The first attempts to fly airplanes in extreme conditions most often ended in disasters and the death of pilots. Success came to the Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov, who was the first in the world to complete a figure that later became the main one in aerobatics. This figure was called the "loop".
Loop
In 1913, the military pilot Pyotr Nesterov was the first on the planet to perform a new aerobatics for those times. It happened on September 9 over an airfield near Kiev. The figure, which later received the name "Nesterov's loop", or "dead loop", was a closed curve lying in a vertical plane. In fact, this flight of Nesterov marked the beginning of aerobatics.
The idea to perform such a loop came to Nesterov long before the famous flight. Sincerely rooting for the success of Russian aviation, he looked for opportunities to improve the methods of piloting. He has repeatedly expressed the idea that every pilot is capable of making a roll of the aircraft and even a closed vertical curve. But most of those with whom Nesterov shared his ideas considered his ideas extravagant.
Why was the famous loop called "dead"? The fact is that the first attempts to perform such a trick at the dawn of aviation were made on aircraft that were not able to withstand such loads. Aircraft, as a rule, were destroyed in such a dangerous maneuver, and the pilots died.
The instructions for airplanes flying in those days strictly prohibited sharp turns, spirals, and rolls of the aircraft.
The first risky maneuver in the air
Nesterov took a conscious risk, being confident of success. After gaining an altitude of about a kilometer, the pilot stopped the airplane engine and switched to gliding. After a while, he turned on the engine again, after which the plane rushed up vertically, turned "on its back", made a closed loop and successfully exited the dive. The pilot leveled the airplane and made a smooth landing.
Nesterov's daring air maneuver caused a mixed reaction in the press. Some considered the pilot's act a reckless trick and boyishness. But the majority was inclined to believe that the figure performed by Nesterov could help the pilots save their lives in extreme situations. The Kiev Society of Aeronautics awarded Pyotr Nesterov with a gold medal.
Experienced specialists reasoned that the pilot, at the risk of his own life, had found a solution to the issue of controlling the aircraft in conditions of vertical roll.
Soon after this first successful experiment, the "Nesterov loop" was repeated by other pilots not only in Russia, but also abroad. And the Russian pioneer of aerobatics continued to improve his flying skills, gradually becoming an unsurpassed master of piloting. During the First World War, Pyotr Nesterov died heroically, having committed the first air ram in world military practice.
