How to practice losing control....
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How to practice losing control....
Current power pilots and instructors, help me out here....I can give advice on the stall, the spin, recognition and recovery in a glider.
Not necessarily in power.
A few things have changed in gliding .... it is no longer approved to scare the **** out of your student by practicing spins and recoveries below 600 feet.
That was supposed to weed out the wimps! Even with the view gone green and spinning round, you had to FULL OPPOSITE RUDDER, CENTRALISE CONTROLS, EASE STICK FORWARD UNTIL RECOVERED FROM STALL/SPIN, AND then ease out of your death dive. Trouble was, not everybody did.
So same exercise, yep, but from 2,000 feet minimum. But I still think the student learns the most from HIMSELF putting the aircraft into the unusual attitude, able to recognise if it is a spiral dive or a spin, and taking the proper action. If the instructor puts it in a spin and says Now you fix it!
he doesn't have a chance to find out what it feels like. He may therefore not have experienced, with his hand - and feets - on the controls, when the dear old ship goes wobbly AND THE ELEVATOR DOES NOT WORK IN THE NORMAL SENSE.....
If you move the stick (or wheel) back, and the nose still goes down, THAT MEANS YOU ARE STALLED. To recover, move the stick (wheel) forward instead...sure enough, the elevator was not disconnected after all. It will still lower the nose. Which brings the aircraft out of the stall.
The spin is the interesting effect of one wing stalled, the other wing not stalled. Even if your aircraft is not approved for spinning, you should still practice stall recognition and recovery. Stick forward usually fixes it. Not always easy to do if you are already close to the ground. But a vital action all the same.
If you are an instructor, in power, what type do you use for teaching? what altitude? Do you let the student put it in the stall and recover, then in the spin and recover, or do you deprive him of that valuable experience?
And do you ever take up a light aircraft approved for spinning on your own, and throw it around just to remember what it feels like?
Not necessarily in power.
A few things have changed in gliding .... it is no longer approved to scare the **** out of your student by practicing spins and recoveries below 600 feet.
That was supposed to weed out the wimps! Even with the view gone green and spinning round, you had to FULL OPPOSITE RUDDER, CENTRALISE CONTROLS, EASE STICK FORWARD UNTIL RECOVERED FROM STALL/SPIN, AND then ease out of your death dive. Trouble was, not everybody did.
So same exercise, yep, but from 2,000 feet minimum. But I still think the student learns the most from HIMSELF putting the aircraft into the unusual attitude, able to recognise if it is a spiral dive or a spin, and taking the proper action. If the instructor puts it in a spin and says Now you fix it!
he doesn't have a chance to find out what it feels like. He may therefore not have experienced, with his hand - and feets - on the controls, when the dear old ship goes wobbly AND THE ELEVATOR DOES NOT WORK IN THE NORMAL SENSE.....
If you move the stick (or wheel) back, and the nose still goes down, THAT MEANS YOU ARE STALLED. To recover, move the stick (wheel) forward instead...sure enough, the elevator was not disconnected after all. It will still lower the nose. Which brings the aircraft out of the stall.
The spin is the interesting effect of one wing stalled, the other wing not stalled. Even if your aircraft is not approved for spinning, you should still practice stall recognition and recovery. Stick forward usually fixes it. Not always easy to do if you are already close to the ground. But a vital action all the same.
If you are an instructor, in power, what type do you use for teaching? what altitude? Do you let the student put it in the stall and recover, then in the spin and recover, or do you deprive him of that valuable experience?
And do you ever take up a light aircraft approved for spinning on your own, and throw it around just to remember what it feels like?
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As a student I was send off on my own to do an hour of stalling. I don't know if that's done any more, but it's routine for the instructor to tell the student to stall and recover the aircraft (in a variety of scenarios) during recurrent training, trying out new types etc.
At my clue the rules for any of this messing about are to start at a height that enables recovery by 3,000' solo or 2,000' (IIRC).
I've had one spin demonstrated to me because I asked for it (in a 152) - not part of the PPL course. I found the actual spin to be less sick-making than the incipient spin, from which recovery was trained.
At my clue the rules for any of this messing about are to start at a height that enables recovery by 3,000' solo or 2,000' (IIRC).
I've had one spin demonstrated to me because I asked for it (in a 152) - not part of the PPL course. I found the actual spin to be less sick-making than the incipient spin, from which recovery was trained.
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MM
If you are an instructor, in power, what type do you use for teaching? what altitude? Do you let the student put it in the stall and recover, then in the spin and recover, or do you deprive him of that valuable experience?
