerobatic rated. The 152 Aerobat (or A152 Aerobat) and FA152 Aerobat are the only aerobatic rated versions, certified for +6/-3Gs. They are structurally different from the normal 152.
Aerobat has a skylight, thicker wing skins in some areas. A handle to pull the door hinge pins so the door can be jettisoned for quick egress. G-meter on the panel. I'm not 100% but I believe the wing struts are beefier and the motor mount as well. All that reinforcement is the reason for 20+ pounds less useful load.
That is more or less correct. All the structural differences are nicely explained in an old promotional video from Cessna. You can watch it on RU-vid at the link below. See from 8:20 to 11:00 in the video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EbZuIkQbLos.html
@@MyJoyInTheAir thanks, didn't know the struts were from the 182. And I was off by >25% on the weight. Maybe I misremembered or the one I flew had four pounds of dirt under the carpet. 😂
