spins - eeeeeeeeeeeee!

PhantomCougar

PhantomCougar

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Phantom
I did spin work yesterday morning to take care of my CFI 61.183(i)(1) sign off. Talk about alot of fun. 3 spins to the left, 3 spins to right, wish we could have done more just for fun. 2 turns and -1000 feet, pretty much everytime.

You have to really try to get a 150 to spin. Full rudder and full back pressure. And maintain that. Any easing up pretty much releases the spin or prevents it from starting in the first place. I think this is common knowledge for the 150 but what about other spin-approved airplanes?

Even tried to enter a spin from sloppy airplane control. A power-on stall with no rudder to control yaw and all it really did was drop the left wing and then 500 feet and changed heading 120 degrees to the left. Recovered on its own by releasing control pressure. No spin.

Tried a cross controlled base turn to final stall (at altitude) and no spin.

Of course our resident test pilot :p has youtube video of this in a 172.

Then tried to simulate flying IFR after the last spin using the tumbled AI for pitch and bank reference. I think we were in a 25 degree nose up attitude with full power and 40 degrees of bank before the AI was leveled. Almost an accelerated stall until I leveled off visually.

Anyone here ever get a spin to reverse direction by over doing the rudder action to stop the initial rotation? Kirshener says it can be done.
 
If you think spinning a 150 takes some work..Try spinning a 172.

Here is a video of a 3 turn spin in a 150. Probably the same 150 you used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXinAgokQmw

PhantomCougar said:
Tried a cross controlled base turn to final stall (at altitude) and no spin.
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Did you cross-control as a slip or skid? I would be surprised if you couldn't spin in an aggressive skid. If you're going to stall an airplane in a turn--best to do it in a slip versus skid.

I will cross-control intentionally on my base to final turn with a slip if I'm a little high. Remember, in order to spin from a slip, you're going to have to roll past wings level and into a skid. There is plenty of time to react.
 
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PhantomCougar said:
I did spin work yesterday morning to take care of my CFI 61.183(i)(1) sign off. Talk about alot of fun. 3 spins to the left, 3 spins to right, wish we could have done more just for fun. 2 turns and -1000 feet, pretty much everytime.

You have to really try to get a 150 to spin. Full rudder and full back pressure. And maintain that. Any easing up pretty much releases the spin or prevents it from starting in the first place. I think this is common knowledge for the 150 but what about other spin-approved airplanes?

Even tried to enter a spin from sloppy airplane control. A power-on stall with no rudder to control yaw and all it really did was drop the left wing and then 500 feet and changed heading 120 degrees to the left. Recovered on its own by releasing control pressure. No spin.

Tried a cross controlled base turn to final stall (at altitude) and no spin.

Of course our resident test pilot :p has youtube video of this in a 172.

Then tried to simulate flying IFR after the last spin using the tumbled AI for pitch and bank reference. I think we were in a 25 degree nose up attitude with full power and 40 degrees of bank before the AI was leveled. Almost an accelerated stall until I leveled off visually.

Anyone here ever get a spin to reverse direction by over doing the rudder action to stop the initial rotation? Kirshener says it can be done.
Click to expand...


Your right, you pretty much have to mean it to get into a spin in a 150!
 
And yes you CAN make it break the other way with excessive top rudder....
:)
 
jesse said:
If you think spinning a 150 takes some work..Try spinning a 172.
Click to expand...


Try spinning a 172 with a 220lb CFI candidate (me) and a 260lb CFI (Frank V) and nothing else in the plane (couldn't really put anything else in there other than about 1/4 tanks to keep it under the weight limit for spinning). I think we would have stood a better chance of spinning my car.
 
bbchien said:
And yes you CAN make it break the other way with excessive top rudder....
:)
Click to expand...

I can't speak for every airplane, but I can speak for my own experience. Based on my experience it is near impossible to spin a 172 in a turn with top rudder. Rudder to the floor, Yoke to the stops.

I would have to go try it in a 150 to see if I could make it happen. Even if it did manage to happen--you have to roll past wings level and into the spin. It would take a really crappy pilot to not recognize this happening.
 
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Any one know which recent AOPA Flight Training Magazine issue had a article about Bill Kershner and spins? I think the article was entitled "Spin Doctor" and it was about 2 years ago but I can't find it in my collection. I am pretty sure he was on the cover too.
 
150s spin beautifully. easy to enter easy to recover and a very pronounced pitch and rotation rate. Some types are similar to the 150 in that a relaxation of the controls will degenerate it into a spiral dive, but dont count on it. Use the complete recovery procedure every time in every airplane and you will never go wrong. IIRC we did spins out of a slip and skid when I did my initial training in a 152. That is all type dependent. Chips old Extra 300 has a very pronounced spin out of a slip. Took me about 3/4 of a turn to catch up.
 
PhantomCougar said:
Even tried to enter a spin from sloppy airplane control. A power-on stall with no rudder to control yaw and all it really did was drop the left wing and then 500 feet and changed heading 120 degrees to the left. Recovered on its own by releasing control pressure. No spin.

