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Old 25th Sep 2014, 12:16
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Centaurus
 
Join Date: Jun 2000
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Something you don't see everyday.
That headline had me fooled for a moment. But it tied in nicely with the following story.

In the early Sixties a friend of mine Bruce XXXX was giving dual instruction to a new pilot to the squadron in a RAAF C130A. They were around 13,000 ft. near Richmond RAAF base. Part of the sequence included introduction to asymmetric and for that purpose the instructor reduced the power on an outboard engine to what he thought was zero thrust. I have not flown a Hercules, so this is from memory but I gather the propeller went into negative torque or similar terminology. The Hercules then eventually went into a spin. The instructor took standard spin recovery and after several turns he recovered the aircraft. After the landing some damage was noted to the airframe requiring extensive maintenance.

While this was going on there was another C130A in the vicinity and the captain (Stan XXXX) of that aircraft was astonished to see a Hercules in a full blown spin.
Being quite an unflappable type he said to his co-pilot and flight engineer "Hey chaps - take a look at this - that's a sight you won't see every day!"

I heard that story from both the unflappable pilot and the captain of the spinning Herc who had met up in the Officers Mess at Richmond for a few beers that night. The sequel to the story was when the USAF heard about the incident via Lockheed, they showed great interest in what spin recovery action the pilot had used so successfully. Seems over the years the USAF had lost a couple of C130s during inadvertent spin entry. They were told standard spin recovery was used just like that taught on Pilots Course on Wirraways (the standard RAAF advanced trainer similar to the SNJ or Harvard).
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