A confession.
This forum, and this time, and this horrible accident may be a time & place for me to do a bit of truth-telling, finally, after bottling this up for close-on 60 years now.
In the late fifties I started on my private licence at RACSA, who then flew a fleet of Chipmunks. I was then a ground-radio ‘erk in the RAAF, over at Edinburgh. Buying lessons, I had gone solo, with about 18-20 hours up. This day I was tasked with solo practice steep-turns & stalls, over Parafield.
I *loved* spinning. After my task was completed to my satisfaction (two steep turns, left & right
(tick, clearing turns, eh?) then two stalls & recover, I considered my duty done, and being at 5,000’ decided a practice spin was in order, solo for the first time.
Long before all this, I remember the fear in my mother’s voice when I announced I was going to learn to fly on the Chipmunk: Her instant reply was ‘Oh God! Be careful. They spin so easily and badly, and there have been so many people injured & killed in spinning accidents in them!’
(Paraphrased. Tone & info accurate. She not a pilot, but smart.) Child’s response: Don’t you worry Mum, I won’t let that happen to me. <sigh>
Can we pause another second for a second back story? A few months prior to my incident
(below) I had discovered my RAAF station’s library. It included this amazing collection of flight-operations publications! Pilots notes on so many types, nav. theory tomes, and best of all a copy of the AP 1234. It was a thick loose leaf manual. Think an all-encompassing flight instructor’s training manual merged onto a basic aeronautical primer, very effectively. In that massive bag of wisdom was a discussion on spinning, it’s aerodynamic complexities and the difficulty then
(and now) of calculating how a new aircraft will spin, There were notes on various aircraft’s spinning characteristics and associated recovery techniques. It ended with an extended discussion of the Tempest II, it being a particularly nasty beast. It had a willingness to flick into to a flat spin off a deliberate slipped turn in combat, and a special technique was required to recover from that.
(The technique was worked out after *many fatalities in ops. & training. The II was withdrawn and replaced by the Tempest V, as soon as it was operation.)
The technique needed was to maintain full opposite rudder, but to trigger & develop an unusual form of a short-period mode, phugoid oscillation
(1) fore & aft,
(not called that then) by pumping throttle open and applying full forward stick simultaneously, then throttle closed and some back stick, and repeat, synching as soon as possible with a developing cyclic nodding frequency and working to amplify it. When successful, the aircraft would suddenly pick forward into a normal spin. Recover from that. IIRC it required 12,000’ *min* to recover. Below that height bailing out was the only solution. Noted. Also noted: the lack of a parachute in my training aircraft.
So, still at 5,000, and after another clearing steep turn, it’s slow down and into a left spin. This time I didn’t do the instant recovery pupils usually practiced, but sat back and enjoyed how everything quietened down, the pitch angle reduced to only about 8-10° nose down, ASI flickering near zero, and I even
(FFS) unlatched the canopy, slid it back until I could sit there with my elbows outside. Hand outside. Puffs of breeze. Lovely. The perfect spin.
So about 3,600 I did spin recovery.
AND NOTHING HAPPENED
I recall turning around to check which side the rudder was displaced and comparing it to the direction of rotation. Mentally tracing the cables to the rudder bar and how I had it displaced. Mentally check my lefts and my rights. All OK. Reapplied all control displacements carefully. Turn after turn after turn. Nope. And then I suddenly recalled the Tempest II discussion. Released all controls. Carefully re-applied correct rudder, briefly full throttle and full fwd stick and it nodded! did it again and again and then the fourth time the Chippy just rolled fwd out of the spin into gentle dive so normal spin recovery and at about 1,900’ I was finally climbing away. Far below the base of the aerobatic training area. Very close to the circuit. Very shaken.
Baffled but curious I suppose, I tentatively climbed back to 5,000’ and after a long pause to gather my wits, I very carefully did it again. Yes it went into a normal nose low rough and buffeting spin, but at about 2.5 turns the nose rose smoothly but quickly to the flat smooth stable spin attitude. One turn to watch how stable it was, then into the Tempest recovery, and I climbed away just above 4,000’.
A slightly calmer third trip to 5,000’ and this time a right spin, to see if that affected anything, and it was all same-same, so an even quicker recovery.
A shaken pilot quietly joined the circuit, and after refuelling went into the flight office to face the music. There was no-one there! CFI, manager, other instructors? No-one. I stood at that desk, over the aircraft’s log for 15-20 minutes, an eighteen year old with no idea what to do next. I knew I couldn’t possibly write up the Chippy as ‘won’t come out of a spin’, could I.
(I was a *ground radio erk at the time, no other aircraft knowledge, and didn’t know the power of a tech report in an aircraft’s made log by a pilot.)
To my shame, to this day, I finally decided that,
1) the aircraft behaviour must have been normal, and that’s why we are taught to take quick recovery action, &
2) yes, you can’t report an aircraft for doing what an aircraft does normally, and mainly
3) I’d get into strife if ‘they’ knew I was spinning when I was supposed to (just?) do stalls and spins.
So home to barracks, back to the library to reread that chapter, and check whether I did it right. All good. In a way. Ah. The stupidity of youth, in spite of huge confidence levels!
About three weeks later, a slip of a lass with a heavier instructor in the back seat, spun the same aircraft into a paddock just off airport.
He had a very sore back for a long time. Her life was shattered. She was/has been confined to a wheelchair since then. DHC-2 Chipmunks fold up at the front cockpit on impact after a flat spin-in, frequently crushing the occupant. I can’t recall her name.
And this is the first time this shameful gutless person has ever admitted to what I did.
Now, perhaps, this snippet of knowledge *may help someone in the future. Some instructors may include the info into their briefings. Pilots new to the game who hear of this might understand that if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t right. If it is right, you’ll have an interesting discussion with other pilots and ground engineers, and come away smarter. There is no such think as a stupid question, or a ignorant mistake.
Who knows: It *may* have helped this instructor and his pupil be here still.
The cause of the problem spinning-behaviour in ‘my’ aircraft?
The tailplane rigging was out by less than 1°. An air-framie-fix, in no time. Easy & quick.
All it would have taken to save those two people and an aircraft were a few words in the log. Like this:
(1st item-the problem) ‘Spins flat. Won’t recover normally’
(…then any other info.)
May the Gods, and that damaged lass forgive me my cowardice. May this confession help in my forgiveness by others.
Qld, Oct 2018
(1) See discussion at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_dynamic_modes