Wikipediaphile: Split S

So it’s half four in the morning, I’ve got a documentary on in the background (People’s Century episode 6, ‘1927: Great Escape’), and I’m idly stroking threads of human knowledge…

Bonus Army > General MacArthur > Billy Mitchell > Hap Arnold > USAAF > P38 Lightning > Split S

The Split S is an air combat maneuver mostly used to disengage from combat. To execute a Split S, the pilot half-rolls his aircraft inverted and executes a descending half-loop, resulting in level flight in the exact opposite direction at a lower altitude.

So now you know.