Posted Wednesday, November 4, 2009 @ 12:27 PM
Hi Guys,
The RF4 is a great airplane for display flying because it is unusual, and because it is so cheap to operate you can get lots of practise and polish your routine to perfection. However it also has many disadvantages, so I believe it is important to ‘play to its strengths’.
DISADVANTAGES
No Fournier will ever compete head-on and win against an Edge, Extra, Laser, Yak, Sukhoi, Pitts, Eagle or any other dedicated aerobatic machine. It just isn’t strong enough, rigid enough or powerful enough. Nevertheless, over the years, Fourniers have been invited to display among all the above types, and have often won the crowds’ admiration over those others because they are so different.
The Fournier has very low power, limited strength and a glacial roll-rate, so its display just cannot incorporate the snaps, sharp corners or rapid rolls of ‘proper’ aerobatic types.
The Fournier flies comparatively very slowly, so it is seriously affected by even the gentlest breeze.
That Rectimo VW motor could never sound loud and powerful, however big its cylinders.
Any time you are flying at over 100 mph you’re losing energy and going downhill, so you must not pause for more than a moment between each manoeuvre.
ADVANTAGES
On the other hand, the RF4 has very long wings, so you can do something none of those others can. You can have smoke streaming from your wing-tips to give a more three-dimensional picture of your path through the air than ordinary engine-generated centreline smoke does. And your smoke can be orange, not grey. Actually, it HAS to be orange, because that’s the only colour legally available off the shelf. How brilliant this particularly is for Sam in his yellow & orange RF4.
Rather than regarding the RF4’s slow roll-rate as a disadvantage, we can make a virtue of it, and fly graceful, gentle aerobatics.
That requirement to minimise time spent above 100mph compels us to fly a fluid sequence, in which we are always pitching, rolling or yawing (or both, or all three). Many display pilots have a competition background and insist on drawing a short straight line in between all their manoeuvres. Guess which the crowds prefer!
Because it flies so slowly, your sequence can be compact, right in front of crowd centre, and we can display in tight, confined venues where faster airplanes cannot.
Instead of being disappointed at the VW’s lack of airshow noise, we can get the organizers to play gentle, lilting music to compliment the RF4’s slow, balletic flying and be sure that our engine/propeller combination will not drown it out.
Okay, in the cockpit you are grunting and heaving with the best of them; you can be pulling up to 5 or 6g and pushing 3g, and things can seem very hectic as you try to construct those precise shapes and follow the correct lines, particularly in a strong wind, but from the spectators’ point of view, however hard the pilot is working, Fournier manoeuvres appear gentle. Accept this and work with it.
Careful research has shown that the longest time a crowd will watch a single airplane performing aerobatics is four minutes. After that, they get bored and look away so you’re wasting your time. As with all entertainment, you should stop with them wanting more, not sated. It so happens that four minutes of full-throttle Fournier aerobatics starting at 140 mph and 2,000 feet will nicely get the base of your final manoeuvres down to 500 feet. With practice, you can start a little lower, but the one thing you cannot do is climb.
It so happens that the easily-obtainable marine distress smokes last either three or four minutes, so this sets a perfect limit on your display duration. Add two or three smoke-free minutes on at the end for a fifty-foot sideslipping waving pass along the crowd-line before you land and you achieve several things. You allow your engine to cool down a little. You ensure the smokes have completely burned out, so there’s no chance of a fire after landing, and most importantly, you make personal contact with your audience. It is always surprising to me that so few pilots wave to their crowd. Anybody could be flying that airplane if you don’t let them see you, and they love to wave back in applause. That makes them feel a part of the show, rather than mere spectators.