Spins

[GAHorn]

Well, you know Joe, ...we teach primary students that airspeed is controlled by elevator and altitude is controlled by throttle. Although that is technically incorrect, we do that in order to overcome the ingrained ideas accumulated from driving automobiles that throttle controls speed and the sterring wheel controls direction. In other words, we over-teach the opposite concept in order to overcome strongly-held habits.
The same is true with other things. The automobile driver is never taught to avoid picking his foot up from the throttle abruptly before slowing down or stopping. But what pilot would snap his aircraft engine to the idle-stops as readily as he does his car? (I know...but let's not digress into discussions about liquid-cooled auto engines, and thermal dynamics, etc., OK?)
The point is, that we teach smoothness for more purposes than first meets the mind's eye. Smoothness requires planning ahead of the aircraft. And planning ahead of the aircraft involves an entirely new mind-set from the habits of most car drivers. (Just try sitting silently in the right seat while my favorite brunette drives you around in the Texas "hill country" and you'll quickly see what I mean.)
Anyway,...I'm not advocating yanking the throttle off to descend. I'm only trying to alleviate fears of bringing an engine all the way back to idle in flight. It should be done smoothly, and with some consideration for the gyroscopic and other stresses as well as thermal ones that the engine must go thru.
Re: your question regarding my personal experiences: I've flown these cylinders (they're basically the same in all the "C" engines made by Continental) in C-65/75/85/90 and O-200/O-300 families of engines for about 5,000 hours (3500 of them mostly in 120/140/150 aircraft in flight training and utility operations) and I've never experienced a cracked cylinder. I can't tell you the numbers of times I've abused those O-200's by pulling the throttle all the way off in cruise and saying to my student, "Ok, NOW where would you put this thing down?"
Those airplanes were sent through stalls followed by slam-acceleration recoveries, touch-and-go bounce-drills, and on and on ad nauseum by a half-dozen different instructors and 100's of students and several worn-out engine overhauls but not a single cracked cylinder in the fleet.
I've had 5 cracked cylinders in higher-performance corporate aircraft that were flown only in passenger operations by professional pilots and were never so abused. The director of ops had nightmares of pilots yanking throttles off because of cracked cylinder problems in those IO-520's/TSIO-520's. I never once saw any of those professional pilots perform anything but a 1" MP per-minute-type descents because of the director's paranoia-induced threatening lectures,...but the cracked cylinders just kept on coming. He never understood it had nothing to do with "shock cooling" because the pilots never allowed the engines to be "shock cooled".
But there's simply no way to avoid those 1500-degree EGT's during takeoff and using re-built cylinders with unknown histories sure didn't help matters any. (None of the TCM remans which used only new cylinders had such problems. I can't recall a single cracked cylinder on those engines. Loss of compressions from poor quality control during manufacture,... yes, ...but not cracked cylinders.)

[zero.one.victor]

George,several times now you've mentioned the C-65 engine(s) you've flown behind. Just what is that? I'm familiar with the Continental A-65/75/80 & C-75/85/90 four-bangers, but the C-65 is a new one on me..........

Eric

[GAHorn]

When, previous to this thread, mentioning the "C-65" engine I was not intending to indicate a specific model. I was using the term to abbreviate a reference to the manufacturer. Good catch, Eric.
It was a Continental A-65-8 that I had in my 11AC Chief. For the purposes of this thread, the engine is still virtually identical in design and shares common cylinders/parts with the A-75, C-75/85/90 series engines.
(Here's a trivia question: What's the difference between an "A and a "C" engine?)

[4-Shipp]

Here's an interesteing "Cessna spin profile". We take all our IPs on a T-37 "spin ride" to show them all the mistakes students can make and the consequences. Take a Tweet, put it in a fully stabilized spin (full aft stick, full pro rudder until rate of rotation and pitch are constant), and smoothly add full forward stick and full anti-rudder over a period of 20 seconds, that son-of-a-gun will wrap up tighter than you can imagine - about 3.5 lateral g's due to the side-by side seating. To recover you have to go full aft sick to decelerate the spin and then perform a normal recovery. The whole process eats up about 8-10K of altitude, but it is a great ride!

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

(Here's a trivia question: What's the difference between an "A and a "C" engine?)

I'll bite George. Is the difference 2 letters?

[Maineboy]

Bruce S. Are you an instructor at Laughlin? My cousin was down there last winter. He really liked the Tweet, After he got through the first couple flights that is!
Brian

[flyguy]

I HADA OLE TEE CRAFT ONE TIME THA WUZ A MODEL "BL65". EENY BODY KNOW WHAT THAT MEANT?

