Uncurl from my sleeping bag, stick my nose out of the tent, weather looks fine for the moment but the alto cirrus indicates the start of the approach of a warm front.  Hopefully the actual front will wait until I have investigated a Bulldog and negative g.  Emerge, pack up the tent. Into the car, get moving, stop at the loo.  And so onto the long journey to Ultimate High - all the way from one side of Kemble airfield to the other side!

Arrive at the same time as Nicola, from Flyer, who has arranged the Rookies Day for Aerobatics.  We chat and are gradually joined by others who will be trying out the delights of flipping aircraft over.  A yellow open sports car zooms up and a male clad in red shorts and tee shirt jumps out.  He is Mark, known as Flyguy on Forum.  We are welcomed. ushered in and given name badges.  Dawn on reception gets me to fill in an indemnity form. Overall there are 9 of us of a wide range of capabilities.  One guy is aiming for CPL whilst another has not yet started his PPL training.  There are physically fit people and others who are partially disabled.  Some have driven in, some have flown in.  One guy was late as Plymouth was fog bound.

We are seated and given the briefing patter by Mark or Greeners as he is known there.  He is keen and eager and expects us to enjoy the day.  The briefing is very thorough covering the aircraft we will be using - Bulldog   and Extra, the safety aspects including how to bale out and use a parachute, and the actual manoeuvres to be carried out.  For the aircraft he emphasises that they do have a bit of power, maybe more than we are used to, and that the controls are very sensitive and should not be handled too brusquely.  For the manoeuvres he goes through them in a lot of detail so that we know exactly what we should be doing and why.  He also points out what can go wrong in each one of them.  We are going to cover 3 manoeuvres: aileron roll, loop and stall turn.  In that order they are increasing in difficultness.  If there is time available we can cover anything else that we want to and he recommends the Cuban half 8 along with one or two others.

Bacon butty time arrives.  I am not hungry but feel that I should eat something.  While we chomp away and chat Nicola is putting up the list in order of who will fly which machine and in which order.  I had booked the Bulldog and see that I am in the middle.  I am glad of that as is what I wanted.  The two going up first get into the flying suits provided for borrowing.  We are warned that it is quite warm and it is advisable not to wear trousers under the flying suit.  The rest of us chat, drink tea, finish bacon butties - what is a flight without a bacon butty - and wander round.  I find the Pilot shop and investigate what they have along with a chat with the owners as we put the world to rights.

My turn time approaches. I kit myself out in the flying suit, having divested myself of T-shirt and trousers.  I also dose myself with travel sick pills in the hope that as they work on hot non-air-conditioned coaches full of hot and bothered children, so that they might work in aeros.  It is lunch time and the two instructors, Mark and Charlie stop for their sandwiches.  I put mine in my lunch box as I do not want them to be wasted. 

My turn.  I am to go up in Bulldog G-ULHI with Charlie.  He checks out the procedures for the aircraft, as he was on the Extra before lunch, it is due for its 50 hour check quite soon.  Then we walk over.  Charlie does the walk around whilst I am shown how to put on a parachute.  It is not comfortable standing up but I am assured that it fits fine when in the aircraft and acts as the cushioning back part of the seat.  I clamber in, awkward with the parachute around me, and lower myself into the seat.  I must lose weight. The seat was not made for a broad bummed female.  Plenty of wriggling as I get the different straps of the harness around me. 

Charlie gets me to run through the pre-flight checks with him.  I am so tightly strapped in that I cannot reach forward for various switches or changing the fuel. 

Engine on.  What a delightful sound.  The sun is beating down on us. Canopy can stay open a bit while we taxi. Charlie takes control to get us onto the taxiway and then hands over to me.  It needs more rudder for taxiing than a PA28, but I do manage to keep on the yellow line, more or less.  And so to the hold for runway 08.  Charlie is kindly doing the radio so that I can concentrate on this new machine.  He shows me all the engine checks, more than I am used to due to the variable pitch prop. Canopy closed. We wait for an aircraft to land and vacate runway.  Due to the rise in the runway it is not possible to see when it has vacated.  An incoming aircraft says it will orbit to let us get airborne.  OK, rolling.  We gather speed and rotate.  I am being a good girl and not heaving on the stick as we have been warned that it is very sensitive.  I find the machine a bit heavier to handle than a PA28 but the stick responds similarly to a PA28. Climbing.  Turn left a tad, over there towards those trees.  See that is Prince Charles's mansion - High Grove.  Left a bit more, aim for that break in the amassing clouds.

