Electric reality?
Technical
Thinking about adding an Aerobatics Rating to your PPL? Leia Fee did just that with Ultimate High…
Good times roll… Shades on! Leia and Ultimate High boss Mark ‘Greeners’ Greenfield at Goodwood
I
t was, according to my instructor, more of a ‘toilet roll’ than a barrel. Day five of my aerobatics rating and I’d swapped from not rolling promptly enough on aileron rolls to rolling too soon and fast on barrel rolls. I laughed. I’d have laughed at anything by now. My brain had never been so tired. During the day, at the airfield and in the sky was one thing – interest and adrenaline and frantically clutched concentration just about doing their job – but in the evenings I was a dazed wreck, casting about for easy calories and as much sleep as I could get. But right now we were rolling about the sky, above scattered summer clouds, green coast and blue sea – and I was having a blast. There’d been a fair amount of laughing throughout. In fact I’d say an ability to laugh at your mistakes is pretty much an essential element for the course. “That was quite a tidy loop.” I smiled happily then hesitated, hearing the amusement behind the words. “I was meant to fly a half Cuban. Not another loop.” Three times we did that one. Three. The idea was a loop, then a half Cuban, then an aileron roll as a little mini sequence. Would my brain remember it? It would not. That we’d got here at all almost came as a surprise. At the end of the second day, and four flights into the course, I was feeling really, properly rough and having any number of intestinal doubts about whether or not this had been a good idea. My hand was actually on ‘The Bag’ by the time we returned that day and it was hard to entirely believe the reassurances that my tolerance would improve. To be upside down a few days later with capacity to remark on the fact I’d forgotten to roll the right way up early enough and what I was Left There’s ground school as well as flying
38 | FLYER | February 2022
