be58 spiral dive recovery?

[overmars]

hi,

yes, it is written in the POH that the aircraft cannot recover from a spiral dive, but just wondering if there has been any cases where a BE58 baron recovered from one?

[Woomera]

You think the surviving pilot will own up??

:E

Woomera

[john_tullamarine]

Can you post a link to a scanned image of the POH page ? .. I would be very surprised to see such a statement.

[Continental-520]

I remember reading something to that effect from when I did my BE58 endorsement, but with reference to spins rather than spiral dives.

Furthermore to posting a copy of the page, can someone explain to any extent why it supposedly can't be done?

If with reference to spins, is it purely to do with the lack of slipstream over the empennage compared to that of a S/E aircraft, or is there more to it?


520.

[Erin Brockovich]

I can’t see why a spiral dive would be a problem unless there is insufficient height to recover. All we’re talking about is closing the throttles, rolling level then pulling out – without stressing the airframe beyond limitations. The aircraft is still flying, just not in the desired direction.

Someone give me a Baron and I’ll prove it to you.:E

[HEALY]

Our company operates Barons and I cant recall seeing that statement in the POH. 520 is right about the spin statement "I think'' but will have a look tomorrow during a quiet time in cruise.

The spiral dive to my knowledge is really in essence a steep descending turn ie controlled flight. UA recovery during renewals sees this manouevre in its early stages with alot of testing officers.

[john_tullamarine]

I'm told that the 58 was certificated to the first indication of stall ... appears that, if held in, it has a desire to flick and spin inverted .... this might be relevant to intentional spinning ? Can't speak from experience as I have not flown the model ...

[Blue Sky Baron]

Erin,

I hope you never get an aircraft into a serious spiral dive as your recovery method will surely kill you and anyone unfortunate enough to be with you.

The correct method is to close the throttle/s, roll level and PUSH FORWARD. If you fail to push, and pull instead, the dynamics of flight will have you going ballistic. :bored:

The reason for 'pushing forward' is to counteract the natural tendancy for the aircraft to try to regain its trimmed airspeed.
EG: if you are in cruise and trimmed at 120 kts (obviously not in a Baron!) and you find yourself in a spiral dive at 180 kts as soon as you roll it level it will naturally try to regain 120 kts, ie, it will climb quite rapidly. If you assist the climb tendency by pulling you will either enter a high speed stall (NOT recommended), or, remove the wings via overload.

Back on topic; from memory all Baron drivers should avoid single engine stalls at all costs, this will result in an unrecoverable spin.
Stalls with both engines operating are no more dangerous than any other aircraft, spiral dives also no problem, except for 'why' you are in that situation in the first place. :\

BSB :cool:

[gaunty]

Blue Sky Baron

Now if it was Crusader, which was designed from a clean sheet of paper, you could pull accelerated stalls vertical or horizontal left or right engine, down wing or up wing slotted and the worst that would happen is, it would flop out straight and level.:p
Assymetrics can be handled feet on the floor and I would have no hesitation gving the keys to a non twin rated, competent C182 or up driver. Vmca where it should be waaay below the stalling speed.:cool:

Now about those reds do they sell anything decent in Brisvegas or are we going to have to import em.:E

[Cloud Cutter]

BSB, I don't think he said anything about applying back-pressure on the control column. The term 'pulling out' of the dive is quite accurate, although as you state, in the normally trimmed situation you will not require much, if any back-pressure to regain straight and level attitude at the required rate.

In any case I don't think one would be overly concerned with whether they were pushing or pulling, they would simply use the controls as required to execute a smooth recovery to S & L.

[Blue Sky Baron]

I guess thats what you get when you build a plane in an 'agricultural' factory. (Had my first flight in a Crusader as a pax a couple of weeks ago, and was quite impressed. Not bad for a Cessna! ;) )

As for the reds in Brizvegas, they probably have some but the heathens will have them in the fridge!!! :hmm:

Not long to go now.

BSB

[tinpis]

*Googles Crusader has no idea wat they talkin about*:uhoh:

OOOooooo....a sorta Duke lookin thing without the power.:ok:

[gaunty]

http://www.outlawaircraft.com/n1214m.jpg

Pretty eh. 190 KTAS at 10,000 ft was to be pressurised to take advantage of the "flat rated" engines 200 plus kts, but it got caught up in the liabilities BS and and all piston engined production was stopped. :{

It was a joy to demonstrate you could hit the circuit downwind at 180kts bottom of descent with appropriate circuit power set select the gear and landing flap and hands OFF, NO trimming auto deceleration within the flap limits as it travels out, by the time you got to base everything is configured and speed at Vref no trimming required.:ok:
No ballooning, no waiting for speeds to bleed off for gear and flaps, you could sit behind ANYTHING clean on approach at their speed and still have heaps of time to get slowed for landing.

It was designed that way.:)

[tinpis]

Back to Baron handling.

