JP3
Student was ex-UAS and had iro 130 hrs Chipmunk before starting the BFT course at Cranwell.
It was the second spinning sortie, the first one the day before having gone alright. Started off with me doing another patter/follow-through 4 turn spin before handing over to stude' for his attempts. Entry was fine and recovery OK except, whilst he centralised the rudder at the correct point (when the spin stopped) the rate of rudder movement was a little slow and we exited in an uncomfortable sideways manner until he reached the neutral position.
"No problem" thought I,"he did it alright yesterday and he's pretty competent" so I decided to rebrief him on the recovery and give him another go.
(As an aside- and maybe an echo of another thread - it was being gently suggested that maybe we should be treating the JP BFT phase as more of a type conversion, after all, they had all this "good experience" on the Chipmunk. "They aren't Flight Cadets now")
So, in we went for the 2nd spin. Good entry, held full pro-spin control, and I said "Recover!".
He did, unfortunately he took me completely by surprise by crisply centralising the rudders well before the spin had stopped! It was at this point I did the short course in Jet Provost high rotational spinning! Apart from the acceleration in roll rate to a value I wouldn't have believed the docile little jet was capable of, what I best remember is the size of the aerial farm at Digby very rapidly increasing. I took control, re-applied full anti-spin rudder and
effected a normal recovery, but it did seem to take an age, recovering just above the minimum height of 7000ft.
It was quiet for a bit after that as we both slowly and carefully re-erected our internal gyros.
Stude' broke the silence by saying "I don't think I got that
right" I agreed that it could be polished up, and we climbed (well, "struggled" - it was a Mk3) back up to FL180. I pattered a further spin, laying particularly emphasis on the use of the rudder.
He then did 2 more; perfect.
What did I learn?:
1. Don't accept any error in handling on spin recovery.
2. High rotational spins, even in the JP, even when you know the orientation and direction, are very disorientating.
What did I re-learn?
1. Students will always surprise you!
2. Don't try and save a little time when teaching critical items. If they don't get it right, then re-demo it until they do.
A somewhat chastened
YS
Last edited by Yellow Sun; 10th April 2005 at 18:10.