I was watching a video of a guy flying a really neat Cessna Citation at Top Gun.....pretty cool looking. His name was Ali or Al something. Really smooth pilot.

My question is, is it generally ok to fly low level circles or would this be sort of a "one time" show exception?. Reason I ask is I tipically try to fly a full scale like show pattern and it includes some low level hard turns.
I was practicing my "sequence" one day and my club Safety Officer (at the time) gave me crap about pointing the aircraft towards the flight line. Since I was doing a full circle, yes at one point the aircraft was pointing towards the pitts, but for just .025 seconds??.

Anyway I stopped doing that turn manouver so low from then on. But I always kept the feeling that the Safety Officer was just bullying me 'cuase there were other pilots standing next to me and they told me that they saw nothing wrong and they actually liked the manouver.

How do you guys view this?

Thanks,
David

I was there when Ali and Shulman do those circles, I can't compare many guys to those pilots, they are good. but a plane is just a plane and they can all fail. when and where, who knows.

do they do pylon flying at your field? what's the difference and whats more likely to fail? pylon planes scare the poop out of me!

Way i look at it.. anytime the airplane is over the runway or turning the plane to land, it poses a "hazard". Only way to eliminate all the hazards is to not fly. I think he's being a little over anal (if it was a non crowded day). But if it was a crowded day then, it would probly be best to not do a low slow circle, as they probly do pose a bit more of a safety problem than if you were up at altitude.

Exactly Sean, except that they wear those fancy helmets when they do, whatever they are good for!
[8D]

That sounds right. I am actually more concerned about an aileron servo failing during ANY part of the flight and the jet balsting across the flight line than flying the low circle.
But I guess it only takes once to really F*&^ up for everyone else right?

IMHO - you should always align your flight path so that if sh%t happens, your chances of impacting in a dangerous area (pits, spectators, etc) are minimized. This is true with any RC plane, but most importantly, to a far greater degree with our fat. heavy, high energy potential jets. Radios lock out, rough air happens, airframes fail, and batteries die.... why take the chance?

I have seen some of the truly hot sticks fly low, hard, and fast, but the best (and the ones I respect and try to learn from) always turn away from the crowd, always have a safe "OUT" plan (i.e if something goes wrong, where/what direction do I go in - safely?), are always two steps ahead of the plane, and don't take un-neccesary risks. They put on awesome shows, but do it in a smart manner. To me, that shows a truly impressive level of skill - more so than the guy who does 360's at full pop 10' off the ground, with the jet pointed right at the flightline through at least a quarter of the circle.

There's also a few that cause me to seek hard shelter whenever they go up... just in case.

My $0.02...

Barry

i do alot of airshows and im allso the safty guy low circles not a prob but now when you have one doing 100+ give or take us common sense dont turn into the croud anything can happen and it up to you to keep safe just my 2 cents

When ever you do a circle or a circuit, you will be facing the pits at some point during the turn in along the runway. There are two ways to minimize the time that the nose of your jet is pointing at the pits..... one is to do a split S over the runway, the other is to do the turn in (towards the runway) farther out.. If you are doing 360's directly in front of the pits, then the nose-in exposure could be a quarter turn or more, whereas if you were a hundred yards to the left, say, that exposure could be only 5 or 10 degrees of the circle.... That maybe what the safety guy was getting at.......dunno..a lot depends on the circumstances at the time..how many planes in the air, what type and capabilities, was anyone waiting to fly, how close to the flightline you were flying...etc etc etc....
However, I would rather see a jet go through that quarter turn in a couple of seconds than stand in front of a guy with a 40% yak trying to do his first rolling circle.... You could be looking at that big prop for 10 or 15 seconds....which poses the greater danger ???


The circling itself certainly isn't dangerous, in fact it is used in several elements and maneuvers in Scalemasters and IMAC.

Precsiely Wayne, in scale competitions one of the most difficult manouvers is the figure 8. This si the manouver that I try to ressembl, except it has an "outside" roll at the intersection point.

Look at 0:28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNIcuLGC5eE