If a person decides to advance in acrobatics. I recommend practicing rolling 360s in a fully acrobatic aircraft. A low g maneuver that won't beat you up and is much like golf in that you will never get one good enough. To be truly acrobatic is to know which control moves the nose in the desired direction regardless of attitude. Achieving that level makes one a truly comfortable airline pilot. Initial aerobatic training is to enter maneuver then to ride through it. That is stunt pilot stuff and not the flying of a pro. In this site there are pictures of an F14 in a spin which reminds me of the movie Top Gun. Art Scholl was killed in that movie. The director wanted a flat spin, I've heard an inverted one, either way it was so much horse hockey because the audience can not tell the difference between an upright, an inverted or a flat spin. I've been in a lot of spins following a botched maneuver and I can't tell the difference until I see the nose position relative to the ground. Scholl was an excellent pilot who also taught aerodynamics at college. His death shows you can't learn enough. Considering ones flying career spans 40 plus years. Learning as much about flying as one can is not a bad idea, because if you are honest you'll never be as good a pilot as you want to be.

 

X2. It's a large airplane by any standards except airliners. It's actually in the FAA Large category by weight.

 

It is believed (as the wreckage and Art’s body were never recovered) that either the Panavision camera broke loose (I’ve read it was mounted over the top wing), or a rudder cable broke.

 

I never figured out why he didn't jump and wonder if the camera collapsed on top of him. So many of the aerobat guys died. Hoover seemed to fly forever. The knock on him was that he never pushed it, but to me he was a true airman and a true showman, he made the crowd appreciate airmanship and not this hacking around in the sky we see so often. Another guy I liked was an AA pilot based in Chicago.Flew a big Stearman with 4 ailerons and a big engine. He flew that doggie Stearman as sweet as one of us could fly the Pitts. He was a real pilot I think he was the first guy to do a vertical figure 8. At least he flew it well. I'd rather not say how many times I have fallen out of that maneuver.

 

So many of those air show died flying—Hal Krier, Frank Tallman, Paul Mantz, Neil Williams, and, of course, Art Scholl. I flew the US Team over the World’s once in a C-5.



GF

 

Tallman, of course, died scud running in a light twin. His partner Paul Mantz died in the breakup of an experimental being flown for the filming of Flight of the Phoenix.

 

I was in Yuma and flew over the the Mantz wreck right after it happened. I had heard he had had a few drinks, caught a skid and flipped. Tallman, I heard, hit Saddleback which is the final resting place for many airmen, but I don't know the details and would like to. I took up aerobatics as a defensive maneuver because as a copilot I was regularly paired with a Captain that did not belong in Flight Test and I was afraid he would put us on our back. He eventually ended his career by destroying an airplane. Flying requires an honest effort, though a bit of luck is always welcomed.

 

You are correct about Mantz dragging a skid; only speculation about the drinking.

Tallman was supposed to fly the Phoenix but had hurt his leg in a minor go-kart incident with his son. Mantz flew in his place. When Mantz died, Tallman blamed himself, and did not take care of the injury. It went septic, and most of his leg was amputated.

Not Saddleback; a mountain in Orange County. Wiki:

On Saturday 15 April 1978, Tallman was making a routine ferry flight in a twin-engine Piper Aztec from Santa Monica Airport, California, to Phoenix, Arizona under visual flight rules when he continued the flight into deteriorating weather, a lowering ceiling and rain. He struck the side of Santiago Peak in the Santa Ana Mountains near Trabuco Canyon at cruising altitude, and died in the ensuing crash.

 

Tandem seats in a trainer is the answer.

GF

 

Glad it wasn't Saddleback that damned mountain has killed too many. Tallman and Mantz had a flight museum at Orange County Airport. It wasn't much of a museum but they had some really wonderful airplanes from the early days of the jet age. In the 60s while there were still orange groves and an occasional fog off the ocean, Orange County Airport reeked with nostalgia. My father who visited me from Oklahoma said this must be what heaven is like. Needless to say, though I never met them, Tallman and Mantz were like gods to me. I took the first American MD 80 in and out of Orange County. It was my first leg as Captain on the MD80, I had picked up the plane at Longbeach, it was the airplanes first flight. I had a part in turning this lovely private airfield into another commercial airport. However I don't feel too badly about it as my flight that day was an exercise in aviation incompetence.