Originally Posted by
djpil
The Aerobat will indeed spin flat.
I certainly agree about that low recovery height - especially with a passenger.
I have never experienced abnormal spin behavior in a SEP Cessna but an instructor I know experienced a flat spin in a C 150 Aerobat. The spin attitude was essentially level with a high rate of rotation and spin recovery control inputs had no effect. He recovered by applying full power and full into spin control inputs. The aircraft shook like a wet dog, gave a massive lurch and transitioned into the normal nose low spin attitude. After that power was reduced to idle and a normal spin recovery carried out.
It was a bumpy day and the instructor thinks the aircraft experienced a large up draft just as the spin was entering it's second rotation causing a pitch up just as true auto rotation started and leading into a flat spin. Since he was an aerobatic instructor he was able to recognize what had happen and recover. I think an ordinary non aerobatic instructor
and his student would almost certainly spun into the ground with fatal results.......
The bottom line IMHO is simple: Just because the aircraft has done 10,000 perfectly normal spins doesn't mean that the 10,001 spin will not require
an aerobatically trained and experienced pilot to recover
Any pilot that has not had formal aerobatic training, including full normal and abnormal (ie flat, inverted) spin training should not carry any spin past the spin entry phase. That is 1/2 to a maximum of 1 turn. If the aircraft does anything unusual in the spin entry an
immediate recovery should be carried out.