Confidence

Confidence is an interesting part of human psychology no? As I sit here with the foam safe CA healing the wounded fuselage of my zero I can't help wondering what it is about confidence, and how it is an evolutionary trait, that on the same morning that I did a perfect landing with the zero (really - my best landing ever - was able to taxi straight out to take off again) I also nosed it in trying to do an outside loop in low rate from an altitude that I should have known would always end in tragedy.

The accident, which could have wiped out the plane, has only done a modest amount of damage really considering it was basically a nose in at full tilt. What I'm trying to understand is why I didn't pull out when I realised she wasn't going to tuck under, why I wasn't in the right rate (high rate) and many other things.

At the field I thought the only damage was the fuselage, which was basically snapped through about half way across the wing, all the way round - the velco equiped canopy was what was holding it together. Seemingly no damage to the gearbox (phew), engine (phew) but the prop was smashed. Now that I have her home I see the prop shaft is also bent, so no flying the zero for a little while.

So, what possessed me to try such a brain dead manuveur at such low altitude, and in low rate no less. I have a bit of a fascination with the outside loop. It all comes back to how this bird flew when I first got her. With the little 350 power plant she was quite nimble and could do the outside loop with a 9x7 prop. But her weight wasn't well distributed and she tended to snap roll. When I previously bashed this plane up good through my own stupidity I put in a 400 engine/gearbox combo - the extra weight moving the CoG forward, but also - bigger engine - better performance - right? No it would seem. I haven't managed to do an outside loop since - hence I have made it my benchmark for performance.

Anyway, the glue is dry now and there are more repairs to make. Overconfidence got me here to some extent, confidence will get me out of here.