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Old 5th Aug 2010, 13:05
  #32 (permalink)  
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I'm sure you'll be overwhelmed by your first spin, but soon they become uneventful. It isn't abnormal to enter and recover from three spins after a 1500ft launch!
On the other hand, I've spun both gliders and powered aircraft and the spin characteristics are totally, wildly different. A spin in a glider is a really sedate affair and a one-turn spin will cost you maybe 200-300 feet in altitude. In a powered aircraft it's a really violent affair and one turn may cost you 800-1000 feet in altitude - in an aircraft that's cleared for spinning and has desirable spin behaviour. Spin a twin-engined aircraft and 10.000 feet might not be enough.

Reason for the totally different behaviour? Wing/fuselage length/weight of gliders vs. powered aircraft, plus the fact that all the high mass elements of a glider (essentially the occupant(s) only) are all concentrated around the CofG. In a powered aircraft there's a lot of mass (engine(s), fuel, occupant(s), baggage) quite a distance away from the CofG, leading to far more polar inertia. And that really hurts the ability to recover from a spin.

So if you've only ever spun gliders and think you'll be fine applying the same recovery techniques, altitude calculations and particularly complacency to spinning powered aircraft, well, you're in for a nasty surprise.
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