Spins

" wrote in news:f2cbb5ae-e29a-
:

On Jan 24, 8:16 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Well, al of that is very true, but the foundation of good aircraft
handling is still central in my view.

Bertie

While it may be true that aircraft handling is foundational, lack of
handling skills accounts for a small proportion of fatalities. This
seems to indicate that training and practice is deficient in
inculcating judgment.

The IMSAFE cutsie deal ain't cuttin' it.

Don;'t even know what that is, but I could guess.

ONe other thing I have noticed a significant degradation of, at least in
some cases, is that some fundamental ( there;s that word again)
practices are being laid to one side. I know of a recent accident in a
cherokee where the pilot taxiied to the end of the runway, did his
runup, his checks and then changed to the fullest tank.
Well he moved the selector to "off" by mistake and then , when the
engine quit at 300' or so, he tried to turn back to the runway.
Now, when I got checked out in my first low wing airplane, also a
cherokee, I was told to select the intended tank for takeoff just after
engine start, if necessary. that way, if there were something wrong with
teh supply from that tank, you'd know a looong time before you rolled.
As for turning back, this can be done , of course, but this guy was in
no way proficient enough to do it, nor had he ever practiced it. He
lived, but the airplane was written off.


Now, who wants to to be the first to start an argument about turning
back?


Bertie

Hi,

In article ,
Bertie the wrote:
Now, when I got checked out in my first low wing airplane, also a
cherokee, I was told to select the intended tank for takeoff just after
engine start, if necessary. that way, if there were something wrong with
teh supply from that tank, you'd know a looong time before you rolled.

The procedure our school use is to start the engine from the tank with the
least fuel, and use that tank to taxi to the point where you do your power
checks. Then you switch to the tank with the most in, and do the power
checks from there.

That way you've tested the feed from both tanks, and aren't fiddling with
the fuel selector for ages (the entire time it takes you to do the power
checks and get into position on the runway) before taking off, so you'd know
well in advance if you'd inadvertantly turned the fuel off or selected a
tank that couldn't feed fuel.

Andy

Michael wrote in news:db710d25-53bf-
:

On Jan 23, 2:34*pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Actually, no. *If you think about it carefully, there is one
important

difference between the student and private. *Sure, they both had
the
same limited spin recovery training - but the student had it
RECENTLY. *That's why it's worth something.

Well, most haven;'t had spin training, that is the problem. Most
don't
get it.

True enough. But presolo spin recovery training was never much.

Doesn't have to be.
Presolo training isn't much, period. The only reason for soloing is to
boost the student's confidence. Confidence is one of the most imprtant
ingredients in a pilot;s makeup and the student is usually only given
just enough to amke sure he can survive that. I mean logialy, he'd be
better off spending the whole of his instruction dual, but the solo
fliht portion is essential in boosting confidence as well as providing
an opportunity for the guy to practice without someone shouting at him
for a change.
Anyhow, the point is, the student could benefit from a lot more practice
at a lot of things before he solos.

got a couple of spin entries and one that went past that (a turn or
two, I think - this was back in the '90's so I don't exactly remember)
and that was all as far as spins went. We did do lots of full stalls,
of course. How much of that spin recovery training would I have
remembered years later if I hadn't done it post-private? Probably not
much. But that's OK - the primary exposure is during the solo stage,
not years later.

But you are right that these days most students don't get that much
either.


Lots don't get any!

One disturbing tendency I've noticed is that instructors are
now telling their solo students not to practice power-on stalls solo,
and some ask them not to practice slow flight solo either. I suppose
it reduces the exposure, but it also creates a mystique around that
part ot the flight envelope that shouldn't be there. I even know a
commercial pilot who won't practice stalls solo (ie without an
instructor). I find that downright disturbing.


Sheesh!
Me too. Well, my students don't do that, in fact, unless they're going
somewhere I postiely encouraged them to do this stuff and discouraged
normal" flight.

Yes, that would be great if it happened - but who will do it? *Most
instructors these days have spin training inferior to what the
average
private pilot got fifty years ago.

Yep, but that's case I'm making.
That should change.

