On my way back to the small country airport where I kept the Citabria 7KCAB (fuel-injected, inverted oil system for inverted flight, smoke system, star-burst paint job) aerobatic airplane I owned and was flying that day, I decided to do "one more roll" just 1,000 AGL (above ground level) and by doing so, I "broke" my own personal safety rule of never doing aerobatics below 5,000 feet.
I broke another of my "rules" by doing aerobatics when I was tired from just finishing doing some akro for the past half an hour.
And so, too low and tired, I shove her over to gain some speed and, at 140 mph, I pulled the nose up, shove the stick to the left and fed in some right rudder. As the aircraft went "over", I pushed the stick forward and held right rudder to keep the nose straight ahead.
When the aircraft went inverted, I realized I had forgotten one thing... to push the trim table handle ALL THE WAY FORWARD to help hold up the nose of the aircraft while inverted.
As a result, the Citabria began to "split-S" as the nose dropped down toward the ground at 140 mph. A "split-S" is actually the back half of a loop, but shouldn't be done too close to the ground at higher speeds because it takes up a lot of airspace to finish the maneuver and pull out flying straight and level at a lower altitude.
I "reached back" for that "reserve strength" to push the stick forward to hold the aircraft's nose "up", but I was too tired and the "reserve strength" just wasn't there !!! As a result, the nose went further down and I realized I should just "go" with it and pull back on the stick to complete the back half of the half loop.
As I pulled back the stick harder and harder, I began to pull heavy "G's"... 4 G's... 5 Gs... 6 Gs... I began to "gray out"... 6.5 G's... graying out... ground coming up FAST now... too low... gotta pull harder... airspeed going through 200 mph... slapped throttle back to idle... ground coming up, can't see G-meter anymore... graying almost all the way out now... can only see out of the lower corners of my eyes... I can only see "green" almost at ground level... pull harder... wind SCREAMING now...
I finally pulled out level going in the opposite direction a few feet above the corn tassles in the corn field I was over.... airspeed coming back down through 190 mph... aircraft certified for a maximum of 6 "positive" G's and 164 mph VNe (Velocity never exceed)...
"Welcome to the world of test pilots, stupid"... I thought to myself as the "gray curtain" lifted and I could see again.
The trees on either side of the corn field I was over were much higher than me... as I skimmed a few feet above the tops of the corn. Airspeed down to 150 mph... end of the field coming up... tall trees at the end of the field... full throttle... stick back... and I zoomed over the trees... and back up to a safe altitude again.
I got "lucky"... I exceeded both the maximum certified G's and the maximum designed airspeed... and the airplane didn't come apart.
When I got back to my home field, I did a thorough examination of the aircraft... no bent spars, no damage. I got lucky... 'cause the next week, the FAA put out an AD (a notice of a problem on the aircraft I was flying). It seems the bolts that supported the struts which supported the Citabria's wings had broken on a few other Citabrias causing damage to the wing's main spar.
If nothing else, I prove the bolts on my wing struts were just fine... but it was a very stupid way to do it !!!
God looks out for
fools and drunks... and I hadn't had anything alcoholic to drink that week. That was 30 years ago when I was younger and dumber... well... I was younger, anyway.
Strength & Honor...
Ron T.