Deleted

[cgzro]

I tend to adjust the power based on what I'm seeing rather than always pulling it during the pivot. If I see that I've not got the torque under control with right aileron then the power comes off once the pivot is established, and more importantly if I'm out of the vertical plane at all during the pivot the power comes right off. Knowing exactly what the aircrafts attitude is during the full pivot is probably the most important thing because it allows you to make proper corrections. Once useful bit of advice I got from a British Aerobatic champ was to pick a spot on the horizon off the left wing, and lock it in position until you pivot, then watch that point as it rotates from left to right across the windscreen and over the to same spot on the right wing as you fly down. .. easier said than done but its kind of like knowing what the elipse shape the nose should follow in a roll looks like.

Certainly pulling the power all the time once the pivot is established will reduce torque and make for a safer hh should you not recognize getting on your back or something. You definitely want to be careful not to pull before the pivot is established as this could result in a tail slide which is quite a ride for the unprepared and can be hard on the plane if you don't have the controls well locked full aft or full forward depending on which way its progressing.

[Blue Side Down]

I've never felt any excessive torque present during a hammerhead that's been timed right. And that's spinning a metal prop at 25^2. Kick early or late and there's a bit of funkiness involved; but timed right, it seems like the airplane knows what it should be doing.

I have a theory that these 'rogue spins' or 'hammerspins' can be seen coming from a half-mile away, but then again, I've never been there firsthand, so that's only a guess.

I saw a video once of a Brit guy doing a level snap and it looked like he was on an exercise machine. I had no idea they were supposed to be that complicated! Maybe a broader lesson?

Practice makes perfect

[sidestick stirrer]

Hammerheads were always my favourite manoeuvre. They are visually stunning: a slow, measured, change of view from all sky to all ground and aren't hard on the body at all and don't appear to stress the airplane, either.
Having said all that, I was-and am still-reluctant to do them for fear of inadvertently entering a tailslide, the stresses during and recovering fromwhich I thought might be too much for the Clipped-wing Cub I started learning in and the RV-6 I'm flying now. I always found myself starting the pivot too soon out of fear of sliding, which spoiled the exercise as well as made it more difficult to do.
Back when I started learning aerobatics to compete, pilots had to be proficient at two different methods of establishing lines: angle of aircraft and angle of flight.
Don't know if this has been settled by now or not.

[sidestick stirrer]

Now that looks pretty!
But I suspect you've done one or two beforehand...
Almost need an instrument rating to fly that downline.

[sidestick stirrer]

Yikes, Hedley, I had no idea that I was opening an old wound!
I didn't mean to imply anything other than I'm just jealous I don't have a smoke system in my bird, probably as it would just show even more people how bad my flying is.
Flying is a small fraternity in Canada, aerobatic flying reduces that fraternity to a mere handful of pilots and it doesn't take long for everyone to get to know each other.

[RetroAcro]

Notice the extremely tight pivot radius, which is important to
me. But hold on a sec - did I really pivot that tightly, or did I
merely create that illusion?

Looks like you might have slid the vertical line up so that you were actually moving to the right a bit as you pivoted. That would make the radius appear smaller than if you had otherwise flown a normal upline.

[RetroAcro]

Notice the extremely tight pivot radius, which is important to
me. But hold on a sec - did I really pivot that tightly, or did I
merely create that illusion?

Looks like you probably slid the vertical upline so that you were moving to the right a bit before pivoting, which would decrease the pivot radius compared to a pivot from a normal vertical upline. Would be tough to do a good vertical roll on that kind of upline though.

[RetroAcro]

uh, I did do a full vertical roll on the upline before the hammerhead. Always do, when it's an end maneuver. Nothing funky about that upline - pure vertical. Stop. Pivot, very tightly. Sometimes I will settle just a teensy bit before the pivot. God, I love 3-blade composite constant speed propellers.

That works solo, but you can't do that in formation. Just too hard on the poor wing - you have to give him something. So, you fly it completely differently - you kick MUCH earlier, which bridges the hhead, but as the Snowbirds once told me, the ice cream lickers don't know the difference anyways:

When a hhead is a center figure, I like to do a 1/4 roll so that I pivot with the top of the aircraft facing the crowd. I think it's prettier. 1/4 roll on the way down to pull parallel to the crowd. Or, you could 1/2 roll on the way down and pull away from the crowd, if you wanted to.

Cool. Sounded like you were trolling for a guess as to some sort of "illusion" you were creating. Still a way to reduce the apparent radius should you have to pivot downwind.

[nacho]

What is with the deleted Hedley's posts?
Come to snoop and found several of his posts deleted.