Piper Tomahawk Spin Question

[Teddy Robinson]

T67

Ironically (and sadly) that aircraft killed my aerobatic instructor about 3 weeks after I had checked out on it ... spun all the way down from F70.

I read the piece on stall certification on the Pa38, on the stalling aspect they DO have a point, but personal experience across a fleet of 8 was that they all tended to depart to the left, and if held in would pitch quite vigourously between a nominally level attitude and the stall attitude, most of the time this effect was masked by a very abrupt drop of a wing which became rapidly divergent in both directions unless the rudder was used in a very subtle manner to contain rather than correct the wing drop.

The stall strips provided plenty of buffet (and the tin-canning referred to) in all scenarios, especially max rate turns where you could happily pull to the buffet onset, and given altitude deep into it before the aircraft did what it was supposed to do .. stall and roll out.

With the modifications to the tail bulkheads, regular crack inspections of the tail post rivets, the full harness ... and so on, my feeling is that it did what it said on the packet, and did it rather well.

I can also see how and why people climbing into one from a C152 or Archer without appropriate awareness training can come seriously (terminally) unstuck. It has to be flown accurately and in balance all of the time, and whilst that is the strength of a good training aircraft, the same trait at low level during something like a poorly planned forced landing, or poor speed management on the final turn is sufficient for it to turn around and bite.

Reading the report, I notice that they did'nt spin it, and whilst the point regarding the pitch down or lack thereof was explored, it came across to me at least as a pitch to support a product liability claim, which is a popular persuit in some parts of the world.

I have 2 main issues with the "report", which is long on statistics and short on background, firstly "I flew four of them for nearly 50 hours" is not a lot of time on type, secondly, loading the aircraft to the aft limit with 100lbs of lead shot is not very representative of a typical training wieght and balance. As I recall, there is a designated C of G range for operation in the utility catagory ie. spinning, and loading ANY aircraft to the aft limit will affect the pitching moment adversly, the rest looks like a lawyers brief.

WARNING: IF YOU ENTER A SPIN CLOSE TO THE GROUND YOU MAY DIE !!
and that applies to anything.

TR