worry about it. I always sideslip with the slobber tank (on the
right) up high, to drain into the engine. So, it's left wing low for
me.
Pitts does knife-edge flight better than any other aircraft I've
ever flown. Probably something to do with the upper and lower
wings channeling the air, allowing the fuselage to produce significant
lift.
If you have 180 mph and full throttle, the Pitts will fly knife edge
indefinitely. You can even formate, doing it:
Skip has "In Lycoming We Trust" tattooed on his right shoulder. Actually,
no. But he might as well. When he is doing the low-altitude sideslip
thing, he's getting a good push back from the ground, and his engine
barks and misses.
That frightened me. I asked Skip, why his engine ran so bad in the
sideslip pass. He said he was banging the throttle back and forth to
make it more interesting.
I know, you think I'm nuts. Skip makes me look really, really normal.
I was at an airshow pilot briefing with Skip, and he was fucking with
the FAA monitor, who was reading out loud the maximum angles and
airspeeds allowed for the photo passes.
So Skip asks the FAA monitor, What's my minimum speed for the photo
pass? The blank look was legendary.