Well, I agree - but good luck changing it. Most instructors these
days come from programs which are very structured - with the goal
being all the ratings in minimum hours. They graduate at 250-300
total hours as CFI/CFII/MEI. If you think about it, that's a minimum
of 7 checkrides:
Private, Instrument, Commercial Single, Commercial Multi, CFI, CFII,
MEI
In many of the programs it's more - this is a maximally streamlined
approach. That means an average of maybe 40 hours between checkrides
(maybe less). Thus there is really no time to go out and play with
the airplane, get a feel for the edges of the envelope - there's
really no time to do anything but learn checkride maneuvers, prep for
checkrides, take checkrides, lather, rinse, repeat. Those programs
don't include anything that isn't required. Since spins are not
tested on the CFI checkride, they get minimal spin training. You can
forget about aerobatics.

Do you remember what happened when the FAA took slow flight as we
knew
it (Vso +5/-0, with the stall horn blaring) out of the PTS and
replaced it with flight at 1.2 Vso?
When theh hell was this? I probably wasn't teaching at the time.

I'm thinking it all happened between '97 and '01. I know that when I
took my private ride in '94, slow flight was at stall speed +5/-0. I
also know that it went back to being that way when I took my CFI ride
in '01. But I remember that I knew some CFI's who had never done slow
flight as we know it, and had to teach themselves with students on
board when the rules changed.

Well, I would have thought so! A fairly high proficiency was expected
when I did my instructor's ticket..

Not when I did mine. I did my spin endorsement with an instructor who
was a fairly serious aerobatic pilot, but most of the CFI candidates I
knew got their spin endorsements in an hour, tops, and at best it
would consist of a couple of incipients, maybe a one turn spin to the
right and a one turn to the left, and then maybe a three turn. No
particular performance standard. And that was a best case. I know a
few who did one incipient to the left, one to the right, the
instructor demonstrated a one turn spin, and that was it!

Well, that's depressing. I have to renew my expired instructor ticket in
a month or so and I havent got a lot of an idea of what to expect. The
guy doing it is the same guy who did my private a long time ago ( I cant
believe he's still alive , neve mind still flying") so I'm expecting it
will be a more traditional sort of ride.

I told a few of them about my spin training, and they were shocked by
the idea that I was expected to spin to a heading and recover back to
a normal glide with no more than 400 ft lost (this was in a Blanik
L-23, and anyone familiar with the type should know that 400 ft is NOT
challenging - a skilled pilot can do it in 200).

Sounds about right, but WTF is an L23? I only knew the L13 and I never
heard of or saw a later model.

But what happens if he's not?
Well, he can't teach them, that's for sure.

But that's my point - start requiring spin training at the private
level, and the CFI who got this minimal spin training will be teaching
it - even though he is not capable. And any safety advantage of
having spin training will be erased by the increased risk of this
'teaching.'


Preaching to the choir, baby.

Bertie

On Jan 24, 11:59 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

The IMSAFE cutsie deal ain't cuttin' it.

Don;'t even know what that is, but I could guess.

ONe other thing I have noticed a significant degradation of, at least in
some cases, is that some fundamental ( there;s that word again)
practices are being laid to one side. I know of a recent accident in a
cherokee where the pilot taxiied to the end of the runway, did his
runup, his checks and then changed to the fullest tank.
Well he moved the selector to "off" by mistake and then , when the
engine quit at 300' or so, he tried to turn back to the runway.
Now, when I got checked out in my first low wing airplane, also a
cherokee, I was told to select the intended tank for takeoff just after
engine start, if necessary. that way, if there were something wrong with
teh supply from that tank, you'd know a looong time before you rolled.
As for turning back, this can be done , of course, but this guy was in
no way proficient enough to do it, nor had he ever practiced it. He
lived, but the airplane was written off.

Now, who wants to to be the first to start an argument about turning
back?

Bertie

IMSAFE is the FAA self-status checklist: Illness, Medications, Stress,
Alcohol, Fatigue, and Eating.

I wonder if the Cherokee pilot was taught that way or was it a
momentary lapse?

The typical accident waiting-to-happen pilot seems to get away with
just a little each time, thus proving to him/herself that those rules/
standards/checklist items don't really apply.

One of the airplanes I fly has an NTSB history -- the CFI flying solo
ran it off the end of the runway at 80 MPH when it did not rotate. The
gust lock in place made that happen. I can't imagine that "free and
correct" wasn't taught to this guy. So clearly it was a momentary
lapse.

Or was it a programmed lapse due to familiarity and complacency? Had
he flown many times before with no check of the flight controls? Or
was this the One Time he forgot to do that?

There is no way to know how many accidents are the result of that One
Time and how many are the odds finally catching up. But disciplined
rigor can help keep the first at arm's length and the second much less
inevitable.

