Gnat down at CarFest

[jim's brother]

Wander00,

The twinkle roll, fuse 13, and the Arrows are all covered in the post here, to which I referred.

In that thread, northwing says:

Everyone was happy, not to mention legal, till an ex Red Arrow who had returned to instructional duties flying a Gnat with Fuse 13 in place developed an unusual demonstration for his students. He decided to show them how fast a Gnat could roll by applying full (12deg, fuse in) lateral stick and helping the aircraft round with rudder. He thought this was OK because he did it within the restricted Red Arrows rolling limits. The fin, however, had other views about full rudder at 350 knots and broke in protest. The RAF system then missed the point, over-reacted and insisted that everybody fly with Fuse 13 in place. End of super formation twinkle rolls.

I remember once being told by my Gnat QFI that my flying wasn't "punchy" enough. In response, on the next trip, I punchily "twinkle" rolled as we climbed out of the A5 pass, which resulted in a pretty one-sided debrief about carrying out aerobatics at low level - especially when that results in one's QFI's head banging rapidly on both sides of the canopy. He was quite right, though - I simply didn't have the experience to do that sort of thing - which pretty well illustrates my point about the importance of close supervision of the young pilot who thinks he is just fantastic.