I have been following a thread on a non UK forum where they have been speculating on the cause of a crash that killed a very well known world aerobatic pilot. One of the comments made was that the pilot may have had an intermittent engine problem. So my question is; how critical is the engine in the recovery from these extreme manoeuvres? I don't like aerobatics and while I had to do spinning to get my PPL I have only done a couple of loops since then. To my mind the key to recovery is speed? Do these extreme aircraft like the Extra need the burst of power to get out of manoeuvres? For example, the flat spin? If they had an engine failure in a routine, is it not just a simple case of recovery with out power and then execute the forced landing?
Would be interested to hear comments from those that fly the extreme stuff. I assume there are such pilots subscribed to EuroGa?
Thanks.
I do some aerobatics instruction/trial lesson in a Firefly T67M - very tame though, aiming to only pull 3 1/2 +G and 1 1/2 -G. Power setting is 25 squared, although FT/2500 also used. Base altitude is 2500' so engine failure should not be critical, leading to a forced landing. Engine failure in an unlimited competition with a base of 100 metres would be critical, although there should be enough energy at the base to establish a glide approach.
I know very little about aerobatics, other than having gone up for just a few rides in a Pitts special and an Extra. An intermittent engine fault has consequences whatever your type of flying, and shouldn't be specific to aerobatics. Generally aerobatic aircraft have more robust fuel supply systems so they can pump, filter and process fuel inverted, and I would have thought (and looking forward to hear from someone in the know) that most manoeuvres relied upon excess airspeed to get back into a positive situation than absolutely requiring power.
