Recently a topic digressed into the merits of "fish-tailing" to restart an engine in flight.
Saturday last I was participating in an aerobatic competition. Underneath me is an 800 metre runway and despite the very strong cross wind I've landed on it from glide approaches twice in the past few hours.
During the first unknown sequence my engine stopped.......
Figure one was a downwind roll of the top to firure two a one turn erect spin to figure three a half Cuban.
I had entered the aerobatic box at 1600', 2600rpm/160mph. Because I was going downwind I was really steaming through the box, pulled up into a half loop, right rudder, full left aileron and rolled erect on the reciprocal heading at about 80mph and at a nose-bleeding 2300'.
Power to flight idle, keep pitching the nose up to arrest any tendency to descend until I can feel the buffet - quick ASI check shows 60mph, stick almost full back. Full left rudder and the stick fully back should have been the next thing to do BUT the aeroplane decided that it wanted to spin to the right - just as it began to depart I hoofed in bags load of left pedal and brought the stick fully back.
The aeroplane began to spin but I noticed that something wasn't right - somebody had turned the music off!
After half a turn I began to feed in forward stick to make the spin exit more vertical.
Then and only then did I realise that whoever had turned the music off had left a piece of wood strapped to the front of the aeroplane where the propeller disc should be.....£*** me that is the propeller
Confusion really began - what to do, what to do? At this stage I am lying in fifth place and a good unknown sequence should see me with a podium place.
Should I try and restart the engine with the key?
Should I complete the spin power off then pull to the horizontal then restart before the next figure and hope I had sufficient speed for a half Cuban?
Should I abandon the sequence and land and explain that a technical problem caused me to abort - the rules do allow for this.
By this stage the aeroplane is heading downhill, picking up speed and I realise that I've over-rotated by 180 degrees and will have scored zero for this maneouver.......preservation takes over and I stop the spin and concentrate on building the speed. At 1200' I am doing 110mph and the prop hasn't moved, milliseconds later I am through 1000' and nearer to 125mph and still nothing.
At 800' I decide that if nothing has happened by 500', I shall pull out of the dive and set up a circuit to land from. This does not overly faze me. What fazes me is my inability to move my left hand from the throttle and forward 13" to the starter key.
At 700' - like a bolt from the blue I realise that fishtailing might help. I press right rudder and then left and suddenly the dead stick starts to flick over, one blade, two blades and roars into life.
I pull to horizontal just under 600' and with almost 150mph on the ASI.
I performed three wing rocks to signify that I was breaking my sequence. I then re-positioned myself and after a further 3 wing rocks flew the rest of the sequence.
Unfortunately the stationary prop blunted my concentration and the rest of the sequence was not flown with the necessary accuracy to maintain my placing.
I landed after the sequence and gave a silent thanks to the good burghers of Pprune for mentioning FISHTAILING recently. It certainly saved me some embarrasment!
Stik
ps - I didn't come last!!