Patrick PARIS
Since he started flying back in 1972 in a Cap 10, he wanted to discover more and more about aerobatics. He flew as a flight instructor on Fouga Magisters for 5 years and was a big an of the aerobatics missions. He then decided to join the “Equipe de Voltige de l’Armée de l’Air.” While a member of that French Air Force for 11 years, he won the Freestyle world championship in 1988 in Red Deer (Calgary) Canada.
After leaving the Air Force, he became the official display and competition pilot for Brietling. He won the European Aerobatic championships in 93 (Ravena Italy),95 (Hradec Kralove Tcheque Republic) and 97 (Antalya Turquey) and for a second time won the World Aerobatic Freestyle Championship in 1996 (Page, Oklahoma USA). He won the Overall World Champion title in 1998 in Trencin, Slovaquia.
During his flying career, he also very much enjoyed teaching aerobatics. Since 1998, he also had the opportunity to train and coach the Royal Jordanian Falcons, the French team (as a “co” trainer, for 2 years), the British and the Swiss teams, and individual pilots from all over the world.
During this long period of time, when “only” excellent books were availaible on the market to learn aerobatics, he was deeply convinced that something more adapted to learn aerobatics was missing.
History
In 2012, after much thought, Patrick, decided to embark on the project to create a series of videos available online to aerobatic pilots and aviation enthusiasts.
There are number of very good books on the subject but? aerobatics is first and foremost a visual activity. This series of dedicated video clips fills a gap in the field.
Drawing from his long experience as a trainer, world class competitor coach, as well as coach and mentor to aerobatic enthusiasts, he uses video imagery’s exceptional tools, to share what the pilot sees with his eyes, and what he does with the controls.
The sequences, with views from inside the cockpit as well as from the ground are all commented, to help the pilot prepare and rehearse his flights. Flying through the pilot’s eyes enables the viewer to identify and correct many common errors that frustrate and slow progression.
In this respects, the cockpit of an aerobatic aircraft with your trainer on board is the perfect classroom.
That’s the framework in which this application project AoA was created.
AoA means “Academy of Aerobatics”, and is directly linked to the concept of AoA
(Angle of Attack) which all of you pilots are familiar with, the Angle of Attack with the lift it provides enables us to stay airborne with our aircraft.
You will be managing this angle of attack in every situation; Take off, cruise, circuit pattern, maneuvering, emergencies.
Aerobatics will carry you a step further, to discover and master principles that are too subtle to be recognised in normal operations.
Hence the idea to name this application AoA.
As an aerobatic pilot, Patrick wants you to develop the “Seat of the Pants” feeling to instinctively control Angle of Attack. In that light, he also hopes that all general aviation aircraft will eventually be equipped with an AoA indicator for safety reasons.
Short description of the App
The layout of the App is divided into 5 volumes including several chapters:
First volume adresses safety issues.
The second one is about the basics of flying and introduces positive aerobatics
The third one brings you into negative aerobatics, all the way from Advanced to
Unlimited
The Fourth one is about Free Style and display maneuvers.
Fifth one includes free videos to show what you can expect in purchasing other chapters, and supplies relevant document material you may be interested with.
Please note and keep in mind that some of the videos in a chapter may or may not include Sub Chapters that adress safety issues and common errors. The content of the App is consistent, get familiar with the process of navigating inside it.
The videos are always presented in the same format:
First the disclaimer, then the title with the logo representing the chapter. I.e. You may have an Immelmann and a stall turn in the same chapter and only the logo of the stall turn will be visible and repeated
The screen layout shows the maneuver taken from ground camera at normal speed on the left half, the wing camera will appear on the bottom right and the head camera on the top right. In sequence you will find the briefing in slow motion with bottom right camera replaced by a view of control inputs, finally the overall maneuver again at normal speed with the same screen layout as for the briefing.
The full programme distribution can be found here .
Xample
A few months ago, Patrick decided to ask Xample to develop the AOA applications for both IOS and Android since he knew their expertise in developing applications for Aviation world wide for private and/ or professional pilots. Xample and Patrick spent together the last months to find out the best presentation for the Apps and end up with this final version. We are very happy about the final result and proud to share now the communication on both Airnavpro and Academy of Aerobatics Apps to promote them in order to help pilots to get easier and safer flights.
Both Applications have been developed according to what we know about how the brain is working. That allows us to say that both Apps Airnavpro and Academy of Aerobatics will help you a lot in flight since you will be more aware, you will have a better visualization, meaning a better anticipation, and more capacity to deal with more workload.
In other words, when you will face a situation, you will anticipate sooner, and if you have to take a decision, you will be more confident taking the best one.
Special Thanks
In a chronologic order, AOA would like to make a special thank to Equipe de Voltige de l’Armée de l’Air (Evaa) where Patrick Paris really started Aerobatics, to his coaches Mrs Jean Eyquem, Claude Bessière and Jean Paul Mondière
To the Fédération Nationale aeronautique FNA, the Association Française de la Voltige Aérienne AFVA, the French National Team (from 83 to 99), France Voltige, the Fédération Française Aéronautique FFA and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale FAI
To Mr Auguste Mudry and his company
To the Breitling company and their Ceo Mr Ernest and Theodore Schneider who supported Patrick Paris since he left Evaa in 1991 up to now and his partner Mr Stefano Albinati who is a great fan of aerobatics
To Dave and Martha Martin, Debby Rhin-Harvey and the Faa for their great help back in 2005 up to now to fly in the Usa and also at Wac 2013
To Peter Podlunsek and the airclub of Murska Sobota, Danilo Antik and Dusan Korc, to allow the videos to be done up there.
And then to the fantastic team who help Patrick Paris and supported him a lot : Aldo Di Bernardo for the plane and a lot of help for all the documents, Patrick’s son Gregory for the music and all his advises for the Apps, and especially Patrick’s other son, Michael for his tremendeous work on filming and editing the videos.
Without them, nothing would have happened.
“Translation from the French, Editing & Subtitles by Adam “Dew Point” Shaw (www.captens.fr)”