You forgot that chicks dig it.

You forgot that chicks dig it.

OH Break is not "illegal" provided you abide by any other regulations (ie, airspeed, altitude restrictions, etc). It *can* be unsafe depending on when/where it's executed. We often did overheads in the C-130 and the C-21 (military Lear 35) at both military and civilian airfields. It was never an issue so long as tower understands what you're going to do...just request an "initial" for an overhead and they'll understand what you're asking for, and if they don't want you to do it, they'll say no. If it's an uncontrolled airfield, just be aware of the other traffic, and conduct the break in a safe manner. I would advise against doing an overhead at a busy uncontrolled field as many of the other GA pilots might not understand what you're going to do and you risk creating a dangerous situation if you just plow into the pattern and execute a break somewhere mid-field with student pilots and other GA pilots in the pattern.

As for airspeed...if airspace dictates 200 knots or less, then enter initial at that speed or below. Otherwise, enter initial at 250 or less. It's typical to break over the numbers so you can have a long enough base/final leg to successfully land...we'd extend to mid-field or departure end if we were trying to deconflict with traffic on downwind...in that case, it's not going to be a true tactical arrival as you'll have to level off and fly a normal downwind. But if you can pull it off and break over the numbers, roll 45-60 degrees, and configure on speed. A properly executed overhead arrival will look almost like a perfect circle as you roll directly into the downwind, then immediately into a base turn. The break is done level, and you should be configured on downwind...then you can begin to descend onto a glide slope. In the military, we had to be on a normal glide slope preferably by 300 feet/1 mile and required by 150 feet/half a mile, otherwise it was a go-around.

Live and let live.

It is only illegal if, instead of breaking left or right, you pull vertical and land out of a loop.

Now that would be impressive!

Now that would be impressive!

I always wanted to do that in an Eagle - takeoff with a max climb to 10k' by the end of the runway, pull hard to level inverted in the opposite direction of takoff, pull the power to idle then bend it around keeping it slow with AOA till short final where you throw the gear and land. I pulled it off in the sim after a couple of tries but the cool factor never went over the "good use of Uncle Sam's airplanes" threshold for me to try it in the air.

That would be… Evil!

Robert

The Rafale demo did it (not sure what gear speed is):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CsVAO_U78 ... hvdw%3D%3D


I also talked to Snort a few times about it, I believe he said he did it on one of his demos - but IIRC it may have been slightly Oblique.

Evil is as Evil does.....

Evil is as Evil does.....

Not a landing story, but still a good one. In the last months of the Lightweight Fighter test program I was a young LT flying the sleek, racy and sexy KC-97L sophisticated war machine for the TX Air Militia and we were providing Air Refueling support for test program at Edwards. It was interesting and a lot of fun.

After settling into the routine formal air refueling briefings were not necessary. The evening before flying Col. Jim Rider would simply tell us what time to be over the green spots.

I remember one morning we were climbing out of the pattern at about 3000' and had just switched over to test/air refueling frequency when we got a call from the F-16. He wanted to know our position. I replied "climbing out of the pattern headed for the green spots". He came back with "in sight, can I join on you in the climb"?

I cleared him to the "pre contact position" and looked up at 12o'clock high. He was overhead going the opposite direction at about FL180 with the F-4 chase rolling inverted. In an impressively short period of time the boom operator said, "They are here" and started transferring fuel. That's the only time I ever participated in a rendezvous from a split-S.

Sounds like that F-16 pilot really knew how to manage his energy. When I was flying acro I think I could have managed to split-S and level out 3000 ft lower but I wouldn't have had a clue how to make that work out so I matched both the position and airspeed of the tanker.