| The Joy of Flying |
| Part Two - Some Aerobatics in the Citabria |
| 1. THE ROLL |

Now we’ve established some height and speed - let’s try a roll. With the Decathlon, this is a question of simply yanking the aileron hard left or right and keeping the nose up, but we’ve designed the Citabria to be realistic and it does not have the roll rate or thrust to tolerate that. We must first aim the nose up 10 or more degrees and have a good entry speed. |
Ok, hard left aileron, but as she rolls the nose will drop. Boot in some RIGHT rudder to counteract this. As long as she keeps rolling that’s fine, but of course this temporary situation could only last a second or two, since any longer and nothing is going to change the fact that the wings are not level and therefore not producing lift to support the weight of the aircraft. Once the aircraft overcomes inertia, it will dive steeply. SO...keep that aileron hard left. |
As you roll to the inverted, STILL with full left aileron, gradually reduced the right rudder to central, but as you do so push the stick forward, enough to keep the nose above the horizon. At this point the wings are only producing enough lift to sustain height due to a high angle of attack and that means the nose should be well above the horizon. By now the speed will have dropped even at full throttle due to drag created by this maneouvre. |
This next bit is deceptively difficult : The final roll to the right way up can lose a lot of height if you are not on the ball. As you begin to roll out of the inverted, the nose will want to sharply drop again. This time you counteract with LEFT rudder. At the same time move the stick from its forward position to anticipate the needed back pressure as the nose falls away. This needs to be timed with a lot of practice. As you beginning to roll level focus again on the horizon and try again to keep the nose level with it rather than below. |
There! The whole maneouvre has taken about 5-6 seconds. You will have lost between 100 feet (if you are good) and 200 feet (average). If you lost 500 feet then you need lots of practice. The whole maneouvre and stick movements are done as though in one smooth sequence. The roll is not easy in a sedate aircraft with modest power. |

| back to the beginning
| Next.....the loop |