Parabolic flights

[Scrooge McDuck]

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be aboard a parabolic flight, this was great fun. Due to the size/interior setup of this plane, we could not completely float around like they do in the novespace A300 Zero-G, but it still offers a lot of possibilities.

I was wondering if there are any other people on this forum (besides simonpro) who have done this?
Any plane counts (I've done it in glider planes before, but that is only about 5 seconds max, while the bigger planes provide about 20 sec).


Here's a video: (sorry I had no better camera)

Parabolic flight

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regards,
mcduck

 

[Piper]

I can't say I've gone all the way down to 0g, but as a pilot, I love doing parabolas and have been pretty close (probably about 0.1g). Unfortunately in the airplanes I fly, if I try to do 0g or negative gees, I risk cutting off the fuel and the oil to the engine (they're gravity fed).

 

[simonpro]

There's a spanish guy on here who's done a parabolic flight, not sure where he is hidden just now

I'm going up again this friday, looking forward to it a lot.
How did you find it, McD? Enjoyable? Disorientating? You manage to do any spins?

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

I'm going up again this friday, looking forward to it a lot.
How did you find it, McD? Enjoyable? Disorientating? You manage to do any spins?

Friday already? *jealous*
How did you actually got into this as flight crew member, and how often do you do this? If I remember correctly you once joined one of the student campaign flights with an experiment, but I suppose this normally is the first and the last flight for most people?

To me it was very enjoyable! If they'd ask me to do it again, I would definitely say yes. We couldn't do any spins as this plane is not really big enough to leave the seats during a parabola (for you this must be pretty boring :lol, besides the crew cabin walls are not really prepared for this. I think it's more like a default business jet, except for the experiment rack in the back of the crew cabin (originally, there was a toilet on that place, which was stripped out for this purpose). Anyhow seatbelts could be taken off. I would love to once do a flight with more room for free floating (and maybe a serious experiment as well ).
From the 10 persons aboard, 2 got (really) sick sadly, however I'm glad that I personally had no sign of illness/dizziness at all (maybe the trick was to not eat too much before takeoff?).

regards,
mcduck