About roll inertia in aerobatic planes. I'm not a world class competitor or anything, but i have about 10 hours of aerobatic time, 3 of it training, 2 in competition, and a few after that dual for unusual attitude training at the Western Michgian University school of aviation Extra 300's. The acro competition i did was in a super decathalon with spades, and it rolled at about 120 deg/sec. Roll inertia at high speed was pretty hard to notice. Maybe a lead roll out angle of 10 or 15 degrees was all that was necessary. I don't know for sure since my maneuvers weren't perfect, but i could consistantly roll out within 5 deg of level. In the extra 300 I noticed zero lag. The roll rate built in no time, and a whole 360 degree roll was completed in about a second. I instinctively tried to counter the momentum, like I do in most flight sims, and I ended up rolling back through level. This was a level "slow" roll at abotu 150 knots. I didn't have time to add in rudder correction, and just pulsated down elevator for the inverted portion in order to keep the roll fairly axial.
When I did notice roll inertia in the Super Decathalon was during snap rolls. I had trouble getting those to come out right, and usually lead out by about 60 degrees from level. This includes breaking the stall by releasing the backpressure, applying some opposite rudder, and when the stall is broken, ailerons can be used to smoothly finish the roll. In the decathalon this was a tricky maneuver, and I didn't try them in the extra.
Who was it who kept talking about flying one of the Crazy Horse P-51 two seaters? I remember him saying that there was little roll inertia noticable. Granted, this was a lightly fueled fighter with no bombs, so that would make a big difference compared to the P-47 with 2 1000 lbers mentioned earlier..
