Here I sit, all strapped in, alone and afraid. Actors call it opening night jitters.  This is the International Aerobatic club's Mason-Dixon Clash in Farmville, Virginia, one of the biggest competitions of the year and the first of my aerobatic career. Check the photograph of me waiting for competition to begin; I am definitely afraid. Although aerobatic instructor Carl Austin will ride with me in his 180-horsepower Decathlon to meet insurance requirements, IAC rules do not permit him to help: I am definitely alone. The only thing I have to fear is fear itself, but that's enough.

Flash! The number of competitors has jumped to 10, one of the biggest fields of beginners ever. (The pressure builds.) Three of them are flying highly sophisticated Pitts aerobatic aircraft, and I'm in a rented Decathlon. One of them is flying an Avions Mudry CAP 21 air show airplane. (These are beginners?) Aerobatic instructor Eileen Bjorkman, who gave me an hour of training, will compete against me. Three of the pilots have prior experience in competitions, including Bjorkman: I have none. (The stress meter pegs.) The bad news continues. Basic category pilots will fly in the morning, and I am an evening person. My name has been drawn to go first: I hate going first. Oh, yes. And have fun, the contest organizers remind me. Right.

I am wearing a bright red jacket with stripes to put me in the airshow-pilot mood. "Be aggressive," I remind myself. "Attack the maneuvers. Do them as you did in training. Be all you can be." (Or is that slogan taken?) I finally settle on one plan: "Attack!"

Rudder pedal springs squeaking in a staccato code break my concentration. Has the wind come up? While beginners aren't required to remain in the 3,300 foot-square aerobatic "box" of airspace used for all competitions, they must not cross the "dead line" (in this case the runway) used to protect spectators. Cross it, and the windscreen will fill with tiny judges scattering from their lawn chairs to avoid my dive, instead of the rapidly enlarging cows I normally see. With considerable relief, I realize it is my own feet twitching the pedals, not the wind.

Pilot Managing Editor Mike Collins, photographing my ordeal, asks, "Hey Al, you want a cigarette and a blindfold?" To him, I appear to be awaiting execution. Earlier, I had asked his six-yearold daughter Jennifer what she does when scared. "I close my eyes," she said. Another aerobatic pilot within earshot quipped, "That's just what I do." Fifteen minutes later she was back with a question: "Are you gonna be a scaredycat?"

Finally, the official starter tells me the judges are ready. Over the past six weeks I've had only the 10 hour, beginning aerobatics course taught by Austin, and six additional hours of preparation for the competition. It will have to do. The earliest lessons were cut short by impending air sickness. Each time, Austin's Decathlon proved faster than stomach malaise. I did not hurl. By hour six I had adapted to G forces, no longer feeling tired after each lesson, and the stomach problems were nearly gone—except for the day the snap roll was introduced. I even adapted to inverted flight after a few lessons. Hold up an insect. Pretend it's you. Toss it on its back. See the panic? The confusion? The fear? The flailing little legs? That's what you'll feel like, flying inverted for the first time.

The takeoff today is reasonably smooth; a good omen. I switch to the competition frequency and hear, "Al Marsh is cleared into the box," from Chief Judge Ray Rose; signal panels on the ground go white. Propeller to 2,500 rpm, manifold pressure to 24 inches, trim to 120 miles per hour. Check.

The routine starts with a spin entry. The aircraft must draw a horizontal line as it slows, nose rising to maintain altitude. After the stall, the nose and wingtip must drop (to the left, in this case) together; watch for the halfturn. Now, apply partial right rudder to slow the rotation. One quarter turn more, and full right rudder. Still rotating fast. Wait til the last millisecond, then swiftly move the stick forward to stop on the original heading. Now, dive to draw a vertical "down line," a decent one this time, but slightly overdone. I go past vertical. Count: one, two, three, and pull. /the pullout from that attitude slams Austin down in the back seat with five Gs of force, more than I normally use in this routine. Since he is further aft, he takes the brunt of it. I am attacking, all right. Other competitors need not worry that Austin will coach me today: When I'm done with him, he'll be in no condition to say anything. (IAC rules permit beginners to have a safety pilot.)

The loop is coming up in three seconds. During this time I must draw another perfect horizontal line. The aircraft is still trimmed for 120 mph, but due to my greater speed, I must hold forward pressure to avoid climbing. I sight along the bottom of the wing, keeping it level with the horizon. Check the wingtips to make sure the aircraft is level, and pull sharply, enough to load the wings with 3.5 Gs. Swivel the head to the left wingtip, and try to keep the center of the wing on a point on the horizon. A little left rudder, then right. After climbing through the vertical attitude, I increase the back pressure slightly to keep the loop symmetrical as I lose airspeed. Approaching inverted now, I relax the stick pressure to avoid flattening the top. Down the backside, stick pressure increases gradually and left rudder is needed to stay on heading.  By the bottom of the loop, I have increased the G load to 3.5 again to maintain the symmetry of the loop.