Tried a cross controlled base turn to final stall (at altitude) and no spin.
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Try "a few knots above stall speed with idle power and full flaps, YANK the yoke back to the stop and JAM in full power. When the airplane starts to yaw, and the left wing starts to lower, SNAP in full right aileron while keeping the rudder centered."

The word "snap" also describes the result quite well...learned that one from a student in a 152.:D

PhantomCougar said:
Then tried to simulate flying IFR after the last spin using the tumbled AI for pitch and bank reference. I think we were in a 25 degree nose up attitude with full power and 40 degrees of bank before the AI was leveled. Almost an accelerated stall until I leveled off visually.
Click to expand...
Did you try a recovery under the hood using the needle and ball? (try this from both directions...you'll see why you apply rudder against the needle and not the ball.)

PhantomCougar said:
Anyone here ever get a spin to reverse direction by over doing the rudder action to stop the initial rotation? Kirshener says it can be done.
Click to expand...
Back in my "younger and foolisher" days, we had a Spezio Tuholer. As I was circling at about 600 agl over my brother's tractor in the field, I flew through my wake, and was close enough to critical aoa that the airplane stalled and a wing dropped. Recovered no problem, but decided to see how the airplane handled something more than an incipient spin.

Keep in mind that the Spezio is flown from the rear pit, and with the fuselage tank (forward of the front pit) at a low enough level to keep gas from flowing out into my face at zero-g (remember the younger and foolisher statement?), I was roughly AT the aft CG limit.

Went up to about 5k and spun...started the recovery after one turn. Took almost another 1/2 turn to stop the rotation, but it didn't "stop"...it started rotating the other way. Rudder the opposite way, then centered immediately, stopped it. Tried it about 10 times, exact same result, both directions.

Landed at my aunt's place for a cookie and noticed that my pulse rate was, shall we say, just a tad elevated ;)

Fly safe!

David
 
tonycondon said:
Use the complete recovery procedure every time in every airplane and you will never go wrong.
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Until it doesn't work. At which point--you can cuss Piper all the way to the ground.
tonycondon said:
IIRC we did spins out of a slip and skid when I did my initial training in a 152.
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If you manage to a spin a 150 out of a turning slip you must have been asleep. It should be pretty obvious what is happening as you force the nose above the horizon, it stalls, rolls back past wings level, and into the spin. I'll record a video of this. The most important thing though that people really need to understand is--there is absolutely no reason to ever stall doing this. If you keep the nose below the horizon and don't pull on the yoke. You'll come down fast--but this is the whole purpose.

tonycondon said:
Chips old Extra 300 has a very pronounced spin out of a slip. Took me about 3/4 of a turn to catch up.
Click to expand...
tonycondon said:
That is all type dependent.
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Exactly. Way too many people generalize the properties one one airplane with every airplane. These are the same people that look at what I write and freak out because it doesn't work like that in airplane XYZ. They never realize that I specify an airplane when I write it.

I would not recommend stalling in a slip at any low altitude. I feel for those that fear slips because they are afraid of the stall. There is no reason to stall in a slip, level or turning. Just let the nose fall below the horizon, don't pull hard on the yoke, and enjoy the fun.
 
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jesse said:
Until it doesn't work. At which point--you can cuss Piper all the way to the ground.
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To my knowledge, the only intentional-spin-approved Piper which has any record of this is the Tomahawk. You can go read John Lowery's works for the why's, but there is at least one case on record in which spin recovery was accomplished only after the trainee and instructor unstrapped and leaned forward over the glare shield to help get the nose down.
 
Ron Levy said:
To my knowledge, the only intentional-spin-approved Piper which has any record of this is the Tomahawk. You can go read John Lowery's works for the why's, but there is at least one case on record in which spin recovery was accomplished only after the trainee and instructor unstrapped and leaned forward over the glare shield to help get the nose down.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I was referring to.
 
Ron Levy said:
OK -- you just said "Piper," and I know of no other spin-certified Piper whose spin recovery has ever been questioned.
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This is going back a ways, but it seems to me that the Cherokee 140's were originally certificated for spins, but decertified...the story I heard was more pilot-induced, though, by spinning the airplane outside the reduced cg limits for spinning.

Fly safe!

David
 
I can tell you that a Sundowner will recover pretty much by doing not much more than thinking the word "recover."
 
PhantomCougar said:
Any one know which recent AOPA Flight Training Magazine issue had a article about Bill Kershner and spins? I think the article was entitled "Spin Doctor" and it was about 2 years ago but I can't find it in my collection. I am pretty sure he was on the cover too.
Click to expand...
Are you thinking of Julie Boatman's article for AOPA Pilot in August 2006? There's an entire page of Kershner-related stuff from AOPA at http://www.aopa.org/kershner/
 
Hi Grant, Thanks for pointing that out. I looked up the article you are talking about and it is a good one but wasn't the one I was thinking of. And then I looked farther back into my AOPA FT archive and found the one I was thinking of.

April 2005 Page 24 and Page 62.
 
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