Originally Posted by
dash34
I have been taught to keep the stick back, apply full opposite rudder, then ease the stick forward to recover. If the aircraft doesn't recover, start again with the stick fully back and repeat.
Beggs Muller is probably the best single approach to spin recovery for all types of aircraft out there. It calls for power to idle, application of opposite rudder and, yes, hands off the stick. Typically the stick will move to a position slightly aft of neutral. In a Pitts, in an accelerated flat spin the recovery can take up to three or four turns before the airplane appreciably slows it's rotation.
Different airplanes have different characteristics which revolve around where the horizontal stab and elevator are located, the physical area of both the elevator and the rudder, the pitch coupling of the airplane, the CG and a few dozen other items as well. What is critical amongst all airplanes though is the fact that
if you keep the airplane in a fully developed stall,
which will happen if you keep the stick back throughout the recovery, all you will accomplish is to reverse the direction of the autorotation. I.E. you will begin spinning in the other direction.
We've wandered rather far off-topic here, but no matter what it remains the case that if you are in an autorotational state you MUST DO two things. 1) You must stop the rotation with adverse yaw, and 2) you must get both wings flying again instead of just the one. Again, as a blanket approach Beggs Muller is the most scientifically and technically proven method for doing this consistently and the one least likely to cause disorientation or confusion. Consider that if you start with the stick buried aft and you inject opposite rudder and you are late releasing the back pressure then the airplane is going to snap to the opposite direction. (Because all that increased rudder effectiveness your pictures so neatly show...) Hence my concern in people offering that stick back is the way to begin a spin recovery.
If you are a competition or airshow pilot you don't need me to tell you squat, you've already figured out how to use power to goose the recovery, or how to cheat the downline by slamming the rudder and then stuffing the nose while using aileron to make it look pretty. Ditto if you are doing gyroscopic figures and you are just having fun, using torque and precession to manipulate the airplane in ways the novices reading this cannot understand. (My personal favorite, and I only had two airplanes that could do this, is a double hammerhead. You hit zero at the top, kick left rudder with full power on, and as the nose comes through the vertical you stuff the stick forward, causing the airplane to turn 360 degrees about it's yaw axis (the nose continues to the left, up through the vertical and back down to a vertical downline), all while in a vertical (and descending) plane. Most bizarre maneuver I ever did, (beacsue it makes no sense and shouldn't be possible!!) and most enjoyable too!!
If you already know stuff like this then you don't need to be reading any of this and you know it. If you don't, and if you are thinking of teaching yourself spins for some bizarre reason, or if you find yourself unexpectedly in a spin then you need to remember just three things. Power Off. Opposite Rudder. Let go of the stick. When rotation stops fly it out of whatever attitude you are in with power as appropriate.
Regards,
dce