Hi Ashley,
My instructor is a stall machine. So are the check pilot’s I’ve gone with. Some of the instructors like to take it to imminent stall while the instructor I flew with likes to take it to a complete stall. However he was a stickler for making sure I kept the ball centered, or in the case of a power on or departure stall keeping the ball slightly right of center. In the US spins aren’t required for PTS. I might be wrong here but I don’t think CFI’s are required to perform spins. The whole focus is on spin avoidance.
Filbert, I feel your pain. Flying is expensive. I think I need a wining lottery ticket myself!
My dad and I talked one day when I was taking flight instruction and was shocked to learn that spins were no longer required for certification. I guess when he got his license (1946) you had to demonstrate a 2 turn spin in each direction and recover within 10 degrees of your starting heading in order to qualify. His argument was that even if it were no longer necessary for you to demonstrate spins to an examiner you should have at least a couple of hours of spin instruction in order to recognize what has happened and how to recover if you get into one. Now days, some flight schools don’t even want you to stall the aircraft.("NO!, NO!, NO!, We DO not allow the stall to break, just bring the nose up until the stall warning horn starts and recover then).
Hey Quincy,
I would agree with your dad. My instructor told me to go to the aerobatics school in Boulder and take a two hour course in spin recovery. While it’s damn hard to spin a 172, it’s good to have some experience so you know what it feels like and know how to react.
I haven’t heard of any schools not wanting the student to at least take the plane to imminent stall. But I wouldn’t bee surprised. It seems like the instructors/check pilots I’ve been with either want you to go to imminent stall so that you feel the controls get mushy and the wing shutter, or they want you to take it all the way to the break. My instructor made me stall the aircraft fully because he wanted me to focus on keeping the plane coordinated throughout the stall. The FAA examiner didn’t want me to fully stall the plane.
If you look at the statistics, some of which I posted earlier it’s easy to understand why the FAA and insurance companies would like to focus on awareness rather than experience. Sometimes experience can kill you!
didn’t read a lot of the posts, but here’s a summary:
Immelman: wings level upright → pull to top of loop and roll upright
Split-S is essentially the opposite. Start wings level, roll inverted, stabilize and pull through to wings level flight at a lower altitude. In the T-34 both manuevers were designed to be accomplished with a 1500 foot change of altitude. Of the basic PA manuevers they taught us in Primary Flight training, I’d have to say the barrel roll is the most fun though.
Spins are nothing more than having one wing stalled more than the other, inducing an self-sustaining rotation. They came about early on in aviation when pilot had no ability to fly on instruments through clouds, so they would just get above the clouds, and spin through them. All well and good if you have enough of a ceiling. Fun to do and easy to recover with the proper training (induce - pull to nose up to allow the aircraft to stall, when stall is imminent, lead in with a little rudder in the desired direction of spin, once stalled fully, full rudder and full backstick. to recover - neutral, idle, rudder full opposite turn needle, neutralize rudder when rotation stops, recover from unusual attitude). Inverted spins can be done by stalling the aircraft inverted or by applying backstick in the recovery. They aren’t as fun, and they are a LOT more dangerous. It’d be surprising if you could even make a cessna enter into an inverted spin. Cross-controlled departures are where the real fun is though. Last I checked, spins weren’t required training for civilian private pilots licenses, but then again, most civilian aircraft are by design very stable and spin resistant.
Here is a little war story that I use to justify the re-introduction of spin training into the US primary requirements. Some years back in a recurrent ground school, we showed an NTSB computer recreation of an incident involving an EMB-120 Brasilia. The intrepid crew had the airplane climbing on the autopilot in the vertical speed mode, and BOTH were turned around chatting with the flight attendant. When the airplane got to an altitude that would no longer sustain the selected climb rate, the stick shaker activated and the autopilot kicked off. The engine torque caused the airplane to enter the classic incipient spin. Now, having some time in that bird, we all knew that it would respond to a quick jab on the opposite rudder and a little forward stick pressure, and probably deviate from heading about 30 degrees. Instead, this captain attempted to raise the nose with back stick pressure, and stop the roll with opposite aileron. ( the flight data recorder showed all the control inputs)
Even with the crew trying to force a flat spin, the Brasilia wouldn’t do it, and ended up in a spiral, shedding cowlings, wrinkling skin AND making the national news. Bottom line is, this guy ,an ATP no less, had no idea his airplane was in the incipient phases of a spin. That is scary.
I wonder if they put that one through the simulator now! And do they include the distraction of an attractive flight attendant too? Sounds like the crew needed some steril cockpit training too [;)]
I’m flying the Diamond Eclipse right now which is the same primary trainer that the US Air Force Academy is using. While I haven’t tried spinning this plane I find that it really wants to stay coordinated. That ball just doesn’t move much from center even on climb out.
The Discovery Wings channel had a special on test pilots. I believe they were forcing an F-18 into a flat spin which they could do easily. That plane lost thousands of feet before they were able to control it.
Thanks for sharing that story Ashley. I always enjoy learning from other’s. Here’s a story I came across the other day in our local paper. I’m sure this one will just leave you shaking your head…
"Wreck report confirms plane ran out of gas
The National Transportation Safety Board has completed its investigation into a fatal April plane crash near Longmont, ruling that the single-engine biplane ran out of gas while performing aerobatics too close to the ground.
Pilot Thomas Bullington, 57, and his passenger, Jeff Sands, 49, died April 26 when the plane nose-dived into a field north of Longmont at 95 mph.
A preliminary report in November said there was no fuel in the plane’s tank, but the official cause still had to be determined at a hearing at NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C. The final report says low airspeed, low altitude and fuel exhaustion contributed to the accident."