In the olden days in PNG a certain well known pilots endorsement on the Baron would include a full power 45 degree climb to bleed off speed below VMca followed by snapping a mixture closed.

If ya didnt sh*t ya pants after what happened next you passed the type rating :ooh:

[mattyj]

To recover from a spiral dive..easy..go back to flying on your instruments

[Jerrym]

Getting back to Overmars' original question, a sprial dive is an unstalled condition of flight, and so technically should be recoverable in any aircraft. I fly the baron full time, and have not seen any reference to a reluctance to recover from a spiral dive in the handbook, or any other texts that I have read.

I do know that there is a reference to the unknown spinning characteristics of the aircraft due to the fact that it was never spin tested. With reference to John_Tullamarine's comment about the aircraft spinning inverted, if positive 'g' is held during the stall recovery (in other words, if the c/c is not pushed forward excessively during the recovery), no aircraft will spin inverted.

The spin characteristics of the baron, although untested, would be fairly flat due to the Pro-spin characteristics of the aircraft, also found in most light twins. Flat spins, by their nature, are harder to recover from than a conventional spin. Flat spins can be entered through a miss-use of aileron, and / or power during a conventional spin, or the mass distribution through-out the aircraft. My recommendation. DON'T TRY IT, especially in a baron.

[Capt Fathom]

To recover from a spiral dive..easy..go back to flying on your instruments
If you could fly on instruments, you would not have ended up in a spiral dive! :E

[Chimbu chuckles]

Ahhh tinpis they were the days....prolly the same bloke did that to me years after you(the guy who died in the last year in his C185 ex GKA?).

It wasn't a Vmca demo it was an (aggravated) assy stall demo...thanks to the altitude effecting the thrust and therefore the real Vmca being below Vs...but it sure was 'interesting'.

Don't remember recovery being a big deal as long as both engines were at idle....well one was idle and one was 'cut off'...as long as you don't consider upside down a big deal:ooh:

[Capt Fathom]

That was the guy..may he RIP. Fortunately did my endorsements with guys who liked to keep the world upright!!
Even Max :ugh:

[john_tullamarine]

Jerrym,

Only relating that which I was told .. by a very experienced TP instructor who had a military TP student hold the bird into the stall .. whereupon ...

Tale is from quite a few years ago so there is a very slight possibility that I have the model wrong .. but I don't think so.

[Jerrym]

John,

Please don't think that I was saying you are wrong. It may very well be the case with the baron, but with my experience in the aircraft, and my experience spinning aircraft, I don't understand how it could spin inverted from a standard stall entry. The aircraft will enter an inverted attitude, during the first turn of the spin, which, I guess could be interpreted as an inverted spin, if the aircraft is recovered prior to completion of the first turn. Mind you though, I have never spun a baron, (and don't intend to), so I wouldn't know. I would be interested in any texts or references yourself, or anyone would have as to the spin characteristics of the baron, or twins in general.

[Jamair]

Woomera:

OK, here is a survivor owning up (but only after several Strongbows at the M. Club....where BTW, I have not espied the local Woomeri lately)

I got a Baron into a spiral dive just after an Instrument Departure in IMC on a partial panel in the not very distant past. I am sending the tale into Flight Safety as there were several interesting lessons to learn from it. Obviously, it is survivable........ I can also report it ain't much fun either.:yuk: :uhoh:

[Woomera]

G'Day Mate. Paid up two years Membership at the M Club - but never seem to be in town to enjoy the benefits.

Time you dropped in for coffee - or should I drop around to your big hangar? Out of town most of next week. :ugh:

Woomera

[Windshear]

Chuckles / tinpis

The same chap would and could demo a fully developed stall into a spin with 1 or 2 turns recovery in a BN2A ...... just proved to me Islanders had a dummy spit. :E

Windy

[Centaurus]

Tinpis. It really makes you wonder what sort of first class idiots flew in PNG in those days. The bloke that pulled that stupid act on you during the endorsement should have been sacked on landing. We had a few of those flying fools in the RAAF back in the Fifties and we lost aeroplanes because of it. Was PNG DCA aware of the shenanigans that went on under their noses - or like now were they simply not interested.

[gaunty]

Or indeed would they now recognise it.?

Nearly broke an FOI's fingers, during an Instrument renewal when he attempted a seriously stupid act that would have brought us down.

He meant well but apparently had not so far run across a "victim" who actually knew the consequences of his ill conceived "ideas".

Neither was he used to a "candidate" terminating the exercise and returning to base with the request for someone to conduct the test who actually knew what he was doing and yes he was ex RAAF.:rolleyes:

[john_tullamarine]

I did a few renewals with FOIs .. generally good lads ... and the standard brief was along the lines of "touch it below 200 feet and I'll close both and land ahead ... "

Got some indignant looks ... but no-one ever was game to try me on... I've better things to risk my life on than playing the idiot at low level ..

