Crossover spins?

Jeanie

Jeanie

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Jeanie
So, if you over recover from an upright spin you may enter a crossover. Other than seeing it and simply recovering with PARE are there other things about it I should know?

I have done a fair number of upright and inverted spins separately but not a crossover.
 
REMEMBER which way you re-entered a spin so your next input is correct. IT's VERY easy to get confused when you go over....
 
I'm going to try it tomorrow and see how it goes
 
If you are flying on your own and this happens accidentally, don't necessarily expect to notice the crossover. Pilots have spun into the ground thinking they are holding anti-spin controls, when in fact they've crossed over and are holding pro-spin controls. The stress and confusion of an accidental encounter, combined with inexperience may cause the change in yaw direction to go unnoticed by the pilot, since the airplane continues to roll in the same direction, which can dominate your attention.

Of course, if you've had training and are comfortable with inverted spins, intentionally crossing over is no big deal, since you're now in a regular inverted spin, which you already have experience recovering. When it happens, the yaw will hesitate for a moment before continuing in the opposite (from the pilot's perspective) direction. Roll will continue in the same direction. If you saw it from ground, it would not appear to change direction at all.

My only suggestion when trying it for the first time is to pay special attention to the yaw, and take note of what it looks like when it's reversed. It's best to learn the sight picture and be able to apply the correct input based on what you now see rather than attempting to think back to how you got there, and react based on that alone.

bbchien said:
REMEMBER which way you re-entered a spin so your next input is correct. IT's VERY easy to get confused when you go over....
Click to expand...

This might be OK if you're doing intentional crossovers, but in a true emergency spin recovery situation where you're likely stessed and a bit confused, most aerobatic airplanes do not even require you to figure out the situation beyond the fact that you're no longer in control. If you spin accidentally, and are confused by what's now happening (or why it's not stopping) it can be best to NOT try to figure out which rudder to push and whether to bring the stick forward or aft. Simply pulling power off and visually neutralizing elevator, ailerons, and rudder will recover most types. It works every time in a Pitts, in any spin mode. I don't have experience in the Decathlon with this method, but have been told it's effective in it as well.
 
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Ok. I'll do it intentionally and then use the neutralize everything to see if it recovers in the decathlon. Then I'll know.

The problem with doing acro out here is that you have to climb to 8-9K... Thats not too bad when it's cool but in the summer the DA gets ya
 
Whiffer dill, it seems to me that you check to see if it's an accidental crossover by shoving the stick forward and noticing if you're hanging by the harness... As in obviously inverted
 
Jeanie said:
Whiffer dill, it seems to me that you check to see if it's an accidental crossover by shoving the stick forward and noticing if you're hanging by the harness... As in obviously inverted
Click to expand...

Negative G means you're in an inverted spin, but be careful making assumptions on the spin type based on stick position. Let's say you crossover inverted, hamfist the inverted recovery, and crossover back to upright without realizing it. If you then simply shove the stick full forward, you will have only accelerated the upright spin. Once accelerated, some airplanes will have the rudder sufficiently blanked that applying opposite rudder will not stop the spin, which is to say that some airplanes will not do a crossover spin from a fully accelerated spin. Fun things to try in each a/c type. :)

Think about the student scenario where they apply opposite rudder and too much forward stick. This can produce a crossover because the rudder wasn't blanked by first accelerating the spin with full down elevator.

In my S-1S, I thought it was interesting that if I pull the stick fully aft to accelerate an inverted spin (or push forward for an upright spin) that it will eventually recover by applying opposite rudder while leaving the stick in the fully accelerated position. Of course, in the same situation, it recovers much more quickly if I return the stick to the position the spin first started with before applying opposite rudder, then neutralizing the stick. I found this interesting because of I've heard pilots of other Pitts models mention that fully reversing the elevator during a spin (before applying opposite rudder) will blank the rudder enough to prevent recovery unless the stick is returned to the original spin position (aft if upright, forward if inverted). I never specifically tried this in anything but my S-1S.

In his book, Gene Beggs mentions the Decathlon will not recover an inverted left rudder spin using the opposite rudder, hands-off stick method (you have to physically pull the stick back). This is why I like the neutral (hands-on) control emergency method, as long as it's confirmed to work for each a/c type in all spin modes.
 
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Hmmmm, might climb much higher :).

If I fly tomorrow and work on this I"ll post how it goes

thanks
 
I went out and practiced today but it's been a long time and I haven't flown acro solo much....so I chickened out on the crossovers ... Maybe next time.
 
A wise pilot.

(I keep hearing Duane Cole in my ear...."have you found the ground...have you found the ground....have you found the ground....ok now remember which rudder, DO IT".)
 
That's pretty good. I have one of Duane's books. When my friend/acro mentor was helping me with inverted spins he told me to just watch and to step on the ground behind the nose... He did a one turn inverted spin and I watched hands in lap, then he did a two turn inverted spin and I watched and then he did a 3 turn spin and somewhere about the 2.5 of it it I said, "hey, jeff, I see the ground thing now". His reply? Your airplane!
 
Most spins in figure skating are entered from a left foot outside, back crossover into a forward, left outside edge spin. Or do the same but on the right foot.
 
murphey said:
Most spins in figure skating are entered from a left foot outside, back crossover into a forward, left outside edge spin. Or do the same but on the right foot.
Click to expand...

but the (typical) spin itself is then done on the back inside edge of the entry foot
 
Pretty bad when people know more about figure skating than spins on a pilot forum. :rolleyes:
 
Pretty figure skating when people know about bad pilot spins on a forum.
 
Jeanie,

Let us know how the airplane crossover spins go.
 
It will have to airplane spins since I don't ice skate. I tried once when I was 12.... Not my thing, no balance
 
Staying Upright so that would be the Z axis I imagine ;-)
 
Be careful with "just taking your hands off" while in a developed spin in a Decathlon. They will stay in it, then aggravate themselves as the controls unload and tend to go where they want. With certain aggravated spin modes (inverted as well as upright), the Beggs recovery method is not guaranteed to work either. PARE is always your best bet.


Put the stick where it isn't.


Good Luck.
 
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