Aeros in a Chipmunk

My folks gave me a Red Balloon voucher for my birthday last year for a short 30min aerobatic flight in a 1950's trainer Chipmunk!
The plane seemed always to be getting repaired every time I booked but finally the planets aligned and I was booked!
I headed out to Camden on a crisp clear Sunday morning and after a quick briefing from Doug on how to get out if we end up upside down on the ground, unnerving but good to know, off we took.
As I have my licence, I was allowed to fly out to the training area and I must say she is a very stable bird! I enjoyed having a stick it made a change from the yoke style Cessna and Piper aircraft I usually fly.

Once out in the training area, we warmed up with an aileron roll, then into a hammerhead/stall turn, then a loop, then a barrel roll and back to a loop. After becoming vertical from a hammerhead, we got the aircraft a little inverted, and as the engine wasn't built for being inverted, it well, ah stopped.... The next thing that happened was it wouldn't tip back again to regain elevator control! Picture being vertical, slightly inverted, pointed towards the ground at approx 3000ft with a stopped engine and stalled wings, er interesting to say the least!

I must say I did enjoy the different perspectives, and while I don't think aeros are for me, I certainly can see an advantage to learning how to recover from those sorts of angles.

Thanks for reading.

Harbour Bridge Scenic 2 and a first

I took a friend of mine out for a quick Harbour Scenic on the weekend, the wx was incredible and only very mild mechanical turbulence for once! This made for an incredibly enjoyable flight, hands off, easy to trim for the whole ride! I'm definitely getting better with each flight, find myself getting ahead of the aircraft, remembering more of the checklists from memory and improving my situational awareness.

It was nice to have it run so smooth, however my friend did get air sick, a first for me to have a pax actually use the sick bag! I must say it adds some stress to the situation, along with a smell and learning to still focus on the job at hand while taking care of a sick pax! Great training though, I'm sure in small GA ops there will be lot's more of this to come!