Extreme Skill

So... basically, if the CGI folks had done a bit more research, they could have pulled this off?

aeronca65t wrote: Nice stuff! My old Aeronca is like the GrandFather of the Citabria. I flew a Citabria with 180 HP once...nice!

Air-knocker FTW!

180hp Citabria! Wow, don't I wish I had that kind of power in the Clipper. I suspect my Miata has more HP than the Clipper did. Flying that thing over the rockies was really interesting. Or take-off's in Wyoming where I get about 100 ft above the runway elevation and then go hunting for thermals.

Somehow I managed to get that old bucket up to something like 11k. My family kept asking me how I managed that. I didn't know.

Ian F wrote: So... basically, if the CGI folks had done a bit more research, they could have pulled this off?

Not if they wanted their logo to be readable. The airplane would probably cartwheel and roll into a ball.

That just made me think of airplane accidents I've personally seen. I've seen guys ground-loop a taildragger. Which happens. But I've also seen two fatal crashes.

First was at a local airport. Warm day, high elevation, airplane substantially over max gross weight. Guy tried to take off, couldn't get enough speed and realized it too late. He tried to slow the airplane down near the end of the runway. Runway was on a small plateau. He slid off the end, nose down, and the tail flipped over trapping him inside. Airplane caught fire, and no one could get him out. If he'd either slowed down earlier he would have been fine. If he'd kept the throttle in, he probably would have skipped off the end so that the plane landed on it's belly and he would have been able to get out.

Second was at Oshkosh. Group of old fighter planes trying to take-off in formation. There was a problem and the take-off was aborted. One guy in back didn't notice this and kept the throttle in. His wing connected with another plane and got ripped off. The lift from the other wing flipped his plane onto the one he'd collided with. The pilots of both planes were killed.

My dad had a student that died. Sadly he took his family with him. No one was surprised that he died. Although he was good at controlling the plane, he'd earned the nickname "Gotta-Go". He wouldn't exercise judgement to check conditions and be sure it was safe to fly. He flew into weather and buried his plane into the side of a hill.

My worst situation flying was finding myself over the Appalachians on a completely overcast night. That was really scary.