Rolling 172s

[Meddler]

Just something I was thinking about the other day. I ll be the first mark in the NO section. There are probably quite a few fatal accidents over the years in which the pilots found out it was harder than they thought.

[iflyforpie]

No. I have never rolled a 172 or any other non-aerobatic aircraft....

However, if someone was holding my family at gun point demanding me to roll one.... I would and it would be perfectly safe. After the flight I would top up the oil and wipe down the belly, remove the battery and top the cells off... .... and vacuum 50 years worth of dried insect remains out of the cockpit.


The problem isn't the airplane. The problem isn't even the pilot.... as rolling an aircraft isn't really hard to do. It is when the pilot decides on a whim to roll the airplane without any preparation, at too low of an altitude, with a sloppy entry or exit... all to impress people on the ground or friends in the back.

I learned aileron rolls on a Citabria 7GCBC. Really, it is a worse aircraft than the 172 in all categories except power to weight ratio and load factor.... which you don't need for an aileron roll. The controls are sloppy, the roll rate is terrible, the speed is slow so you need lots of nose up at the beginning.

[CFR]

No. I have never rolled a 172 or any other non-aerobatic aircraft....

However, if someone was holding my family at gun point demanding me to roll one.... I would and it would be perfectly safe. After the flight I would top up the oil and wipe down the belly, remove the battery and top the cells off... .... and vacuum 50 years worth of dried insect remains out of the cockpit.


The problem isn't the airplane. The problem isn't even the pilot.... as rolling an aircraft isn't really hard to do. It is when the pilot pilot decides on a whim to roll the airplane without any preparation, at too low of an altitude, with a sloppy entry or exit... all to impress people on the ground or friends in the back.

I learned aileron rolls on a Citabria 7GCBC. Really, it is a worse aircraft than the 172 in all categories except power to weight ratio and load factor.... which you don't need for an aileron roll. The controls are sloppy, the roll rate is terrible, the speed is slow so you need lots of nose up at the beginning.

Same for the 7ECA ... But I still don't regret a minute spent in that A/C doing aerobatics!

The first thing taught to me in aerobatic lessons was to prepare yourself and the aircraft. Secure everything, get ride of stuff you don't need (which is damn near everything, I even left the journey log behind) empty your pockets and learn how to pull a seat harness really tight!

[Meddler]

One other thing that should cross ones mind as they consider rolling a 172...'I wonder if there could be an old screwdriver sitting under the cables anywhere in the tail or wings of this 40 year old plane?'

[trey kule]

This is not a good topic. Gives stupid kids ideas.

And will bring all the wacka a doodle pilots and their kids on here to post that a real pilot would not put dust on the floor as they could hold positive G throughout...

And of course the pictures. Always the pictures.

Did I mention giving young stupid pilots ideas is not, in itself, a good idea.

[Pop n Fresh]

I'd have to roll it twice. Once to pour Mountain Dew and the second to pour the 40 year old Glenfarclas.

[CFR]

This is not a good topic. Gives stupid kids ideas.

And will bring all the wacka a doodle pilots and their kids on here to post that a real pilot would not put dust on the floor as they could hold positive G throughout...

And of course the pictures. Always the pictures.

Did I mention giving young stupid pilots ideas is not, in itself, a good idea.

Generally I agree, however there seems to be no lack of stupid ideas and stupid kids to do them!

A roll is a pretty benign manoeuvre ... until it isn't!!!!

[Pop n Fresh]

I didn't like how I worded most of that. So, EDIT:

I might be able to roll a 172 safely. I don't believe that is good enough to justify an attempt.

I suspect most pilots who could easily and safely do it typically would not be flying one to begin with. If they were there would be some non-aerobatic purpose to the flight.

[Colonel Sanders]

Bob Hoover would probably say yes

So would Matt Younkin.

Hell, Sean Tucker used to do airshows
in a Columbia 400 while his new Pitts
was being built.

