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Just a few days ago I took advantage of the above-freezing temperatures here in Wisconsin and took my son flying. Currently the Taylorcraft is kept at an airport that is 40 minutes away so there is no “let’s just go for a spin” flying for us, it’s a full afternoon’s commitment. The winter can be even more challenging because normally I’d swing by the local airport quickly and plug-in the engine pre-heater, go home, and do stuff around the house for a while before flying. So when we DO go flying I try to make a full day of adventure out of it.
After launching into an empty pattern we practiced some navigating with a real paper chart (I get strange looks all the time) while observing the many snow covered farms and frozen lakes in the area from 2000’. The morning had seen thick fog and more was forecast for the evening so the inevitable cloud cover started to build after about 30 minutes of puttering around the afternoon sky. Oddly, half the sky devolved into a 3500’ broken layer and the other half was clear as a bell with the dividing line directly over us. That was when my son exclaimed “Wow, it looks like we could almost touch a cloud above us!” I decided it was a perfect opportunity to climb to an altitude above the clouds (climbing in the clear part of the sky of course) and then turn to a course that would take us into VFR above the almost overcast cloud layer for a truly spectacular view. The weather reports were wrong as we didn’t draw even with the cloud base until almost 4500’. Since we were on a roll I went ahead and climbed up to 6500’ (it only took us about 3 hours and 2 aerial refuelings for the Taylorcraft to get there) to give my kid a grand view.
My boy went on and on about being up so high, etc. We snapped some great GoPro pictures and got some videos. (Oh and how many times do we take some pictures and grab brief video shots only to look at the videos later and wonder …”no why didn’t I grab several minutes of video instead of these silly little clips?” Especially with the high quality of GoPro video, it’s almost like being there. Some things we never learn.) After about another 30 minutes of looking around I instructed the co-pilot to get out the fuel transfer check-list and configure the flight computer and bleed air system properly. We switched ‘on’ the wing tanks and topped off the half-full main. The highly reliable and accurate Acme Aerospace Fuel Indicator System 2000 indicated “Full” and we finished the checklist and configured the weapons systems for the next phase of the mission: Lazy-8’s.
Admittedly I never did a Lazy 8 before. Part of the reason for this was a combination of preconceived notions and an intense training schedule when I rolled right into IFR after getting my Private. (I madly crammed this IFR training and check-ride into a 2 month time frame some years before as I was due to transfer to Japan with the Navy and had not a moment to spare lollygagging around the sky.) The preconceived notion on Lazy 8’s was that it was just a maneuver on the Commercial check-ride designed to test your control skills and not of any useful value. I became intrigued by the Lazy 8 after seeing Matt Younkin do ‘aerobatics’ in his Beech 18 at Oshkosh where I was sure the wings on the twin engine were going to fall off. From the ground the Beech doing a Lazy 8 looks like a full-on Red Bull aerobatic move. Plus I didn’t really realize it was a Lazy 8 until I looked at some video later and figured it out.
Conversations with other pilots later at Oshkosh about Beechcraft 18’s, wing mounted fireworks, the sanity of doing aerobatics in other cool planes like Staggerwings, Beavers, 747’s, and so-on led to the inevitable discussions about Lazy 8’s (if I ever hear another pilot talk about the feasibility of doing 1-G barrel rolls in a 747 again it will be too soon). Now the conversations turned to: hardest planes to do Lazy 8’s in, anecdotal stories of failed commercial check rides due to the Lazy 8, Lazy 8’s that turned into spins, getting out of spins, using the Lazy 8 to get out of a box canyon….. Wait…that’s when the haze induced by 70th Anniversary EAA beer started to clear. I had never thought about the practical nature of the Lazy 8 when climbing out of a dead-end terrain situation. Now it all made sense and after that I was ready (after extensive reading and getting some tips from an instructor I know) to do 8’s in the Taylorcraft.
For anyone here who hasn’t done a Lazy 8 in their Taylorcraft I have to say that, done right, it is really a non-event…for the pilot. My son however thought that all we had to do was strap on a smoke generator and we’d be the hit of Oshkosh (I have a feeling that the wife might not find it so amusing). On the way up, when starting the move, it feels like the beginning of a power-on stall, which it sort-a is. The Taylorcraft doesn’t gain too much altitude before running out of steam and, provided you have dialed-in just a little bit of aileron, just lazily falls off to the side in a sort of half roll until you are headed down hill in the opposite direction. It feels like a stall without all the associated heavy back-pressure, buffeting, and drama. If done with minimal control inputs, like it’s meant to be done, you really just hang-on and keep the airplane level as it returns to your original altitude…just in the opposite direction. I’d be VERY curious to find out just how much real estate we used in doing the maneuver and plan on doing just that when I get time to download our data from the Garmin Pilot track of our flight. Doing the move up high, above a broken cloud layer definitely made for some spectacular views.
For the last few days, doing ‘aerobatics’ in the Taylorcraft is all my kid talks about. It was a lot of fun and the wings are still on the plane. The wife hasn’t said anything one way or the other about wanting to try a Lazy 8 when we fly next time so we will have to see (I might just have to do one with her ‘by accident’). One thing for sure though is that I think I will need to wear a WW1 Flying Ace leather helmet next time. I still plan to avoid all those box canyons in Wisconsin however. Tip: The move is easy if you just make sure to have a tiny bit of bank induced as you reach the top of the 'mountain.' This will ensure that the plane smoothly rolls to the side into the 8, as opposed to going straight-up into a power-on stall. Unlike a stall, you WANT the plane to NOT be wings-level,,,that's the whole point. The airplane will just slowly roll off to the side BEFORE a stall occurs and head in the opposite direction. Don't be scared, spins happen when you struggle to KEEP the wings level in a real stall and then crank on the ailerons in the opposite direction of your dropping wing. If you are trying to 'drive' the plane through the move you are doing it wrong. There should be almost no inputs at all. Doing it to the right is a bit harder because of the propeller spinning away up front, by the way.
