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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 1310.PDF
"Making like a bat": the Jet Provost T.3 (above), with Fit Lt Clayton as pilot and Humphrey Wynn as pupil, in inverted flight; and, at right, going up to the top of a loop —the manoeuvre which students are encouraged to "try out tor themselves," before being told the correct procedure for this first and easiest form of aerobatics Aerobatics for Beginners . . . ab initio training on the Jet Provost; and I was fortunate enoughto have two trips with Fit Lt Clayton, who is a distinguished exponent of solo aerobatics on the JP3. On the first, we were accompanied by another Jet Provost,flown by Fit Lt John Sweet, who is also an instructor at No 2 FTS. He had with him Flight photographer Ian Macdonald, whose pic-tures illustrate this article. They were planned to show the atti- tudes of the aircraft during basic aerobatic manoeuvres, andsuccessfully capture the loop, the run-up to a stall turn (shown on the preceding page) and the beginning of a roll. We realizedfrom a preliminary discussion, however, that some manoeuvres in a rolling plane were virtually impossible to follow in an accompany-ing photographic aircraft. It was a mixed morning when we flew our first sortie, cu-nimsboiling up like mushroom-shaped thermonuclear clouds, dazzling heaps of cumulus like white candy-floss and the River Trent farbelow streaked with a sluggish detergent tide. Fit Lt Clayton put the Jet Provost through several loops for Macdonald's benefit,pulling up at about 240kt (some 20kt faster than normal), as is the procedure in formation aerobatics. For this reason, and partlybecause I am not habituated to such manoeuvres, I felt the g effect quite strongly when we pulled out of the dives. We also didseveral slow rolls, with the photographic aircraft either abreast "Over the top, the rear horizon should be watched through the canopy, and the aircraft eased out of its dive with smooth pressure on the control column"
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