| The Joy of Flying |
| 4. THE HALF CUBAN EIGHT |

This starts as a loop, but after looping over the top and at an angle of 45 degrees nose down whilst inverted there is a half roll to return upright and then we ease out of the dive. It’s probably the most common maneouvre at air shows and is especially effective for showing off pitch rate, roll rate and the resulting dive and recovery. We start at high speed. |
As with the straight loop, full power and pulling 3+ G’s we get up into the climb quickly. Note: Pulling back hard on the stick in all these maneouvres will simply result in excess drag, stress on the airframe, and no particular climb advantage. "Nurse" the stick by EASING back. Try to imagine the increased forces on the stick as you pull more than 2 G's. Smoothly go over the top before the speed bleeds off. |
Five eighths of the loop is now completed - actually I’ve gone a bit past the 45 degree angle here - oops. Instead of pulling back and continuing the loop I centralise the pitch control then full aileron turn (in this case right aileron), conteracting any yaw with opposite rudder. |
....Now back on track - the whole roll is not shown here but please imagine the aircraft is rolling 180 degrees. Still pointing down 45 degrees (again in this illustration the pitch is a little more than 45 degrees). |
Now upright and level wings. All that remains is to recover from the dive. |

| back to the beginning
| ..next maneouvre |