Now for the first manoeuvre.  Feel through how it is done.  Remember, speed 120kts, nose up, level out, full stick.  Flip, we have done 360º just like that.  Now my turn.  Follow the instructions and flip over to the left, just like that.  Except that I did lose a bit much height.  Need practice on that to get the height right.

Now a loop.  Again follow through the demonstration and then do it myself.  Nose down to get a speed of 130kts.  Pull back on the stick, keep pulling back, harder; climbing, climbing; check wings are level and turning on the horizon, look backwards to orient myself, fields come into vision, more and more, now they fill the canopy as I look 'up' at them.  Keep pulling back as we invert, over the top.  Keep pulling back to bring the nose back up again.  And level out into straight and level.  It had felt right all the way through. A big thumbs up from Charlie.  'Go-on', I said, 'you had your hands on the controls all the way through, you must have done.'  'Do it again', he said, as he waved his hands around to show they were free of the controls.  I did and got it right again with Charlie still waving his hands in the air, at least I think he was as I was concentrating on the aviation rather than communication.  Wow.  It felt good.  My stomach had other opinions.  So a little bit of straight and level to help it settle.

Next the stall turn.  I was nervous about getting it right as it looked so much more difficult.  Follow through what Charlie was demonstrating, stomach not too keen on the last bit.  My turn.  Dive to 120kts. Pull up to go straight up, wheee.  Watch the wing, when it is exactly vertical then full left stick and right rudder.  Oooops I was not quite quick enough and we flipped onto our back.  Charlie extricated us and then passed control back to me.  Try again.  Dive to 120kts. Pull straight up.  Wing vertical, full left stick and right rudder.  Flip over sideways as we are meant to.  Do a 180º turn so that we are now pointing downwards and diving straight down with a sharp pull out - stomach be quiet.  

What would I like to do next - well lots of things but I think that it would be advisable to listen to my stomach and return to base.  Where is base, OK its over there.  A bit of straight and level.  Field in sight, well more or less beneath us, controls to Charlie as he drops the machine down to demonstrate a quick run and break just above the runway.  Controls back to me after I have demisted my glasses.  Downwind checks.  Base, flaps, turn final.  Descend.   Glasses misted up again.  Never mind, there is the runway.  Get the Bulldog down not too badly, all the wheels are still there.  Vacate runway and pass control to Charlie as he stops to make comments at a couple filling up an aircraft and then to stop in front of the fence with people gawping over it.  Nothing like a bit of style.  With relief I undo the harnesses and clamber out.  My stomach says - at last. 

That was a brilliant flight.  A big thank you to Charlie who is a superb instructor.  He expects one to get it right and so one does, well most of the time.  As ex-military he is far more precise than a civilian instructor, yet he does not push it, one just feels it.  He and the aeroplane were one but I did not feel as an intruder but as being encouraged to also be at one with the aircraft.  No recriminations for getting the first stall turn wrong, but just an intuitive taking control and quietly putting it straight while I quickly realised what I had done wrong and could explain my mistake.  I was very impressed - and it is not often that I say that.

Stood and chatted for a while with others whilst stomach settled a bit.  Then in to consume several mugs of tea - thank you Dawn.  Was even capable of having a couple of sandwiches and the little tomatoes were lovely. But I am glad that I stopped before it was too late.  Hence could settle down a certain amount, although stomach did continue complaining slightly for several days.  Others were much stronger.  One had done loop after loop after loop after loop ............  Another had tried his hand at Cuban half 8s.  Everybody had enjoyed themselves and come away with the big grin that goes with constructive pleasure.  We had all learnt a lot.

The last flights return and we gather for debriefing, getting certificates, T shirts and most important filling in the log books.  An end to a great day, certainly inspiring and grin creating.  I would love to do more aeros and reckon that done a little bit at a time I might be able to build up some resilience in my stomach.

Finally a big thank you to Nicola for arranging the Rookies Day, to Dawn for organising us, to Mark and Charlie for being brilliant instructors and to all the other Rookies for being a great crowd.

Vicious. And not so comfy.

Parachute! Climb aboard.

Check list.

[Text: Jaen] [Photos: not Jaen]