My two eldest children gave me an Adrenalin gift pack for my 60th Birthday back in September, so today was the big day. We drove down
to Camden airport where Curtis Aviation operate a Pitts S-2B, arriving 30 minutes early to have a quick look around before the flight.
After being introduced to Tim, who would be my pilot today, he pushed the Pitts out of the hanger and conpleted the pre-flight checks. I
had forgotten how compact an aircraft the Pitts is, with only a 6.1 mtr wingspan and 5.71 mtr long. The standard Pitts has a 185hp
powerplant, however the B model had a Textron Lycoming AEIO-540-D4A5 flat-six air cooled piston engine, 260 hp (194 kW), and some
amazing performance.
As you would expect, the two seats are a tight fit, and although over 6ft tall, I still required two additional seat cushions to be at the
right hight, allowing a small amount of clearance from the canopy. Leg room and rudder pedal position were fine. Strapping in is a five
point harness, nice and tight, with a second lap harness over the top.
Almost ready to go, Tim ran back inside to get the video camera that clips onto the top of the instrument panel in front of me. Can't
wait to see the video.
Ready for engine start.
Taxiing out from Curtis Aviation to Runway 06, very little visibility over the nose, so you need to be very careful, and angle the aircraft
to see a little out each side. Before we started rolling on Runway 06, I turned the video camera on and pressed record.
Because of the glider activitity around the airport we had to head a bit south for some clear sky and some aerobatic manouvres. At 2500ft
I took over the controls to get a feel for the aircraft, which was very responsive, only requiring small movments on the stick for some gentle
turns to the right and left. Tim then demonstrated the roll technique, clear sky and 100kts plus on entry, raise the nose 20 degrees, release
the weight of the stick, and then push in the aileron for a quick roll to the left. After a second demonstration, I had a couple of goes, a little
slow in the roll on the first one, then not to bad on the second. The roll is quite a nice manouvre, only 1.5G and you just need to get your
head around the world rotating in front of your face.
Tim then did a couple of loops, a bit over 3G on the way up, back to normal at the top, and then more G on the way down and out. Next
was a couple of stall turns, up into the vertical until all the speed was gone, then a flick turn back into a vertical dive and out again. For
some precision work Tim did a four point roll, with a short stop at the three, six, nine and twelve position. Finally we did a knife edge like
the Red Bull guys, wings vertical and producing zero lift, with some rudder kicked in to hold the nose up a little.
Time now to head back to Camden approaching from the southeast, overlying the airport and joining downwind for Runway 28.
On approach for Runway 28 (grass), and you need to do a full on sideslip all the way in to have any visibility of the runway at all. The
runway is to the right.
Tim straightened up from the sideslip in the flare for a nice touchdown on the grass, altough the centre part of the surface is quite rough.
Taxiing back in to the Curtis hanger.
Again, climbing out of the front seat is a tricky process, there is a hand hold on the upper wing to grab onto, and pull yourself up on top
of the fuselage between the two seats. From here it is one leg at a time over the fuselage and back to terra firma.
What an amazing ride, first time in a tail dragger, first time with a stick and not a yoke, first time aerobatics, and bonus, I get to enter
the Pitts S-2B in my log book as dual aerobatics.