I think fear can be a good motivator until experienced respect can
take over. But it's hard to sell the Wonders Of Flying using the F
word.

Dan


"It's when things are going just right that you'd better be
suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and
you're the answer to the Wright brothers' prayers. You say to
yourself, nothing can go wrong ... all my trespasses are forgiven.
Best you not believe it."

-- Ernest K. Gann

"Do not spin this aircraft. If the aircraft does enter a spin it will
return to earth without further attention on the part of the
aeronaut."

-- first handbook issued with the Curtis-Wright flyer

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Now, who wants to to be the first to start an argument about turning
back?

Seems to be a timeless topic. I just finished reading "Winged
Victory" by V. M. Yeates, a fictional account of his real life experience
flying Sopwith Camels during WW1. In it he describes one poor rookie
pilot's fatal attempt to turn back to the field after an engine failure
at takeoff. The story's main character wondered why the pilot made that
poor choice rather than fly it straight ahead. Guess the danger of
turning back was known less than 15 years after the invention of the
airplane.

The book has a great writeup on the vices (and virtues) of the Camel:

"Flying Camels was not everyone's work. They were by far the most
difficult of service machines to handle. Many pilots killed themselves by
crashing in a right hand spin when learning to fly them. A Camel hated an
inexperienced hand, and flopped into a frantic spin at the least
opportunity. They were unlike ordinary aeroplanes, being quite unstable,
immoderately tail-heavy, so light on the controls that the slightest jerk
or inaccuracy would hurl them all over the sky, difficult to land, deadly
to crash: a list of vices to emasculate the stoutest courage, and the
first flight on a Camel was always a terrible ordeal. They were bringing
out a two-seater training Camel for dual work, in the hope of reducing
that thirty per cent of crashes on first solo flights."
....
"Camels were wonderful fliers when you had got used to them, which
took about three months of hard flying. At the end of that time you were
either dead, a nervous wreck, or the hell of a pilot and a terror to
Huns, who were more unwilling to attack Camels than any other sort of
machine except perhaps Bristol Fighters. But then Bristol Fighters
weren't fair. They combined the advantages of a scout with those of a
two-seater. Huns preferred fighting SEs which were stationary engined
scouts more like themselves, for the Germans were not using rotary
engines except for their exotic triplanes, and the standard Hun scout was
the very orthodox Albatros. They knew where they were with SEs, which
obeyed the laws of flight and did as properly stabilized aeroplanes ought
to do. If you shot at one, allowing correctly for speed, you would hit
it: it would be going the way it looked as if it were going, following
its nose. But not so a Camel. A Camel might be going sideways or flat-
spinning, or going in any direction except straight backwards. A Camel in
danger would do the most queer things, you never knew what next,
especially if the pilot was Tom Cundall."

Great book of WW 1 flying (though I have to admit it is the only book
of WW 1 flight that I have read). In my opinion it does a better job with
the theme of "fate" than Gann's "Fate is the Hunter" and has elements of
Heller's "Catch-22" madness. And it predates both of them. Considering
the kind of machines Yeates and his contemporaries flew, it really makes
Gann and Heller's protagonists look pampered by comparison. All IMHO of
course.

On Jan 24, 11:30 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
That way you've tested the feed from both tanks, and aren't fiddling
with the fuel selector for ages (the entire time it takes you to do
the power checks and get into position on the runway) before taking
off, so you'd know well in advance if you'd inadvertantly turned the
fuel off or selected a tank that couldn't feed fuel.

Yeah, that should work OK. I'm not sure how long exactly it'd take to run a
line outk, but a runup should do it.

Bertie

The fuel downstream of the valve will be gone in a few
seconds at runup RPM. Not nearly enough to take off with. But I have
seen leaking fuel valves with old and rotten rubber seats in them that
no longer shut the flow completely off, and such a valve might allow
enough fuel for takeoff until the limited flow can't keep up. Or worn
valve linkage (as in a Cessna single) that can leave the valve partly
"off" while indicating "on." To find a leaking selector or shutoff
valve, turn the valve off, pull the strainer drain control and see if
the flow stops entirely. If it continues to dribble, the valve is
leaking.

Dan

On Jan 24, 12:12*pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Sounds about right, but WTF is an L23? I only knew the L13 and I never
heard of or saw a later model.

I know the L-13 well, and in my opinion it's the better glider, but
they're getting old. Think of the L-23 as an unflapped L-13, and that
will be about right.

