Path: mythinc!moon!well!pacbell!pacbell.com!ames!elan!jlo From: jlo@elan.Elan.COM (Jeff Lo) Newsgroups: rec.aviation Subject: PIREP: Air Combat USA Keywords: Dogfighting, expensive, fun Message-ID: <1133@elan.Elan.COM> Date: 30 Jan 92 08:46:46 GMT Reply-To: jlo@elan.elan.com (Jeff Lo) Organization: Elan Computer Group, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 105 I went to Air Combat USA last week, and I thought the folks on the net would appreciate a PIREP. First off, if you have ever had any dreams of being a fighter pilot, give it a try! It was definitely worth the $495! Air Combat USA was on TDY in San Jose for a couple of weeks, so I signed up. I arrived at the San Jose Jet Center at 1:00 PM, and was fitted for a flight suit. Myself, a 110 hr. private pilot and two others, one a 200 hr. private pilot who hadn't flown in 2 years, and the other with no pilot experience at all, were led to a conference room where we were briefed by an ex-USAF F-15 pilot on the basics of the plane, flying, formation flying, and Basic Fighter Maneuvers (BFM), known to the Navy types as Air Combat Maneuvers or ACM. He complained everybody knew this stuff as ACM (probably due to "Top Gun"), but insisted on doing everything the one true Air Force way. The things we were supposed to remember above all else coming out of the briefing were the low yo-yo (lead pursuit), the high yo-yo (lag pursuit) and tracking (pure pursuit). We were shown with the airplanes on sticks (an F/A-18 and a MiG-29) how these maneuvers would give us the advantage in a fight and how to make the kill. Also stressed was to shoot when we were behind the enemy, not necessarily just if he was in front of us. Some basic rules were thrown in (no getting closer than within 500 feet of the opponent) and we were ready to go. We were fitted with helmets and we walked out to the planes as they were being fueled. A little about the planes. They are Marchetti SF.260's. They are two seat (side-byside), single engine, retractable, 260 hp, low wing planes with a tinted sliding canopy. The planes are rated for +6 and -3 G's, although we were instructed to avoid negative G's. My instructor, "Yukon" pre-flighted, were put on our chutes and got strapped in. Once we were in, the video tape was started recording. The three planes taxied out together, we did our runups and waited for a clearance while Yukon explained a bit about the plane and it's instruments to the viewing audience. Once cleared we did a formation take off from SJC's runway 29 and we headed left for the coast. Once clear of the pattern I was handed the controls. This plane is no Cessna! It was about as resonsive as a Super Decathlon I took an acro demo in recently, but faster. You don't touch the rudder when flying this plane, it's all bank & yank. My plane flew lead and the others took up station about 500 feet off my wings. When approaching the coast, the others dropped in behind and I started a series of left and right turns so the others could get some target practice on me. Then we switched and I got some practice and targeting and a couple high and low yo-yos. By this time we were just off the coast north of Santa Cruz at 6500 feet and it was time to start the fight. Myself and one of the other guys set up for the fight while the third went off to practice and watch. We started by flying parallel courses about a 1/2 mile apart. When we were ready we turned in towards each other, and when we passed, the fight was on! We both started to go high, but we both ended up in the "death spiral", slowly descending in a turn. With some prodding I started my high and low yo-yo's and started getting the advantage on the other guy. Soon I had him in my sights and pulled the trigger, leaving him smoking. The planes do literally smoke, with the smoke trailing behind the plane and also going into the loser's cockpit to add to the total effect. This went on for 6 fights, interspersed with switching out to let the third guy in for a couple of fights, then switching again. I managed to win 3 of my 6 fights. In fact all three of us finished 3-3. The difference is amazing between in the stall buffet of a Cessna 182 when approaching an unaccelerated stall and the shaking and buffeting of the Marchetti when pulling 5-6 G's trying to out-turn the other guy. The G's take their toll too. I was grunting, tensing up my legs and abdomen to fight the G's, and the tmie I forgot to, it certainly was apparent when I started to get graying tunnel vision! Then there's trying to hold yourself up to see through the gunsight and work the stick against a few G's! Was I ever sore the next morning when I woke up! It was a workout and I was wet with sweat when we got back. And no, I didn't throw up. It seems to be negative G's that start to make me queasy, based on the one acro demo flight I took, and we maintained positive G at all times. I got a little bit more acro in while waiting for my turn to fight, a few aileron and barrel rolls plus a couple of loops. All too soon it was time to head back. Looking back, I managed to make all of the typical mistakes in the fight: staying level, not converting airspeed into altitude, not converting altitude into airspeed, running out of airspeed at the top (one near departure into a stall/spin), pointing at the opponent when he was too far off rather than trying to work the yo-yos to get into position, etc. Well, it was time to regroup and RTB. One of the other planes was flying lead, so I got to do some formation flying. I really believe what they say now about formation flying being tough. We pulled it in tight to about 50 feet separation at one point and it was really tough to keep the lead plane in the same spot without bobbing up and down, back and forth, in and out, etc. It really does require all of your concentration to fly that tight of a formation. After clearing the mountains we switched from a V formation to a right eschelon formation, with my plane being number 3. As we started the descent back to San Jose, the instructor took over and the descent was flown with about a 20-30 foot wingtip separation formation. We requested and got approval for a mid-field break entry into the pattern. We flew down runway 29, and the leader peeled off at mid-field, followed shortly thereafter by the number 2 plane, then us. This guy obviously never listened to my CFI who always said "less than 30 degrees of bank in the pattern". The break consisted of a steep bank and pulling at least 3 G's for our crosswind turn. Soon we were taxiing back and parking. All that was left was to change back into our street clothes and debrief. The debrief consisted of running all three video tapes side by side and watching both the view of the hunter and the hunted at the same time, pointing out mistakes. We all laughed and relived our battles, and then it was over. It certainly was the most expensive 1.3 hours of PIC I've logged, but it was well worth it. -- Jeff Lo - PP-ASEL & Amateur Triumph (TR6) Mechanic Elan Computer Group, Inc. jlo@elan.com, ..!{ames,uunet}!elan!jlo 888 Villa Street, Third Floor, Mountain View, CA 94041, 415-964-2200