Hanger Flying/ I learned from this experience

On Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 10:46:26 AM UTC-4, Mike the Strike wrote:
I had a similar experience with a 20 year-old ASW-20. The previous owner had installed lead weights in the tail and wings without any logbook notation and the weight and balance was far off (aft of permitted). On one of my first flights, I eased back into a thermal and suddenly found myself looking upwards at blue sky!

I always do a weight and balance on new ships now!

Mike

CG issues seem to be "in the vane" for this thread.

It was an ASW-20C with "Nixon winglets".
Owned by my family for a number of years.
CG had been worked out (properly) and "tail ballasted" for one owner (who outweighed me by ~80lbs)(?)so that the normal CG was ~90% aft.
I used the "OEM lead disc's" in the nose, I believe it was 5.

[If you've ever done the lead disc's in a '20, you know they're a bit of a PITA to see/reach up in the nose]

I had quite a few hours in our older '20A as well as this '20C.
We had a "low time glass pilot" (one of our towpilots, he had lots of airplane time) also fly the '20 and he was heavy (maybe 100lbs more than me). We had him fly my ballast to keep the CG more forward. Good thought for us, a bit safer for him.

One day, he decided to move the CG aft just to "try it out". He removed a disc or 2 and flew.
Later on, I was going to fly and decided to try the CG "a wee bit further aft", so I removed a disc (hey kids, see where this is going?!?!).
TO & tow were "OK", general flying was a bit twitchy.
I then did a "cruise to thermal zoomie" and promptly did an "over the top" spin entry (glad I was a few thousand feet up!) followed by a recovery.
The owner was towing and got to watch me & my antics.
I did another zoomie with the same results (again seen by the owner while towing) which prompted a radio call from him of, "Spin much Chuck?!?!".

I backed off a bit on what I did (since I was now current in '20 spin recovery), was very mindful of pattern speed and had a nice landing.
We checked things out (on the ground) and that's when we figured out what happened.
I was "quite a bit aft" of the aft limit.

Moral...... "Don't ASSUME, check & verify"!

Happened to another pilot I know (he has since left flying for medical reasons). He had a brand new ASW-27 and on, I believe it was his first flight, as he was coming in to land the airspeed was showing ever increasing speed.. He chased the airspeed just a bit and then thought he was flying fast enough. He held a steady pitch attitude and landed. After coming to a complete stop he was still showing airspeed. Tracked it down to a static tube from the airspeed was getting kinked when he closed the canopy which is why it was not affecting his altimeter too.

I had another experience where I took off in a glider with only 90 degree flaps for glide path control. I was a very low time pilot and still figuring out the "pilot thing", not that I have it figured out now. For those that have not flown a 90 degree flapped ship, I was taught to put in the flaps at a steady pace as pitched to an attitude (standing on the rudder pedals) then check the airspeed, because if you did not pitch down you might lose your airspeed and never get it back. Well I took off and did not check my airspeed until I was on tow in the air. I had no airspeed indication (pitot was unplugged during maintenance). I landed fast going very fast as I did not want to stall.

Lesson learned. I always check my airspeed is "alive" while accelerating on the ground. This is actually part of any powered aircraft takeoff "airspeed alive...rotation speed". Second lesson learned was when a ship comes back from maintenance do a very careful and through preflight. At one point in my life I was flying a big complex cabin class pressurized twin. I always flew it to the maintenance shop, but I NEVER picked it up, they had to fly it to me after maintenance. Kind of like the parachute rigger than has to jump with the chutes he repacks.