After launching into an empty pattern we practiced some navigating with a real paper chart (I get strange looks all the time) while observing the many snow covered farms and frozen lakes in the area from 2000’. The morning had seen thick fog and more was forecast for the evening so the inevitable cloud cover started to build after about 30 minutes of puttering around the afternoon sky. Oddly, half the sky devolved into a 3500’ broken layer and the other half was clear as a bell with the dividing line directly over us. That was when my son exclaimed “Wow, it looks like we could almost touch a cloud above us!” I decided it was a perfect opportunity to climb to an altitude above the clouds (climbing in the clear part of the sky of course) and then turn to a course that would take us into VFR above the almost overcast cloud layer for a truly spectacular view. The weather reports were wrong as we didn’t draw even with the cloud base until almost 4500’. Since we were on a roll I went ahead and climbed up to 6500’ (it only took us about 3 hours and 2 aerial refuelings for the Taylorcraft to get there) to give my kid a grand view.
My boy went on and on about being up so high, etc. We snapped some great GoPro pictures and got some videos. (Oh and how many times do we take some pictures and grab brief video shots only to look at the videos later and wonder …”no why didn’t I grab several minutes of video instead of these silly little clips?” Especially with the high quality of GoPro video, it’s almost like being there. Some things we never learn.) After about another 30 minutes of looking around I instructed the co-pilot to get out the fuel transfer check-list and configure the flight computer and bleed air system properly. We switched ‘on’ the wing tanks and topped off the half-full main. The highly reliable and accurate Acme Aerospace Fuel Indicator System 2000 indicated “Full” and we finished the checklist and configured the weapons systems for the next phase of the mission: Lazy-8’s.
Admittedly I never did a Lazy 8 before. Part of the reason for this was a combination of preconceived notions and an intense training schedule when I rolled right into IFR after getting my Private. (I madly crammed this IFR training and check-ride into a 2 month time frame some years before as I was due to transfer to Japan with the Navy and had not a moment to spare lollygagging around the sky.) The preconceived notion on Lazy 8’s was that it was just a maneuver on the Commercial check-ride designed to test your control skills and not of any useful value. I became intrigued by the Lazy 8 after seeing Matt Younkin do ‘aerobatics’ in his Beech 18 at Oshkosh where I was sure the wings on the twin engine were going to fall off. From the ground the Beech doing a Lazy 8 looks like a full-on Red Bull aerobatic move. Plus I didn’t really realize it was a Lazy 8 until I looked at some video later and figured it out.
Conversations with other pilots later at Oshkosh about Beechcraft 18’s, wing mounted fireworks, the sanity of doing aerobatics in other cool planes like Staggerwings, Beavers, 747’s, and so-on led to the inevitable discussions about Lazy 8’s (if I ever hear another pilot talk about the feasibility of doing 1-G barrel rolls in a 747 again it will be too soon). Now the conversations turned to: hardest planes to do Lazy 8’s in, anecdotal stories of failed commercial check rides due to the Lazy 8, Lazy 8’s that turned into spins, getting out of spins, using the Lazy 8 to get out of a box canyon….. Wait…that’s when the haze induced by 70th Anniversary EAA beer started to clear. I had never thought about the practical nature of the Lazy 8 when climbing out of a dead-end terrain situation. Now it all made sense and after that I was ready (after extensive reading and getting some tips from an instructor I know) to do 8’s in the Taylorcraft.
For anyone here who hasn’t done a Lazy 8 in their Taylorcraft I have to say that, done right, it is really a non-event…for the pilot. My son however thought that all we had to do was strap on a smoke generator and we’d be the hit of Oshkosh (I have a feeling that the wife might not find it so amusing). On the way up, when starting the move, it feels like the beginning of a power-on stall, which it sort-a is. The Taylorcraft doesn’t gain too much altitude before running out of steam and, provided you have dialed-in just a little bit of aileron, just lazily falls off to the side in a sort of half roll until you are headed down hill in the opposite direction. It feels like a stall without all the associated heavy back-pressure, buffeting, and drama. If done with minimal control inputs, like it’s meant to be done, you really just hang-on and keep the airplane level as it returns to your original altitude…just in the opposite direction. I’d be VERY curious to find out just how much real estate we used in doing the maneuver and plan on doing just that when I get time to download our data from the Garmin Pilot track of our flight. Doing the move up high, above a broken cloud layer definitely made for some spectacular views.
For the last few days, doing ‘aerobatics’ in the Taylorcraft is all my kid talks about. It was a lot of fun and the wings are still on the plane. The wife hasn’t said anything one way or the other about wanting to try a Lazy 8 when we fly next time so we will have to see (I might just have to do one with her ‘by accident’). One thing for sure though is that I think I will need to wear a WW1 Flying Ace leather helmet next time. I still plan to avoid all those box canyons in Wisconsin however. Tip: The move is easy if you just make sure to have a tiny bit of bank induced as you reach the top of the 'mountain.' This will ensure that the plane smoothly rolls to the side into the 8, as opposed to going straight-up into a power-on stall. Unlike a stall, you WANT the plane to NOT be wings-level,,,that's the whole point. The airplane will just slowly roll off to the side BEFORE a stall occurs and head in the opposite direction. Don't be scared, spins happen when you struggle to KEEP the wings level in a real stall and then crank on the ailerons in the opposite direction of your dropping wing. If you are trying to 'drive' the plane through the move you are doing it wrong. There should be almost no inputs at all. Doing it to the right is a bit harder because of the propeller spinning away up front, by the way.
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