Harvard Snap

[djpacro]

Great article by Clinton Ashton-Martin in the June 2012 issue of "Rag and Tube"magazine.

 

As 1954 dawned I had my first lesson on the Harvard 2B which was quite a learning curve ... compared to the toy Chippy!... An almost viceless plane, its only problem was to drop a wing at the stall.One day I discovered flick roll. I was completing my climb then pulled back fairly sharply on the stick and in a flash I had rotated 360 degrees and was flying level. This was fun and became my standard method of levelling out. A fellow student demonstrated this trait of the Harvard on landing one day. ... leaving a burning engine in the middle of the runway..

Reminds me of my first few flights in the Pitts S-1S. I'd been flying a Pitts S-2A two seater with symmetrical aerofoils and a single seat S-1C with flat bottom wings and only two ailerons. We built a new set of wing with symmetrical aerofoils and four ailerons so the C became an S-1S (actually an E being a homebuilt). Every time I did a loop it would do a neat snap roll on top all by itself.