Sorry Genghis – I was not trying to be dramatic re parachutes. I too have done plenty of spins without. I was just wishing to make the point that spinning does (statistically and historically) carry a degree (however small or large) of risk when compared with other manoeuvres.
Several personal experiences make me cautious about spinning in a way that does not apply to my attitude to other things that many people might consider to be of higher risk. (For example turning off the fuel to the critical engine of a twin engined transport at V1 minus 5 kts and continuing with the max AUW take off in ambient conditions of ISA +15 when you have no background on type or even complete documentation for the type).
The thing about spinning is that you cannot use the iterative process to ensure safety as I could and did with the case in brackets above.
When I was a QFI on JP 3s and 4s in 61/62 time we had one that did not spin as consistently as the rest. We asked for help. A Sqn collected it last thing Friday and on Saturday morning my CO phoned me at home and said they had jumped out of it. Later in ‘63 on my ETPS course visit to A Sqn I asked the CO (Roger Topp) what he thought about spinning. He took me to the Hunter 6 with LE extensions standing on the pan, and said “Look at that thing. It weighs x tons, it has all sorts of inertia and all sorts of aerodynamics. The whole thing is gyrating and doing over 100 kts – yet those silly little extensions transform the way it spins and recovers. How can that be. You just cant rely on simple common sense when it comes to spinning. If the aircraft is not identical it may spin totally differently. That is all you can be sure of”
This is no place to write a book, but spinning needs a very long one to cover it properly. Not a few paragraphs like most other manoeuvres…….
[This message has been edited by John Farley (edited 01 September 2000).]