Michael

wrote in
:

On Jan 24, 11:30 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
That way you've tested the feed from both tanks, and aren't
fiddling with the fuel selector for ages (the entire time it takes
you to do the power checks and get into position on the runway)
before taking off, so you'd know well in advance if you'd
inadvertantly turned the fuel off or selected a tank that couldn't
feed fuel.

Yeah, that should work OK. I'm not sure how long exactly it'd take to
run a line outk, but a runup should do it.

Bertie

The fuel downstream of the valve will be gone in a few
seconds at runup RPM. Not nearly enough to take off with. But I have
seen leaking fuel valves with old and rotten rubber seats in them that
no longer shut the flow completely off, and such a valve might allow
enough fuel for takeoff until the limited flow can't keep up. Or worn
valve linkage (as in a Cessna single) that can leave the valve partly
"off" while indicating "on." To find a leaking selector or shutoff
valve, turn the valve off, pull the strainer drain control and see if
the flow stops entirely. If it continues to dribble, the valve is
leaking.


Well, this guy got airborne Don't know how. It was an 181, if it makes any
difference.


Bertie

" wrote in news:702ad50b-3eb6-41e3-
:

On Jan 24, 1:40 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

I think fear can be a good motivator until experienced respect can
take over. But it's hard to sell the Wonders Of Flying using the F
word.

Why?
I tel them to watch the f..ing speed all the time.


Bertie



The OTHER f word....


That would make you rather unpopular in the cockpit..

Well, open cockpit would be OK


Bertie

Jim Logajan wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Now, who wants to to be the first to start an argument about turning
back?

Seems to be a timeless topic. I just finished reading "Winged
Victory" by V. M. Yeates, a fictional account of his real life
experience flying Sopwith Camels during WW1. In it he describes one
poor rookie pilot's fatal attempt to turn back to the field after an
engine failure at takeoff. The story's main character wondered why the
pilot made that poor choice rather than fly it straight ahead. Guess
the danger of turning back was known less than 15 years after the
invention of the airplane.

The book has a great writeup on the vices (and virtues) of the
Camel:

"Flying Camels was not everyone's work. They were by far the most
difficult of service machines to handle. Many pilots killed themselves
by crashing in a right hand spin when learning to fly them. A Camel
hated an inexperienced hand, and flopped into a frantic spin at the
least opportunity. They were unlike ordinary aeroplanes, being quite
unstable, immoderately tail-heavy, so light on the controls that the
slightest jerk or inaccuracy would hurl them all over the sky,
difficult to land, deadly to crash: a list of vices to emasculate the
stoutest courage, and the first flight on a Camel was always a
terrible ordeal. They were bringing out a two-seater training Camel
for dual work, in the hope of reducing that thirty per cent of crashes
on first solo flights." ...
"Camels were wonderful fliers when you had got used to them, which
took about three months of hard flying. At the end of that time you
were either dead, a nervous wreck, or the hell of a pilot and a terror
to Huns, who were more unwilling to attack Camels than any other sort
of machine except perhaps Bristol Fighters. But then Bristol Fighters
weren't fair. They combined the advantages of a scout with those of a
two-seater. Huns preferred fighting SEs which were stationary engined
scouts more like themselves, for the Germans were not using rotary
engines except for their exotic triplanes, and the standard Hun scout
was the very orthodox Albatros. They knew where they were with SEs,
which obeyed the laws of flight and did as properly stabilized
aeroplanes ought to do. If you shot at one, allowing correctly for
speed, you would hit it: it would be going the way it looked as if it
were going, following its nose. But not so a Camel. A Camel might be
going sideways or flat- spinning, or going in any direction except
straight backwards. A Camel in danger would do the most queer things,
you never knew what next, especially if the pilot was Tom Cundall."

Great book of WW 1 flying (though I have to admit it is the only
book
of WW 1 flight that I have read). In my opinion it does a better job
with the theme of "fate" than Gann's "Fate is the Hunter" and has
elements of Heller's "Catch-22" madness. And it predates both of them.
Considering the kind of machines Yeates and his contemporaries flew,
it really makes Gann and Heller's protagonists look pampered by
comparison. All IMHO of course.


Ernie Gann's " A gathering of Eagles" is about WW1 and is excellent. The
incoparable "Saggitarius Rising" has to be the best, though. Winged
Warfare by Billy Bishop, also very Good. Rene Fonck's autobiography as
well...


Bertie