If you are an instructor, in power, what type do you use for teaching? what altitude? Do you let the student put it in the stall and recover, then in the spin and recover, or do you deprive him of that valuable experience?
I have seen so many instructors hovering over the controls or worse touching/applying inputs to the controls while the student is practising probably because they are not confident in their own ability to recover from a situation.
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I fly stalls and spins, loops and rolls about once a month, just to maintain proficiency.
When I'm mentor flying, I occasionally hover the controls, not to "help" my charge, but to upset the plane more, to show then what they should be comfortable doing in it.
I remember being timid, until the learned pilots started showing me what a plane would actually do. The most extreme of this, was during a flight in a C 185 amphibian, as I asked the pilot owner if a plane with that much hanging below could be rolled. He said "Hmmm, I don't know..." Moments later, we both knew, yes it could!
When I'm mentor flying, I occasionally hover the controls, not to "help" my charge, but to upset the plane more, to show then what they should be comfortable doing in it.
I remember being timid, until the learned pilots started showing me what a plane would actually do. The most extreme of this, was during a flight in a C 185 amphibian, as I asked the pilot owner if a plane with that much hanging below could be rolled. He said "Hmmm, I don't know..." Moments later, we both knew, yes it could!
At my clue the rules for any of this messing about are to start at a height that enables recovery by 3,000' solo or 2,000' (IIRC).
You should not be certified for solo spinning until you are competent.
That means if it considered safe to recover by 2000 ft if it is dual instruction, then as far as the aircraft type is concerned recovery by 2000 ft is safe. If the instructor himself is on solo practice does that mean he is also restricted to recover by 3000 ft? Either you are fully competent to recover by 2000 ft or you are not. There should be no difference between dual and solo spinning practice if you have been signed off as competent.
A similar principle applies in airline type rating e.g B737, Airbus etc with regards to certified competency in crosswind landings. Any type rating training should include certified competency at landing up to the crosswind limit of the aircraft type. That should include first officers as well as a captain.
The first officer is legally second in command. It would be logical to expect his type rating training is the same standard expected of a captain. Passengers of an airliner would sincerely hope the first officer has the skills of a captain, in the event of the captain being incapacitated.
That said, it is common airline policy to reduce the crosswind limit for first officers landings or take off's. That is an open admission that first officers are not trained to command competency standard in some handling sequences such as crosswind landings to the aircraft type limit. Yet by unforeseen circumstances, they could well be required to fly in command single-handed if the captain was incapacitated. Food for thought?
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Mary the discontinued exercise was called the "controlled shock" and was only a demonstration designed to show the student that mishandling the controls when at or near the stall and near the ground was not a good idea. I was quite happy to dothis demo in a K13. However it was discontinued after it became evident that practice bleeding is not a good idea. In normal circumstances allowing a student to fly the aircraft up to departure and then to recover is vital. Recognition of all the symptoms of the stall/spin must be learned hands on with out any interference of the controls from the instructor and the recovery/prevention must become instinctive.
Prevention ie avoidance of the stall/spin in the first place is always better than cure, so practice at flying near the stall in various configurations and various angles of bank and speeds is vital.
Prevention ie avoidance of the stall/spin in the first place is always better than cure, so practice at flying near the stall in various configurations and various angles of bank and speeds is vital.
My glider won't stall in my current CG from the certification standard 1 kt/second deceleration. It runs out of aileron authority.
It most certainly does in a 6 kt/second windshear with a variable amount of snap roll thrown in.
About the only way I can think of practicing that kind of a stall is to put the glider in an upline.
It most certainly does in a 6 kt/second windshear with a variable amount of snap roll thrown in.
About the only way I can think of practicing that kind of a stall is to put the glider in an upline.
It is clear to me that the best way to survive an inadvertent spin is to not let the airplane get into a spin in the first place. Since the aircraft has to be stalled before it can spin, I strongly believe the best way to to avoid spin accidents is stall recognition and avoidance.
This IMO should have 2 components
1) Training in recognizing flight paths that are developing dangerous trends
2) Develop in the student an automatic instinctive reaction of stick forward and rudder (full if necessary) to control yaw, at the first indication of a stall break.
Good exercises for point one are, at a safe altitude in the practice area:
a) Set up a VX climb simulating a short field with obstacles takeoff, make a sharp turn with a sudden pitch up. This simulates the startle reflex when you get close to the trees on climb out.
b) Set up a full flap landing with low power and let the aircraft get slow then pull the nose up like you are getting low but don't add power
c) Demonstrate the base to final killer turn.
