Having a ball at the Carolina Boogie Aerobatic Competition! (Taken with instagram)

Aerobatics at Chandler Air Service

Dinner at Lil’Abners! (Taken with instagram)

Pima Air and Space Museum! (Taken with instagram)

Dinner in downtown Tuscon! (Taken with instagram)

It’s a moment I’m going to remember forever. My instructor Jason and I had leveled out at 3,500’ above the town of Chandler, Arizona. The wind whipped around the edges of the small plexiglass windscreen in front of me and snapped at the sleeves of my shirt. Jason had let me have the controls for the flight from the airport as we made our climb to altitude. Our airplane, an open cockpit Great Lakes 2T-1-A2 biplane dating back to the late ’70s, is a nimble bird wanting only the slightest hint of a control input to roll into a bank or pitch up into a climb. Once we were safely in the confines of the aerobatic practice box, Jason took back the controls in the rear cockpit. He instructed me to look straight ahead. Keeping my eyes fixed on the horizon, I felt the airplane bank to the left. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, past sixty degrees of bank, steadily the earth and sky switched places. I became light in the seat and felt my weight press against the two belts secured about my waist. The roll continued and soon we passed through sixty, fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, and finally leveled out once again. I had just experienced my first departure from “normal” flight: an aileron roll. 

Next Jason gave the controls back to me. Telling me that he would handle the rudders and the throttle, he talked me through another aileron roll. First I pitched the nose down. The wind whistled louder as we accelerated to 120mph. A momentary pitch up to level and then a firm pull up to a nose high attitude. Stick all the way to the left and hold it there. Once again the earth and sky switched places as the biplane rolled all the way around. As the earth and sky once again reached their usual places, I centered the stick and returned to straight and level flight. 

What a rush! For the next twenty minutes, Jason walked me through and demonstrated a full routine of aerobatic figures. A classic loop started with a push to accelerate to 130mph, an aggressive pull and a handful of “G’s” as first sky and then earth filled my view. A half cuban eight started with 5/8’s of a loop followed by a roll upright on the 45 degree downline. A hammerhead turn started with a pull to a vertical line, our airspeed bled off until the aircraft was almost at the stall, then Jason put in full left rudder and the Great Lakes pivoted around into a vertical descent. To cap off the flight, Jason pulled the throttle back to idle and pitched up. As the aircraft slowed, he fed in full left rudder and the biplane gracefully arced over into a spin. One and a half turns later, Jason applied opposite rudder to stop the spin, leveled the airplane and we turned back towards the airport. 

As much fun as our flight had been, the small flock of butterflies filling my stomach told me it was definitely time to call it a day. Jason greased the airplane onto the runway, taxied in, and shut the biplane down. From engine start to engine shutdown the flight had only lasted thirty minutes, but I’m still feeling the adrenaline from it. It was absolutely incredible to be in an aircraft that was just as happy wings level as arcing through the top half of a loop. My perspective on aviation has been irreversibly altered. No longer do Earth and sky necessarily have to stay on their respective sides of the horizon. No longer does a steep bank have to stop at fifty degrees of bank. I don’t know when it will be, but I can’t wait until my next chance to take to the sky in an aerobatic biplane and turn the world upside down. 

First aerobatic flight! In a Great Lakes biplane at Chandler Air Service. (Taken with instagram)

Yes, I am in Tucson and yes, those are sopapillas from Casa Molina :) (Taken with instagram)

Fifi! The B-29 :)

One last picture of the E2, now it’s back to NC and “real life” (Taken with instagram)