Win a Pentax Limited Lens: Raffle Now Live!

Someone on Facebook is annoying me so I'd like to appeal to the pilots here. In 2011 at an airshow, I saw a C27J Spartan do what I would call a loop. The aircraft started low, pulled up, went inverted travelling in the opposite direction to the one it started in, then descended and pulled out pointing in the original direction. Now, the aircraft wasn't perfectly level at when inverted, so the entry and exit points probably didn't overlap.

Earlier, it did what I would call a barrel roll - the entire maneuver travelling in the same direction, rolling in a helix around a long cylindrical path. Surely these two things are quite different?

Before the top of the loop

Alenia C27J Spartan in a loop by RobGeraghty, on Flickr

Inverted, noting that it isn't level

Alenia C-27J inverted by RobGeraghty, on Flickr

Pulling out of the loop

Alenia C-27J by RobGeraghty, on Flickr

Partially inverted during the earlier roll

Alenia C-27J by RobGeraghty, on Flickr

Comments? Is what looks like a loop still a barrel roll if the entry and exit points don't exactly overlap? I thought the reversal of direction made it a loop?

Loop's vertical through invertided. Any roll's around the horizontal, longitudinal axis. You're right.

Thanks! That's a simple way to describe the difference.

Nice pics @RobG. The C-27 was performing a loop and the famous Cuban 8 maneuver at its demonstrations. I have also witnessed it.

Thanks! I was a bit peeved when people tried to tell me that what clearly looked like a loop was a barrel roll!
I don't think I saw it do a Cuban 8. But it was six years ago and I didn't take video of it!