How to Memorise an Aerobatic Sequence
Under +6G, with the ground where the sky was, your memory works worse than it does at a desk. A sequence you can recite calmly on the ground is not the same as one you can fly, and the methods below exist to close that gap.
1. Walk it
The oldest method and still the most used. You stand in a clear space with the Aresti card, hold a hand out as the aeroplane, and walk the sequence physically: turning your body, raising and lowering the hand, saying the figure names out loud. It looks ridiculous and it works, because it recruits motor memory alongside visual memory. Every competition site has a patch of grass with pilots doing exactly this before a flight.
2. Chunk it
Nobody remembers fifteen separate figures. They remember four groups of three or four. Break the sequence where the aeroplane changes direction or where energy resets, so each chunk begins in a defined state. Then memorise the chunk boundaries, which are the only points where you can lose your place cheaply.
3. Fly it from the entry state, not the figure name
A stronger version of chunking. Instead of remembering "hammerhead, then half roll", remember "arrive here at this speed, wings level, upright". If you know what state each figure starts from, the figure itself becomes obvious. This is also what saves you when something goes wrong mid-sequence: you rejoin at a state rather than at a name.
4. Say it out loud in the aeroplane
Talking the sequence while you fly it, before the flight and during the first practices, gives your memory a second channel. Under load, verbal recall degrades differently from visual recall, so having both running means one can cover for the other. Many pilots keep a shortened version of this habit for competition flights.
5. Sleep on it
Consolidation is real and there is no shortcut. A sequence learned the evening before is held better the next morning than a sequence crammed in the hour before the flight. For unknown programmes, where you get the card shortly before flying with no practice permitted, this is the one method unavailable to you, and that is what makes unknowns the real test of a pilot.
The unknown programme
Handed out shortly before flight, never practised, flown once. Everything above except sleep applies, at speed: chunk it, walk it, define entry states, say it aloud. Reading the entry and exit state of each figure helps with preparing an unfamiliar sequence.
What to do when you lose it
Fly a known safe figure, get the aeroplane into a defined state, and rejoin at the nearest chunk boundary. You will lose points for the missing figure. You will lose far more by improvising something the card does not contain, which scores zero and can take you outside the box.
Frequently asked questions
How do aerobatic pilots memorise a sequence?
By walking it physically on the ground with the Aresti card, breaking it into chunks of three or four figures, remembering the entry state of each figure rather than its name, saying it aloud in the aircraft, and learning it the evening before rather than cramming.
What is an unknown sequence?
A programme handed to pilots shortly before flight with no practice permitted. It is the test that separates pilots who memorised a routine from pilots who can read a card and fly it.
Why walk the sequence on the ground?
Because it recruits motor memory alongside visual memory. Turning your body and moving a hand as the aircraft holds up better under load than reading the card repeatedly.
What should you do if you lose your place mid-sequence?
Fly a known safe figure, get the aircraft into a defined state and rejoin at the nearest chunk boundary. Improvising a figure the card does not contain scores zero and can take you outside the box.
Fly it yourself
Aerobatic flights in the Extra 300L SP-EKS from Radom-Piastów (EPRP), 100 km from Warsaw. From 2,222 PLN, no licence or experience required. Gift vouchers are issued as a PDF after payment confirmation and stay valid for 12 months.