Spot the pattern? If you are a skilled
and smooth enough pilot, sure. But
you aren't.

FWIW I happen to know that a 172
does very nice rolls, loops and hheads
although it dumps a lot of oil on the
belly - it needs an air/oil separator.
Ratfink legal beagles can go f__k
themselves, it was in Central America.

Young guys pull all sorts of G because
they're dumb and they can.

Old guys can do the same maneuver
with far less G, which is far easier on
the airframe, and doesn't incur the
same exponential drag.

I know TC doesn't think my father
(F-104 test pilot) is much of a pilot,
but when we flew form acro, his G
meter was always +4/-3 after the
sequence, which included everything
you can think of, including a no-roll
vertical 8 and outside loops.

PS Here's Eric teaching himself aerobatics
in a PT-19 Cornell, which as four times as
old as him at the time. It's probably less
capable wrt acro as the 172.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWNxI0Bn8O8


You probably think you're a lot better pilot
than a 17 year old, but look how far he got
the nose up for the roll.

EDIT -- I amused to hear from the AvCan
experts that Bob Hoover, Matt Younkin and
Sean Tucker are "whack-a-doodle" compared
to the four-bars that can't fly their way out
of a wet paper bag.

Can you say "envy"? I knew you could.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I am disappointed but not surprised to see 3 people have already answered "yes" on the pole.

This question ultimately has nothing to do with rolling 172's, it has everything to do with pilot self discipline and professionalism. I have a Class 1 aerobatic instructor rating and yes I could roll a c 172. The bugs would not move, there would be no oil stains on the belly and the airplane would not even have to be within the utility category.

however I have never and will never do it because it would mean willfully disregarding the published limitations in the POH.

When I was a CFI, if I ever had positive proof any of my instructors or students ever rolled a flight school airplane they would be immediately fired. I would view the incident as an an example of a pilot demonstrating an attitude that is incomparable with the safe operation of aircraft.

[iflyforpie]

however I have never and will never do it because it would mean willfully disregarding the published limitations in the POH.

When I was a CFI, if I ever had positive proof any of my instructors or students ever rolled a flight school airplane they would be immediately fired. I would view the incident as an an example of a pilot demonstrating an attitude that is incomparable with the safe operation of aircraft.

Bingo.

[Colonel Sanders]

Once again, we come back to the same
age-old lesson: the difference between
the paper world, and the real world.

Inexperienced and unintelligent pilots don't
understand the difference between the
two, but it is vast.

For example, there is no regulation AFAIK
that prohibits you from flying into a Cb, or
the side of a mountain, for that matter.

If you look to paper to keep you safe, you
will die a painful death.

Back on topic ... there are aircraft which
are less capable than the 172 which have
pieces of paper saying that they can fly
aerobatics, because someone masterfully
pushed some paper.

IMHO there are probably less than 10 pilots
in all of Canada who are sufficiently skilled
to perform aerobatics in normal category
aircraft. Odds are overwhelmingly, that if
you are reading this, you aren't one of them.
You don't have any aerobatic training or
experience. Why on earth would you expect
to be able to do it perfectly the first time,
with no knowledge or training?

People are so incredibly unrealistic about
their expectations, and simultaneously
contemptuous about aviation. The combination
of the two is lethal.

Imagine if pilots treated instrument flying
with the same contempt that they treat
aerobatics.

[Meddler]

Seeing as how kids tend to have stupid ideas a lot, and since I'm sure most of us have at least thought about it, my expectation was for smart people to post a few good reasons not to act on this particular stupid idea. So far we have: POH prohibits it, it's harder than you think and you may crash, loose items previously undiscovered in the airframe could cause a control problem(this is actually not uncommon), your flight school / employer would almost certainly terminate your training/fire you, and number one by my way of thinkng, doing so would be the antithesis of professional, diciplined flying.

Did I miss anything?

[Meddler]

Good points CS. Remember that clip of the king air in Norway recently? Good example of pilots skill not meeting pilots expectation of his own skill. And he was a relatively high time pilot not even attempting to go past 90• of bank!

