Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:44 am
My primary training was in 1970, and I don't know if spin training was still required for a private license then, but my instructor did it. The drill was to stall the airplane, power-off and straight ahead, and just as the stall breaks, apply full rudder in one direction or the other, while holding full up elevator. Opposite aileron at the same time might be required to get a good spin entry. The airplane always spins in the direction the rudder is applied. The inside wing stalls and drops. You may roll inverted for a moment, and then you find yourself right-side-up but nose-down and rotating in the direction you're holding the rudder. Airspeed will be low and staying that way. You hold the full elevator and rudder inputs for the planned number of turns, then you recover with opposite rudder to stop the rotation, neutralize the ailerons, then nose-down elevator to regain speed, then gentle up-elevator to recover from the dive, and finally add power to finish the recovery. (This was in a C150; the prescribed order of inputs will differ slightly for different aircraft types, per the POH.)
That's a fine exercise; you learn how to recover from a spin, which might be helpful if you've entered it with enough altitude.
But the spins that kill people are seldom entered from an altitude that permits recovery. They are mainly of two varieties: turning from base leg to final, or circling to look at something on the ground (in Alaska they call that the "moose stall"). Because you're already turning, the bank angle "accelerates" the stall, meaning that you stall while you're still in the green arc. If your rudder inputs are uncoordinated at that point, you may quickly become dead.
Suppose you're turning from base to final and you see you're overshooting the runway centerline, so you step on the inside rudder to bring the nose around more quickly, but your instructor told you never to bank more than 30 degrees in the traffic pattern, so you're holding opposite aileron to keep the bank shallow, and then you're pulling back to help get around the turn. You're all set up for a spin at that point. The inside wing stalls, and you smack the ground before you have a chance to even figure out what's happened, let alone what to do about it.
Or suppose you see something really cool on the ground, like a big bull moose, and you want to make sure everyone in the airplane gets a good look at it. You're almost overhead, so you've got to bank pretty steeply to keep it visible. That gets you turning awfully fast, so you use some top rudder to stop that. The outside wing stalls, you roll inverted in that direction, and down you all go.
Or you take off, and a couple hundred feet off the ground your engine dies because you had an empty tank selected. You see only trees ahead, so you bank and wrap it around to get back to the runway, and you need some extra rudder to help get it around....
These are all ways that people get dead in airplanes, and it continues to happen. People have designed airplanes so as not to be able to spin, but that makes them not fun to fly, and people don't buy them. So as long as pilots fly, we've got to understand spins and how always to avoid getting close to entering one. Because folks, just about the only times spins are recoverable is when you've planned them!
Best Regards,
John
That's a fine exercise; you learn how to recover from a spin, which might be helpful if you've entered it with enough altitude.
But the spins that kill people are seldom entered from an altitude that permits recovery. They are mainly of two varieties: turning from base leg to final, or circling to look at something on the ground (in Alaska they call that the "moose stall"). Because you're already turning, the bank angle "accelerates" the stall, meaning that you stall while you're still in the green arc. If your rudder inputs are uncoordinated at that point, you may quickly become dead.
Suppose you're turning from base to final and you see you're overshooting the runway centerline, so you step on the inside rudder to bring the nose around more quickly, but your instructor told you never to bank more than 30 degrees in the traffic pattern, so you're holding opposite aileron to keep the bank shallow, and then you're pulling back to help get around the turn. You're all set up for a spin at that point. The inside wing stalls, and you smack the ground before you have a chance to even figure out what's happened, let alone what to do about it.
Or suppose you see something really cool on the ground, like a big bull moose, and you want to make sure everyone in the airplane gets a good look at it. You're almost overhead, so you've got to bank pretty steeply to keep it visible. That gets you turning awfully fast, so you use some top rudder to stop that. The outside wing stalls, you roll inverted in that direction, and down you all go.
Or you take off, and a couple hundred feet off the ground your engine dies because you had an empty tank selected. You see only trees ahead, so you bank and wrap it around to get back to the runway, and you need some extra rudder to help get it around....
These are all ways that people get dead in airplanes, and it continues to happen. People have designed airplanes so as not to be able to spin, but that makes them not fun to fly, and people don't buy them. So as long as pilots fly, we've got to understand spins and how always to avoid getting close to entering one. Because folks, just about the only times spins are recoverable is when you've planned them!
Best Regards,
John
Made quite an impression. Not sure how that fellow got to be 70 years old after listening to him tell about his other exploites before his grand finale 
. Not supposed to be any old ,Bold,Pilots. Brian
I used to spin that 170 quite frequently just for fun but never any loops or rolls. Later I owned a few fully aerobatic airplanes to get that out of my system.