Let's start a new thread on loss of speed turning downwind if anyone is interested! Basically, same effect as windshear. Aircraft have inertia (which is referenced to the earth and not the airmass in which an aircraft flies) and so IAS will not change instantly when the headwind component changes. You don't notice it too much in a 1000 kg aeroplane, but when you get to 250+tonnes.....

As for spinning, if you only teach someone incipient spinning and he tries it on his own and the aircraft does not recover, would it not have been a good idea to show him how to get out of a fully developed spin? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

LOMCEVAK

Reread FFF's postings. Windshear is something completely different!! Don't confuse the issue.


Stik

Any chance you could post a link re the book.

FD

You would have to be pretty wreckless to practice incipient spins if you have not been trained to recover!

Mentioned elsewhere I think, but more pilots are killed practising spins than befalling inadvertent spins.

Each to their own, but this thread has the general air that spinning is a normal activity that we should all endeavour to excersise and that we are incomplete pilots if we don't - tosh!. Inexperienced pilots should not feel comfortable putting their aircraft into a spin just in case it may happen for real.

My guess is that spinning has little to do with generall all round safe and efficient PPL skills.

:rolleyes:

Re-read the post: there was no suggestion of practising incipient spinning without being trained in this. The scenario posited was that of a diligent PPL who has been trained in incipient spin recovery, and who, just as he practices forced landings, sensibly practices getting into potential stall/spin situations. Suppose that one day he bodges his recovery and spins. He has never spun before, still less recovered. Good luck to him.

There are, as far as I am aware, relatively few accidents during spin practice. Spinning accidents seem to occur during low-level deliberate naughtiness, and following inadvertent loss of control in sitiuations such as forced landings (I agree with all above who emphasis the need to recognise and deal with incipent spins) . Avweb has a thoughtful article on this:-

http:??www.avweb.com/news/safety/181570-1.html

I don't think anyone is suggesting that everyone should be obliged to go spinning a lot, or to spin solo, or that if you don't spin you are not a competent pilot. I would say, however, that exploring the aircraft's behaviour in all regimes of flight may make your training more complete. It may also be a comfort to have it demonstrated that the system does work. Many things in flying do exactly what they say on the tin: : if you apply dead reckoning nav, you will get there, if you set up your PFL correctly, you should get into your field. If you spin a typical trainer/tourer (which is allowed to spin on purpose) , it will respond to standard recovery procedures (always allowing for some oddity of trim etc and the fact that spinning is never 100% predictable). Aircraft which are not certified for deliberate spinning cannot read their own placards and are capable of spinning and of recovering from a spin. Shouldn't the pilot be likewise?

FNG

Not 100% the case, e.g. the Warrior, as tame an aeroplane as I have ever flown, may enter a non-recoverable flat spin with a rear c of g.

In that condition, the pilot MUST avoid a spin. So one needs to know the aircraft before making sweeping assumptions.

Havings said that, I don't wish to be a member of the 'killer tourers club', just realistic about what a type will and will not do.

Yowch! The very aircraft type which regularly struggles back from Le Touq with too much wine stuffed in the back.... Another good reason for keeping my log book in its pristine Warrior-free state. Should they be retro-fitted with bang-seats? Anyway, edit post above to say: they'll all spin, and most of them will recover.

Lomcevak,This is wrong. Inertia is actually referenced to the airmass through which the aircraft was flying a moment ago. In the case of straight flight, this is equivalent to referencing it to the earth - and in fact it is more convenient (and so more common) to do so when describing how windshear works. But when talking about a turning aircraft, it is wrong.

Think about it: Why should inertia be referenced to the surface of the earth? Remember that the earth is spinning around, constantly, very very fast. And it's moving through space even faster. And it's orbiting the sun. And science just happens to pick some random surface a few thousand feet away from our aircraft, which happens to be describing a very complex shape through space, to reference inertia to? Sounds unlikely to me.