[davecessna]

I don't know how you don't go insane flying out of Gatineau/Rockcliffe.

[Chris M]

Oddly enough I read an article in an old issue of Plane and Pilot the weekend. The question really isn't "Can a 172 do a roll?" or even "Can (person) roll a 172?", but rather should you?

I have little doubt that the majority of us could get a 172 through a roll in the right circumstances. It wouldn't be pretty and it wouldn't be by the book, but given enough altitude the airplane would come out of it eventually pointed in the right direction and still flying. Now, try it under the wrong circumstances, say 200' AGL, and the results might be considerably different.

More important than the ability to make the airplane do what you want is the judgement to try that maneuver in the first place. Can you roll a 172? Probably. Is it a good idea? Almost certainly not.

[Colonel Sanders]

I have little doubt that the majority of us could get a 172 through a roll

Actually, I have plenty of doubt. Your contempt
towards aviation may very well kill you someday.

Many non-aerobatic pilots have attempted to teach
themselves how to roll - with plenty of altitude -
and either did serious structural damage to the
aircraft, or killed themselves.

http://www.pprune.org/biz-jets-ag-flyin ... times.html

Are you equally contemptuous towards instrument
flying? Did you bother to get any training or do
any practice before you punched your first cloud?

I don't know how you don't go insane flying out of Gatineau/Rockcliffe

I don't fly out of Gatineau/Rockcliffe.

[Chris M]

Actually, I have plenty of doubt. Your contempt
towards aviation may very well kill you someday.

Many non-aerobatic pilots have attempted to teach
themselves how to roll - with plenty of altitude -
and either did serious structural damage to the
aircraft, or killed themselves.

Are you equally contemptuous towards instrument
flying? Did you bother to get any training or do
any practice before you punched your first cloud?

A remarkably harsh response... The edit actually more so. My attitude toward aviation is anything but contemptuous. Perhaps my point wasn't well made. What I wished to emphasize was that the ability of the pilot is secondary to judgement. It's more important to understand when something is a bad idea than think we can do something and try anyway.

Case in point, I'm taking some family flying in a couple weeks. Their neighbour has a ~1800' strip mowed into his field and my cousin asked if I could simply pick them up there. Can I land a 172 in 1800 feet? I do it every time I land at my home airport. But I've never landed a 172 on a grass strip and am not familiar with the condition of this one, so I asked them to make a 15 minute drive to meet me at an actual airport. The first time I land on grass will be with an instructor on board, or in an emergency situation. Trying new things with family members on board is simply idiotic.

For the record I'm a VFR pilot and have never flown through a cloud without an instructor in the right seat.

[Colonel Sanders]

A remarkably harsh response

You will probably find crashing and dying
much harsher than my response.



Always with the feelings. How do you suppose
those four dead people in the 172 feel?

How do you suppose that Paul Lopez and his
teenaged passenger feel?



No offense, but Paul was 100x the pilot that
you ever will be (and a heluva lot of fun to
party with) and he is dead, dead, dead.

I have plenty more pictures of decapitated,
dismembered and burned pilots and passengers
if you need to see them.

[davecessna]

He's also 100x more fertilizer.

Always with the feelings.

Speaking of partying, your generation basically partied their asses off, took a giant dump on the planet, then said, "here are the keys kids, she don't flush so good no more."

[Chris M]

Dead people don't feel much. Their families and friends are a different matter. I have no idea what the root cause of either of those crashes were. They were clearly in a spin when they hit the ground, but why they were in a spin I couldn't tell you. In the case of C-FNET some have theorized the pilot could have been demonstrating stalls to his passengers. If this is the case then he was likely showing poor judgement, and got himself into a situation that he couldn't handle.

There's plenty that can go wrong in an airplane without a pilot *thinking* he/she can do something that they've never tried before, been trained for, or done in those circumstances.