Going 145 mph out of the loop, I must draw another horizontal line; then it's time for the slow roll, my worst maneuver. "Slow down. Take your time. Don't rush." My mind replays Austin's instructions of a week ago. Mess up here and it's no plaque. No pressure, though.

The slow roll requires the brain to constantly process ever-changing information about pitch, roll and yaw, and to coordinate the controls through a ballet of constantly movement. I discovered early in my training that my brain has one of the older, slower microprocessors. I need a chip upgrade.

It took 100 practice slow rolls for it to come together. The majority of the practice was done with Austin, but I also flew three times with Craig Brown of Control Aero in Frederick, Maryland, who recalls wearily, "We did a lot of slow rolls." I confessed my slow roll problem to Patty Wagstaff as she autographed a poster during a convention in New Orleans (more rudder, she said), and sought advice from Rodney Martz of AOPA, Mark Ludtke of Pompano (Florida) Air Center, Pilot columnist Mark Twombly, and John Steuernagle of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. Then I watched Duane Cole's video, Flight Around the Axes, over and over.

At times, I even considered whether the slow roll would be easier in a different aircraft. Before training began, I took demo rides in a Pitts S2B with multiple IAC contest winner Bill Finagin of Annapolis, Maryland, and 1992 East Coast Sportsman champion Nancy Lynn, who teaches in an S2B at Bay Bridge Airport in Stevensville, Maryland. Since that time, I have been jealous of Pitts pilots who seem to have power to spare for the maneuvers. You don't so much take off in a Pitts as you light the fuse. I finally decided, however, the Decathlon is better for the beginner because it slows the maneuvers down, and is less expensive, too.

My last slow roll may not have been perfect, but at least I had a clean routine. Now my fate depends on the other competitors. Leaving the box, I bank sharply and quickly, still performing for the folks below. Austin, perhaps just coming to from my high-G spin recoveries, laughs into the intercom. "Now he turns it on," he jokes.

A contest official enters the Farmville hangar to post the standings. Recognizing me as the pest who has peppered him with questions for two days, he calls out, "Al, you got second." Utter shock. I need to see it for myself before celebrating, and follow him to the wall where the standings are taped. I babble, "I can't believe it," over and over until two people begin to stare. Not only will there be a plaque, but it will say "2^nd" on it. I can't believe it.  (Oops, there I go again.) There will also be a badge. Today's competitors scoring a 5 of better on each maneuver will receive a Basic aerobatic badge with stars on top (and a certificate) showing they were judged in an official competition.

First place winner James Howe of Parma, Ohio, who also flew a Decathlon, had previous experience competing in the Basic category. Look for him this year in the more advanced Sportsman category. My score was only 1.3% below his, and I was pleased just to have been close. Third place was won by Russell Sheets of Delaware, Ohio, flying a Pitts S2B. (After the Sportsman category come, in order of increasing difficulty, Intermediate, Advanced, and Unlimited.)

My second-place victory confirmed, I face two choices: Drive home 200 miles without the plaque and let them ship it to me, or wait for a 10 p.m. presentation and arrive home at 1:30 the next morning—a 20-hour day. There is no question that I will wait. I want that plaque in my car prior to departure. It turned out to be a wise decision. It was very encouraging to have Doug Moretz, director of the contest, shout, "Nice job, Al," during the applause that accompanied my award that evening. I also got to meet a very nice group of people—okay there was a minor food fight and a green bean from one table ended up in the water glass on another. But it was a nice group, all the same. 

Even if I never compete again, I still retain the ability to recover to level flight from any attitude, whether it be unusual or positively weird, a useful skill in any aircraft I may fly.

So when I started teaching aerobatics, the first thing I thought to do was make up an acronym that would encapsulate the goals of my training syllabus. It would be, I hoped, something my students could take with them, something that would inure to their enduring benefit. What I came up with was SOAP, hence the "clean" in the title. It seemed to work out well for my students and me. Here's the translation. See what you think.

S stands for SMOOTHNESS. While we all strive to make our control movements--and the consequent aircraft movements--ATP smooth, it is sometimes difficult for new aerobatics students, who are at best a little apprehensive about this new realm of flight. Many grasp the stick with bulldog determination and think that "quick and hard" is the order of the day--if they're to save themselves from the airplane.

