The
tailslide is an
aerobatic maneuver that starts from level flight with a 1/4 loop up into a straight vertical climb (at full power) until the
aircraft loses
momentum. When the aircraft's speed reaches 0 and it stops climbing, the
pilot maintains the aircraft in a stand-still position as long as possible (this is greatly helped by
thrust vectoring on newer
fighter aircraft), and as it starts to fall to the ground backwards, tail first, the nose drops through the
horizon to a vertical down position and the aircraft enters a
dive. A 1/4 loop (push or pull) recovers to level flight.