[4-Shipp]

Brian - I'm at Sheppard. People ask why we volunteered to go to Wichita Falls...I tell them because I didn't want to go to Del Rio...'nuff said!

Bruce

[zero.one.victor]

I HADA OLE TEE CRAFT ONE TIME THA WUZ A MODEL "BL65". EENY BODY KNOW WHAT THAT MEANT?

The B was the aircraft model,the "L" represented the Lycoming engine,65 was the horsepower. More common was the Continental powered BC-65,less common was the BF Franklin.
George,I can't recall what the difference is between the A & C series Continentals. I want to say the accessory case configuration,but that might not be it. I know there are 2 different C-85's,the -8 & the -12 as I recall. One has generator & starter,one doesn't.

Eric

[rudymantel]

I haven't spun my 170 for two resons- 1) haven't felt like it and 2) the gyros as per Russ. I've spun lots of planes though, both normal and inverted which saved my butt while practicing for an airshow in my Pitts S1S.
But in normal, real life situations spins that kill are entered inadvertently at altitudes much too low to recover from. At a flight instructor clinic some years ago there was a memorable video of a real-life inadvertent spin taken by the front seat occupant of a Forestry Service L-19. The video was found in the wreckage with the bodies, some weeks after the accident. It was donated to the FAA by the families of the two deceased pilots to help in training. I wish it had wider distribution as it should be viewed by every pilot.

The video begins as they are flying over some very pretty country, I believe in Montana. The camera pans to lakes, hills and forests with comments on their beauty by the cameraman. Then the camera films the view straight ahead. After a few minutes of fairly low flying the terrain rises and airplane starts a turn towards terrain also rising. The nose raises in the turn as the trees grow taller. Suddenly a wing drops and a cry is heard which I'll never forget-"Hang on Ryan!" The film continues as the nose comes straight down and stops on impact.
The aircraft spun maybe half a turn and no spin recovery was possible.
They were much too low.

I also remember seeing the wreckage of a 172 that spun in while four German tourists were circling their hotel in Jamaica. The airplane was heavy with four male occupants. From the wreckage it was obvious that they spun in. All perished.

My flight instructor was killed in a J-3 Cub while instructing a student. (I had flown with him earlier the same afternoon). They cut the pattern a little tight to avoid flying over the house of a lady who was complaining about the planes. The sun was in their eyes . Ernie was a very experienced pilot and had flown L-4's in WW2 only four years earlier.

It goes to show that even the most docile airplane will bite you if you let it.

The message is that spin training is good (it saved me from an inverted spin entered by pushing too hard in an outside loop and then stupidly reducing power while going some 45 degrees inverted down- it snapped into the spin and I just recovered at maybe 200 ft. I was saved only because I had practiced many inverted spins). But conventional spin training could not have helped the two Forestry Service pilots, the German tourists or my instructor. The best training in my opinion is in spin recognition and avoidance. Especially avoidance.
Rudy

[N1478D]

Great Message Rudy!

About the tight pattern? What is it that you are warning about? If the nose is down and airspeed is right, how dangerous is a tight pattern? Not agruing, really want to know! Tight patterns are fun and add a graceful entry to the approach.

[zero.one.victor]

I like a nice tight pattern too. It's fun to roll the wings level from that base-to-final turn just as you come over the numbers! But I follow the old advise to "keep a little airspeed in the bank" (get it?),so these approaches usually result in a not-real-short landing. My short-field landing approaches utilize a longer final to get stabilized at a lower speed with little to no maneuvering.
Ya gotta be careful about getting into a "moose stall" when eyeballing something on the ground while orbiting,too.

Eric

[rudymantel]

Tight pattern warning ? Gosh, no ! I love tight patterns. Didn't mean to imply that. And a Cub will do amazing things without endangering you- I crop dusted in Cubs and instructed in them.
We'll never know just what caused that spin accident with my instructor - probably the student was flying (he survived- barely) and Ernie let him go too far before correcting. The tight pattern wasn't the cause of the accident but it was a factor.
Rudy

[rudymantel]

Eric, your message reminds me of a saying by Des Norman, a dear friend and designer of the Islander: "It's better to hit something going slow at the far end of the runway than going fast at the near end."
Rudy

[Roesbery]

To avoid spins in a properly rigged plane..... Keep the ball in the center..... Easy to get distracted.