[CFR]

Oddly enough I read an article in an old issue of Plane and Pilot the weekend. The question really isn't "Can a 172 do a roll?" or even "Can (person) roll a 172?", but rather should you?

I have little doubt that the majority of us could get a 172 through a roll in the right circumstances. It wouldn't be pretty and it wouldn't be by the book, but given enough altitude the airplane would come out of it eventually pointed in the right direction and still flying. Now, try it under the wrong circumstances, say 200' AGL, and the results might be considerably different.

More important than the ability to make the airplane do what you want is the judgement to try that maneuver in the first place. Can you roll a 172? Probably. Is it a good idea? Almost certainly not.

Get used to "harsh" responses here from some members. Setting that aside I think the point is valid. I am a newly minted aerobatic pilot, with my own aerobatic airplane that can do what I like to call "Grampa aerobatics". Am I an expert? Nope! Will I ever be? Probably not, I don't put in the hours necessary to get really really good, so I stay within my comfort zone. Having said that, I can say with some background that I have little doubt that the majority of us WOULD NOT be able to get a 172 through a roll without at least overstressing the airframe, more likely doing structural damage. I further suspect that long before the airplane comes out of it "eventually" pointed in the right direction (I assume you mean on its own) it will have shed something important.

Case in point ( I am keeping it purposely vague to protect the innocent). A friend has an aerobatic airplane (a bit better than entry level) and takes a mutual friend who is an experienced pilot and has some limited aerobatic exposure in a different type of aircraft, up for a flight. He briefs him and shows him a roll and then lets him try one ("one" being the operative word) He pitches about 30 degrees up and completes a very sloppy roll and then surprisingly carries on into a second roll before the nose has come up above the horizon. In the blink of an eye the airspeed has increased and by the time the owner has intervened and recovered the aircraft, it had come close to or indeed exceeded limits. As a secondary lesson I am reminded of an old saying "Chieftans must teach their huns what is expected of them, otherwise huns will do what is unexpected of them" - Genghis Kan

Can a 172 be rolled, as pointed out with the right skill sets and experience yes. With my background would I try it? Nope. My advice to anyone who wants to roll a Cessna, rent an aerobat and get some training.

[CpnCrunch]

Can I land a 172 in 1800 feet? I do it every time I land at my home airport. But I've never landed a 172 on a grass strip and am not familiar with the condition of this one, so I asked them to make a 15 minute drive to meet me at an actual airport.

You should be able to land fine, although you might have difficulty taking off with a fully loaded 172 if there are any trees at the end of that runway.

Case in point: my 172 had a ground roll of roughly 1500feet at full gross and 5000ft DA. According to the book, the ground roll should be 1080ft!

Bottom line: don't always believe the book, make sure you know what your plane can do.

[Old Dog Flying]

We went to YCW for lunch (and pie) sitting on the patio for over an hour while Joe Kool sat behind us with 4 of his ultra-light buddies, all the while he was expounding in how any aircraft can be looped and rolled and he had done it hundreds of times. Mr Loud Mouth flies a two place low powered aircraft and he had the balls to brag to the unwashed how easy it was to snap roll his short-wing thing and slow rolls were a breeze. It was still going on after we left and I wait to hear about structural failure when one of his congregation augers in. Ouch!

[cgzro]

The main issue with rolling something like a 172 is there is little margin for error which means your first roll has to be perfect...which unless you have a lot of experience is unlikely. The most common errors from a first attempt in a slow rolling plane are insufficient pitch up/speed, failure to back off the elevator once the pitch up is complete, insufficient aileron,rudder and/or backing off the aileron through inverted and worst, pulling through. Hell most pilots when they first go inverted grab something instinctively, usually the stick. If you screw these up you end up over speed or over G and the 172 has little margin in either to protect you. Likewise if you do break something you likely cant just bail out. In fact a Canadian built Ultimate was just last friday destroyed in Vermont by an inflight malfunction and the pilot fortunately bailed out with a few bruises.