On 14 Jan 2005 16:13:14 GMT, Andrew Warbrick
wrote:

Have you ever spun one? I will repeat myself, it recovers
from most spins with most cockpit loads if you let
go the stick, so on the majority of occasions the instructor
has to be vigilant that the pupil applies the correct
recovery or an incorrect recovery technique will have
been learnt.

Until now I have not even seen a Puchacz in real life - but the sheer
number of spin accidents with experienced pilots suggests that
something is wrong, don't you agree?

I wonder about "letting go the stick" and letting the glider recover
itself - is this really being taught as a procedure? We teach our
student pilots to center the stick, and apply opposite rudder - in
that order. Letting go the stick is an unknown procedure for me, I
have to admit.


The DG-500 is fully compliant with JAR22 when the CofG
is within limits. When the CofG is near the aft limit
it requires the correct spin recovery to be applied,
in the correct order, or the ground will do the recovery
for you, it will continue to autorotate with the stick
on the front stop if you just heave the stick forward
without first centralising the ailerons and applying
full opposite rudder. It may be possible to recover
by applying the full opposite rudder after heaving
the stick forward but it will be a delayed recover
due to control surface masking.

Hmm... looks like the missing 80 cm of wingspan on the 505 really seem
to make a difference here - our 505 recovers nicely even at fully aft
CG positions.


A pilot who has acquired the impression from the Puch
that all is required is to let go or relax the back
pressure could be killed in this situation.

I don't think this is the problem. A typical Puchacz spin accident has
the instructor onboard, and I'm pretty sure that most of these
instructors knew about the correct spin recovery procedure.

Here in Germany we also had our share of Puchacz spin accident. One
was a successful spin recovery that went into an opposite spin - the
IP was not able to recover the second spin before impact.



Bye
Andreas