Why all these aerobatics?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

This post describes eight of the most difficult aerobatics - how they are done, when they were first performed and why they are needed at all.

Bell Kvochura

How

The aircraft lifts the nose up at zero speed, and then rolls it down, imitating the movement of a bell tongue. Hence the name of the figure.

The figure was first presented in 1988 at the Farnborough Air Show in England. Test pilot Anatoly Kvochur was at the helm of the fourth generation MiG-29 fighter.

Initially, the bell was regarded as a maneuver in which the fighter becomes invisible to missiles with radar guidance to the target. Nowadays, this figure can be seen not in battles, but during the performances of the aerobatic teams "Swifts", "Russian Knights", "Rus".

Barrel

The aircraft rotates 360 degrees around its horizontal axis. Depending on the number of revolutions, the barrel can be single, one and a half and multiple.

The maneuver was first performed by the American Daniel Maloney in 1905. During World War II, this figure saved more than one life.

Three times Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Pokryshkin once watched the flight of inexperienced pilots. One of them decided to make a barrel, but at the same time significantly lost speed and dived down. At that moment, the pilot flying after him rushed forward and the acrobat was on his tail. Pokryshkin and his colleagues dubbed the figure a "tub" and more than once used the technique in the fight against Nazi aviation. Now the barrel is included in the complex of figures performed in airplane sport competitions.

Immelman

The aircraft makes a combat turn - a half roll in the upper part of the half loop.

The figure was first performed on a Fokker E. III monoplane by 25-year-old German Max Immelmann in 1915 during the First World War. This maneuver allowed Immelman to be above and behind the enemy aircraft, although they had previously been on a collision course. During the year of flights, Immelman shot down 15 enemy aircraft, and the British pilots, only seeing that the German took off, went to land.

The Immelman figure began to be taught in flight schools. And today it is one of the basic figures that all military pilots should be able to do.

Flat corkscrew

The plane descends in a steep downward spiral of a small radius.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a corkscrew was the main cause of death of pilots. It was believed that it was impossible to get out of the tailspin. But on September 24, 1916, the pilot Konstantin Artseulov on the Nieuport-XXI plane at an altitude of 2000 meters deliberately put the plane into a tailspin and got out of it. The next day, Artseulov submitted a report to the leadership of the Sevastopol Aviation School, in which he proposed introducing a corkscrew into the training program.

Nowadays, this once deadly figure is practiced in all aviation schools on propeller driven aircraft, it is included in the regulations of airplane sport competitions. However, in Russia, the execution of a spin on jet fighters is prohibited for safety reasons, they only perform a flat spin. Despite the fact that they learned to deal with the corkscrew, it still takes lives.

Chakra Frolov

A figure in which an airplane turns around its tail at low speed, forming a loop with a very small turning radius.

It was first shown to the public on the Su-37 fighter by Evgeny Frolov in 1995 at the Le Bourget air show.

The figure is named after an ancient Indian weapon, which is a ring with a cutting inner edge. The Frolov chakra can only be performed on airplanes with a variable thrust vector. The figure was not used during air combat. It is demonstrated during demonstration performances at exhibitions and aviation celebrations, proving the aerodynamic excellence of the Russian 4+ generation fighters.

Hammerhead

The plane goes up with a candle, hovers in the air and, turning its nose to the ground, goes down.

It is believed that the figure was first performed by a German pilot, world aerobatics champion and aircraft designer Gerhard Fieseler in the late 1920s.

Using this figure during aerial combat is tantamount to signing oneself a death warrant. A plane hovering in the air becomes an ideal target for the enemy. But during the demonstration flights, the vertical turn causes a stir among the audience, because it looks very impressive. This figure is part of the set of exercises in airplane sports, but jet fighters do not perform it.

The figure of Pugachev

A figure in which the nose of the aircraft rises up to 110 degrees (on the Su-27, on the Su-37 - up to 180 degrees) in relation to the direction of travel, and then descends back.

It was first performed in a test flight by Honored Pilot of the USSR Igor Volk. The cobra was demonstrated to the general public by Viktor Pugachev at the international salon in French Le Bourget in 1989. When the Su-27 fighter of the Russian pilot turned up its nose sharply, the organizers of the air show decided that there was a failure in the system and the aircraft was about to fall. But the plane did not go into a tailspin, but flew in the same direction. For mastering new technology, Pugachev received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and the figure, despite the fact that it was invented by another pilot, received the name of the first demonstrator.

The maneuver is suitable for avoiding not only an enemy fighter, but also missiles with infrared homing heads. However, the cobra has not yet been used in combat.

Ranversman

The figure is done in much the same way as a hammerhead, but not with hovering, but with a turn on a hill (aerobatics figure, when the plane is gaining altitude with a constant angle of inclination).

Presumably overturning (this is how the name of the figure is translated from French), or a turn on the hill (under this name the figure is known in Russia), appeared in the 1930s. The difference between the maneuvers of the ranversman and the hammerhead is that the plane leaves the enemy heading on a collision course, not strictly vertically, but at an angle of 50-60 °, up the hill.

Those pilots who could handle this difficult figure gained an advantage in battle. After all, it can be applied during attacking and counterattacking actions, it allows you to quickly change the direction of flight without losing altitude.