Originally Posted by
flying-saint
What do you recommend as better airmanship for a stuck left rudder, which has resulted in a violent fully developed spin (other than what the pilot did, which was to look himself and ask the passenger whether he could see the cause / obstruction)?
I recommend a minimum of 3000 feet of altitude before attempting aggressive maneuvering. The lawyers can obfuscate all they want but I see no way to change
the fact that a lot of very aggressive maneuvering was occurring at very low altitudes.
In the end it doesn't matter if the actual mode of failure, whether it was a deficit of pilot skill, or the alleged rudder jam, or a combination of the two, what matters is that there was insufficient altitude for the pilot to recover from an aircraft upset. This was a direct result of the altitudes the pilot
chose to fly at.
I find it very hard to make the mental leap from a "not guilty" verdict to "this pilot bares no responsibility for the accident"
It appears positions on this issue have already hardened so I will finish with a some general comments as applicable to somebody with the experience level of the accident pilot.
1) It is human nature that taking a friend flying will lead to a temptation to spice up the flight a little. This is in itself not bad but should lead to the mental double check of "would I be doing this if no one was watching". Sadly many accidents have been preceded by the words "hey watch this"
2) It is human nature to want to fly low. All of the visual pleasures of flying are magnified at low altitudes. However, obviously the risks are magnified as well. I am not saying never fly low, but I will say that those risks must be proactively mitigated before you drop down and in general low altitude aggressive maneuvering should never be attempted
3) There is no such a thing as "starter" aerobatics. That is maneuvers that you can teach yourself. All introductory aerobatics courses will have a significant portion devoted to recovering from botched maneuvers and dealing with aircraft malfunctions during aerobatics as even simple maneuvers like loops and rolls can go badly wrong. Students will not be allowed to solo, let alone carry passengers, without mastering this aspect of aerobatic flying