February 2013 - International Aerobatic Club

Villela cooking.Everyone is invited to the table.Villela and I, along with our interpreter,son Renato, sat down for ourfirst ground school for some acro.Renato, bless his heart, is not apilot. He is, though, a patient andgood-natured sort that was the onlyreason Villela and I could communicateat all. We painstakingly inchedour way through my initial groundinstruction, over an hour’s worth ofmaterial in just under three and ahalf hours! Villela is a 15,000-hourhands-on flier, but if I’ve learnedanything in the acro instructionbusiness, it’s don’t assume nothing!High-time guys are flying on wellearnedmuscle memory and need agood refresher on the fundamentalseven more than a new private pilot.Poor ol’ Renato had to figure out justwhat I was talking about and thenget it across to Villela in Portuguese;a slow process for sure.We did get one thing figured out.We were not going to have any communicationin the cockpit. So we establisheda short “key words” list onpaper to take along and outlined thecourse of our lesson plan while wewere on the ground in front of Renatofor help. With a plan for flight lessonnumber one we were on a mission.After a few turns and a stall, lessonone was on its way and goingsmooth. Anyone who knowsme might remember my favoritewarm-up maneuver. It’s a left andright wing-over thing that resemblesa lazy-eight. Mine is a big maneuverwith almost 90 degrees of pitchand bank, so I call it a crazy-eight.It looks like a kid on a skateboard ina half-pipe. It’s a great way to teachgood orientation and to teach studentsto move their head around tokeep a reference in sight. Villela hadhis lesson plan list in his hands, sowhen we got to that part he pointedto this maneuver, looked back at mefor a nod, and then turned aroundand started ripping through this maneuverin his best crop duster style.You can just imagine how well acrop duster could do this crazy-eight.Villela and his wife.www.iac.org 21