Of course, when flying above maneuvering speed, which is the case with most aerobatic maneuvers, it is more important than ever to handle the plane with, shall we say, a kind, if firm, hand, at least until you've made the plane's acquaintance. So I tell my students to make all control movements as smoothly as possible. This includes movements of the throttle: Don't cob it, meaning don't jam it forward or rip it back. Neither is a good practice. Not only might you break something, but airplanes, like the horse whisper said of horses, don't need to be beaten into submission; they react much better to gentle persuasion.

O Remember your first day at college? Or at your last new job? You probably spent a day or more in "orientation." This was necessary for you to get to know your way around. The same is true for aerobatics, and not just to know your way "around" loops. So "O" is for ORIENTATION. Without it, flight around all three axes to any desired degree of precision is just not possible. You've got to know your way around--continuously.

Each maneuver has its own set of landmarks--visual cues--that must be remembered and applied without fail if you're to maintain orientation and fly the figures right. Thus, for example, when flying any maneuver into the vertical, whether it's a loop, a vertical roll or a hammerhead, as soon as the nose departs the horizon, attention must be diverted to one or the other wingtip in order to judge the plane's vertical progress. Then, in the case of a loop, as the plane's wingtip--in addition to kinesthetic sense--indicates the plane has gone past vertical, the pilot's gaze must transition out the top of the canopy to pick up the ascending horizon.

Yes, orientation is essential to navigating the variegated figures-in-the-sky that Count Aresti compiled in his "aerocryptographic system." (There are actually five basic aerobatic maneuvers: loop, slow roll, snap roll, hammerhead turn and spin. All other maneuvers are just combinations of these. Aresti developed this graphic system as a mnemonic for his own use. You can see all the currently used maneuvers and their associated Aresti symbol in the Federation Aeronautique Internationale Aerobatic Catalogue, available through the International Aerobatics Club, a division of the Experimental Aircraft Association, or EAA.)

A for attitude? No, though attitude always counts, whether you're talking aircraft or pilot. A is for AIRSPEED control. Another must have, must do. This is especially important not only for safety but for training efficiency. One must start each attempt at a maneuver from the exact same airspeed; otherwise, the control feel, the speed at which things happen and the visual picture will all be different, making any needed adjustments--and learning--all the more difficult.

Of course, there is also the issue of overspeeding the plane, but that is a much more obvious consideration, and one of more concern to the instructor than the student. (If you want a great story about what happens when the instructor gets too complacent because the student has been doing "everything right," read Duane Cole's excellent Conquest of Lines and Symmetry. Therein, he tells the story of how he was teaching inverted flight in a Citabria over Pyramid Lake near Reno, Nevada, when he started to daydream about trout fishing with his daughter Karen. Before he knew it, the Citabria was breaking speed records, as he had to ease the plane out of a screaming split-s.)

One more point about airspeed needs to be emphasized for students: every maneuver can be done at a range of entry airspeeds. When your student decides to compete, as perhaps one in ten will, or if your student just wants to put several figures together in a sequence for fun, they will be faced with the same urgent need as the fighter pilot who's engaged in a dog-fight: to "manage energy." All this means, actually, is that you must exchange altitude for airspeed, given that most general aviation aerobatic airplanes don't have a better than one-to-one thrust-to-weight ratio, like an Eagle or a Hornet. When you run out of the juice, you've got put the nose down to get it back, at least if you want to stay in the box.

In doing a sequence, it may mean that you come off the top of an Immelmann with barely enough energy for the half slow roll on top. You may have practiced it at a much higher speed than what now presents itself. Be prepared. Forewarned is forearmed! Practice each maneuver at many speeds to see the difference in control feel and extent of control inputs that are required at differing speeds of entry. In general, slower speed means much greater control movements. But watch out for that stall! You'll have to learn to feel the turbulence nibble at the wing as the laminar flow starts to break down and the smooth flow begins to separate from the airfoil.

P And finally, there's "P." For PRESENCE-OF-MIND. Now this could just as easily have been situational awareness, but that wouldn't have clicked with my acronym; nor would it have completely captured my intent. No secret here; this just means keep your wits about you. Don't let a sudden upset of the status quo send your brain on an errand. Most importantly, when there's any digression from normal flight, stop for a few seconds to figure out what the plane is doing before responding with what may be an inappropriate--and dangerous--reaction.

Such is the case when novices are first introduced to the unusual attitude of being inverted. Even when warned of the impending situation, the instinct of nearly everyone is to pull back on the stick; this is exactly the wrong thing to do. In fact, the best course of action, initially, to any kind of upset is to neutralize the controls. This alone will often stop what the airplane was beginning to do. It only takes a second or three to determine what the proper response should be, presuming you've had the necessary training. But to just make any old control movement out of desperation is just plain bad strategy, one that will frequently lead to even more trouble. So stop--neutralize--look, listen, and then react.