For point two all you need is to give the student lots of practice. This should be done not only in the initial stall training, but revisited regularly throughout training.
I demonstrate the items in point one so that I can explain to the student what warning signs to look for. After that it is all student practice to develop those life saving automatic stall recovery reactions.
And do you ever take up a light aircraft approved for spinning on your own, and throw it around just to remember what it feels like?
Last edited by Big Pistons Forever; 31st Aug 2015 at 15:45.
While we recognise the value of the student putting the aircraft in a stall/spin situation so he/she understands the mechanisms that lead there one might also see the value in learning to recognise the situation when one did not put the aircraft there, at least intentionally.
When learning to fly in the early sixties we were taught stalls straight and level power off, climb power in a turn, and power off in a turn. Didn't ever do them solo, though did do spins solo (Chipmunk, Victa and Tiger Moth - no strakes on the Tiger or Chippy). Recovery from spins was to be by 3,000. Not part of an official course, but one instructor in the Chippy taught spin recovery on limited panel.
In the CFS basic training regime you bailed out of a Bulldog if not fully recovered from a spin at 5, or was it 6,000ft. And the Bulldog was totally predictable in a spin. This meant you had to be 8-9,000 for entry minimum.
We studes stalled them and of course aerobatted them solo but spins were always dual.
We studes stalled them and of course aerobatted them solo but spins were always dual.
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Stalling and spinning is something most instructors appear to wimp out of.. especially if they fly a type regarded as 'a tad nippy' such as the Traumahawk.
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In the Cessna T-37 (Piper type-"Hershey Bar" wing) we did both right side up and inverted spins, though the inverted one's weren't usually intentional.
We never did spins in the Northrop T-38 (Lockheed F-104 stubby, symmetric wing) since it could spin so flat that you were unlikely to get out of the spin unless the aircraft was equipped with a spin chute.
Recovery procedure was: Passing 15,000 ft, Handles-Raise, Triggers-Squeeze.
We never did spins in the Northrop T-38 (Lockheed F-104 stubby, symmetric wing) since it could spin so flat that you were unlikely to get out of the spin unless the aircraft was equipped with a spin chute.
Recovery procedure was: Passing 15,000 ft, Handles-Raise, Triggers-Squeeze.
Last edited by wanabee777; 14th Nov 2015 at 01:54.
I can hardly remember any of the high up spins I did in gliders and then in single pistons, but I do remember vividly the one low 600 feet spin pre glider solo. Nothing like the ground filling your windscreen to make you switch to your A game flying!
I was a flying instructor on PA-38 Tomahawks when it was a new type in the UK. I used it exactly as I had the C150 including spinning - lots of spinning.
One turn spins above 3500' to recover above 3000' posed no problems but I became concerned about a curious vibration and "thumping" noise similar to oil canning. With a trusted student I took one up to 6000' and ordered a multi-turn spin and then turned round to observe the tail through the rear window........
I never spun that type ever again
One turn spins above 3500' to recover above 3000' posed no problems but I became concerned about a curious vibration and "thumping" noise similar to oil canning. With a trusted student I took one up to 6000' and ordered a multi-turn spin and then turned round to observe the tail through the rear window........
I never spun that type ever again
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And do you ever take up a light aircraft approved for spinning on your own, and throw it around just to remember what it feels like?
Do a Hover - it avoids G
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Since spinning is mentioned a fair bit here I once had a tricky situation spinning an RAE Bedford Auster AOP 9. It has of course a side by side cockpit and a young boffin wanted to be shown some spins.
As I tried to recover from the first one (pattering away as one does) I found the stick was jammed fully aft. Then I looked about me and realised my pax had his eyes shut and was pulling hard back with both hands on the stick. Since height was limited I smacked him hard across the face and he let go. Tricky in a tandem cockpit.
As I tried to recover from the first one (pattering away as one does) I found the stick was jammed fully aft. Then I looked about me and realised my pax had his eyes shut and was pulling hard back with both hands on the stick. Since height was limited I smacked him hard across the face and he let go. Tricky in a tandem cockpit.
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That rings a bell. My first biannual after it was introduced here in the UK was also my first experience of the PA-38. At 3000 ft I was asked to demonstrate steep turns but they were steeper than the instructor was comfortable with and I was told never to do that again below 6000 ft in case it entered a spin for I'd need most of that to get it out again. Seemed to think it was irrecoverable in 3000ft. Dunno, but it didn't feel near the edge and it seemed to take the turns OK, though I never did think much of that 'T' tail.