What actually happens is that a body's momentum is measured relative to space. But when a body is on the earth, or flying in an airmass, there are all kinds of other effects on that body, such as gravity from the earth and the sun, reactions from other bodies, and so on, which we conveniently ignore - and doing so allows us to assume that momentum is relative to the earth, or the airmass, or whatever - which the body's velocity was measured against a moment ago.

FFF
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FNG

Still it won't spin inless stalled 1st! And I reckon you'd have to try pretty hard anyway with a Warrior ;)

I think it prudent to point out the it is not wise to be complacent about 'needs to stall before it spins' - given that the time difference between the two could be sub-second.

Many people make this statement implying aicraft spin following a stall in a sedate manner as do when training pilots....it wont happen this way in real life... check it out...

pilot with flaps down over banks and then over pulls to keep tight...One wing stalls, and the aircraft almost instantly flicks.

flick a.k.a spin.

It can happen very very fast....

Final 3 greens...

I, too until very recently (Wednesday evening!) thought that an aeroplane can not spin unless it is stalled...

Gene Beggs, perhaps a little pedantically, in his fine book states that an aeroplane will spin if the application of rudder causes the downgoing wing to stall.

If you think of a flick roll entry (an autorotation in the horizontal plane; ie a spin!) this is exactly what happens...

as the stick comes back you hoof in rudder and it snaps into a spin.

Formation Flyer is also right - the time between the two events can be measured in nano-seconds and not very many of them!

Ho hum, all ready to go flying but the viz and ceiling here are dictating otherwise.


Stik

Stik

Formation/Stik

Points very well made.

Stik

I haven't read this book and am genuinely interested in what this statement implies to the oft taught method of preventing further wing drop at the stall with rudder. Can a spin be provoked this way?

Are yes stik, but, don't forget it has stalled, as in flicking you have exceeded the critical AoA rapidly before hoofing in the rudder. You try the same thing in slow montion and you get an uncorodinated barrellytype rolly thing. Once the critical AoA is exceeded the wing is stalled; it has nothing necessarily to do with airspeed - or at least I don't think it has.:)

Ludwig - I was trying to explain using the flick as an example, yes you are correct.... critical AoA is exceeded!

F3G - Does one not use opposite rudder to pick up a dropped (or dropping) wing?!?!

Stik

Stik

One would hope so, although an instructor once told me about a student who added pro drop input!

However in asking the question I did not make any assumptions about why, as I was keeping an open mind, so if your response implies that the answer is no, then thanks for confirming that.

I was wondering if there was an ulterior reason such as blanking airflow from the dropped wing with opp rudder.

Lazy-Rudder Syndrome
 

stiknruda, I think you'll like this: http://www.avweb.com/news/profiles/182606-2.html

Lazy rudder syndrome
 

Interesting article MLS 12 D.

I'm pleased that my first experiences of flying were learning in gliders.

No chance of using the rudders as footrests in those. :O

It is obviously excellent practice to fly at near stall speeds and to keep the wings level with the use of rudder while doing so.

If anything it teaches people to unlearn the reflex to pick a wing up with aileron.

However when teaching people to recover from the incipient spin; and that is what it is all about if we are teaching people to fly through the skies safely; is to hammer home to them that the first thing to do when getting the tell tale signs of a stall is to unload the aeroplane!

Stick forward.

At the end of the day that is what will save your bacon. Nowt else.

You can be an ace at spinrecovery etc etc etc, but if you spin it in on the turn to final which typically would happen between 400 to 600 foot you will be dead as a dodo in the majority of cases.

No matter how nifty your footwork.

FD

To all the glider pilots
 

Please try a spin in a light aircraft turning final in the circuit - any survivors and the beers are on me lads!:D :D

...and no I don't believe your airfield flies curcuits at 5000'!

I recall that last year an Auster spun in from (approximately) downwind, crashing inverted into trees. The pilot survived. This is not, however, a recommendation for doing this.