Another tale always brings a smile ... a mate, needing a renewal at a location which had nothing on which he was endorsed, combined a light twin endorsement with the renewal to get the thing out of the way.

.. the instructor was adamant about Vmc demonstrations .. and you know my thoughts on that nonsense. Anyway, my buddy caused the instructor great consternation by using only part rudder deflection with his other foot locking further pedal movement .. the instructor was last heard wandering off muttering "can't understand why it didn't get any slower ..."

I think my buddy was a much more experienced instructor than the GA chappie ...

Jamair .. care to tell us a few of the details ?

[gaunty]

john_t and that's the problem, isn't it.

There doesn't NOW seem to be a "standard" idea of what's the
go.

The "coprorate intelectual property" that used to exist has long gone when they saw the enthusiastic amateur trying to run the show with his voodoo ideas and economics.

My thesis is that when the major manufacturers left the marketplace in the early 80's the concentration of experience in training, maintenance and management went with it.

A bit like the effect of Holden, Ford and Toyota all shutting up shop tomorrow and abandoning the the market place to the usual suspects.

I know personally and was trained by the individuals who "own" the original Australian "endorsements and ratings" for most of the GA types and had I an instructor rating, I too would have been one of those.

When those of us who were there get together, all too rarely, we all have new tales of well motivated but totally wild SOPS that have mysteriously appeared somewhere.

I call it the Prince of Wales Syndrome" from the song that sadly you and I can still recall. :{ It goes something like , "I danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales.

Problem is most of the "endorsements and ratings" around the place may be hundreds of generations away from the factory or Flight Safety, including those who sell training, using illegally, the same Flight Safety material that has been photcopied down the same number of generations.

Australian organisations including the regulator, maybe now in the past, seem oblivious to the copyright or liability issues.

For example the manufacturers reps in Oz used to have to pay for the test flying and production of "P charts and other regulatory matters peculiar to Oz for any new type or models regbistration.
There was a significant cost to achieve this, often requiring in addition, the funding of a departmental entourage to the factory, which was retrieved as part of the sales process.
If you wanted to import an aircraft outside this system one of the hurdles was gaining the rights to use the proprietary information, usually requiring a "licence" fee to the owner of the info.
Unless of course you had a mate who would "lend" you his charts or a friendly departmental guy who would give you a Departmental copy.

We used to sell the CPC integtrated theory and training and train the instructors on it.
It was for the most part possible at that stage, to iron out any "guru", "aero club bar" and "urban myth" infestations.

When we endorsed or rated the original crews on their new equipment they got the benefit of learning the way the manufacturer had intended, and had spent several gazillion dollars finding out, that the aircraft should be efficiently operated.

Almost without exception, when an owner complained about alleged maintenance and operational shortfalls it was because someone in their organisation had decided that the "guru", "aero club bar" and "urban myth" tellers knew better, sometimes at considerable expense.

I hasten to add that the manufacturers were very keen followers of the Australain experience of their product, because we often used them for applications for which they were not intended and they were usually the lead airframes in fleet hours as a result of which they got early notice of any weaknesses.

Couple that with the department being then staffed with RAAF types who had never been near a GA type and the rest is history.

[4SPOOLED]

Think where the centre of gravity is on a '58, then imagine the stall, it wont be nose first, i would imagine it would be rather flat, although not being a '58 pilot i am hardly one to comment, but common sense would factor into my assumptions wouldnt it?

4S

[Jamair]

John Tullamarine:

if Flight Safety doesn't publish it, I'll put it on here. fair 'nuff? I don't mind looking like a goose if it may save someone else the same (or worse) experience.

Gaunty et al:

If I had a banana for every time I've asked 'Why do we do it like this when the POH / FS Manual says do it like that?' and been told 'It works better this way' or 'Because the Chief pilot says' etc; I would open a fruit shop.

Oh yes, and every IR Renewal I've done on a light twin has included my safety brief 'Any EFATO below 300' will be considered genuine and I will shut down and land straight ahead'; never had any raised eyebrows to that, although I tend to stick with more sensible ATOs........

[john_tullamarine]

Gaunty ... sad, isn't it ...

Jamair .. sounds fine to me .. and 300 ft IS better than 200 ft .. but I was young and silly(ier) then and liked to live dangerously .. but never that dangerously intentionally .. I near killed myself on several occasions in blissful ignorance and stupidity ...

[Pinky the pilot]

Was'nt there an article in the Flight Safety mag some time ago written by an ex PNG Pilot relating how he unintentionally spun an A model 402?
It made interesting reading.

You only live twice. Once when
you're born. Once when
you've looked death in the face.

[JohnnyWad]

Good to see that that you've probally checked to line on the main fleet and you STILL DONT KNOW the difference betweeen a spin and a spiral dive.........wonders never cease!!