Sorry to hear about the accident. Our club has operated two Puch's for
about ten years now. We have taught spin recovery to all of our
students, and club members seeking their Biennial flight review, with
great success . I think the key to our success is the cirriculum that
was put together by our Chief Flight Instructor (former RAF Cadet
instructor), and our small group of instructors, and the club members
willingness, to be exposed to this important training.

We begin with a thorough ground school session, which includes weight
and balance considerations,pilots physiological
considerations(comfort) . The flight portion begins with basic stall
reviews, then steps into the incipient spin. This all starts at 5000'
agl.

I had the pleasure of being one of a group of Texas Soaring
Association members who rode back seat for Dick Johnson, and took down
data during his spin testing of the Puch back in the early 90's. Mr.
Johnson spun that glider every which way but loose, but he did it in
his usual scientific, professional approach. Yes the Puch will spin,
but it is no different then say a Stearman, or a Great Lakes, or other
aerobatic aircraft.

The Puch is by no means my favorite trainer. Neither is the Grob 103.
In fact, I would say the Puch flys much better with regard to the
amount of control harmony, and control force available then the Grob.
The Grob is nice, like a Cessna Skyhawk, but the Puch has more control
force available. Compare the control surfaces.

The low points for the Puch that we have seen, include changing the
main wheel bungies. The wheel brake for all practical purposes is non
existent.

The two mishaps that we have had with our Puchs were pilot induced.
The first one was a high time glider racing pilot takes his
girlfriend, a high time power pilot for a ride/lesson. Note: the guy
had never been an instructor. He's in the back seat,where he's not use
to sitting, does the initial takeoff, gives it to the girlfriend in
the front seat, he for all practical purposes goes to sleep. The
glider goes high on tow,then dives to recover. He wakes up just in
time to see the towrope go behind the wing. The tow line rips up
through the glass to the spoiler box. The only good thing this guy
does is to pull the release so the tow rings rip out the top of the
wing. He does a 180 and lands. The glider goes to Moriarty for repairs
and comes back online.

The other pilot induced incident, happended recently when the same
Puch was dropped in flat, and hard from ten feet. Classic pancake.
Gear damage. Repaired, back flying. Poor glider. You can almost see
aircraft hang their head when certain pilots approach to fly.

With regard to the qualifications of the occupants, well that too
should be looked at. When I was a young lad instructing, I had 747
captains wanting to fly our little Cessna 150's with out going for the
checkout. "When did you last fly something smaller then a 747"? "Well
it's been about twenty five years ago, but I was a test pilot in those
days". Test pilot of Cessna 150's? Some would even point out all
their jet type ratings. Impressive, but sir, we aren't flying jets
today.

These turned out to be fun checkouts, and I always learned something
from those guys. Yes they are fine pilots in most cases, and once you
got them to stop flaring at fifty feet in the air, they did fine.

I think we should check the details of the Puch accidents, before
condemning the aircraft. What altitude did the manuver seem to begin
at. The ones I've looked into we're approxiamently 2000' or below,
according to eye witnesses.

If we are looking for something that flies that totally eliminates the
possibility of injury, I would suggest curling.


Mike Borgelt wrote in message . ..
On 23 Jan 2004 07:34:04 GMT, Chris Rollings
wrote:

Five, in the UK, if memory serves correct, and assuming
Sunday's accident was a spinning one (which as Al observed
is not known at present). I've no idea how many World-wide,
I've never seen any international accident statistics.

At 07:18 23 January 2004, Al Eddie wrote:
Nothing has been released yet - the BGA are still investigating.

Your numbers are probably right but you're missing
the point. The issue is more likely to be of type familiarity
and recency in general, not the fact that a particular
aircraft type is totally predictable in its behaviour.

Al

Spinning in in the Puchacz would seem to be a far higher risk than
aerotow upsets due to using a belly release. With 5 in the UK alone
maybe someone ought to look into this.

A few years ago two test pilots with extensive spin experience
including in gliders managed to kill themselves in a Puchacz spin in
the US. At the time that was the 13th or 14th case allegedly and there
was one more in Austria shortly after that.


Either the type is involved in lots of deliberate spinning accidents
because a lot of this is done in them or there is something odd about
it.

In either case there is cause for concern.

I've flown the Puchacz but I sure wouldn't even think about spinning
one.


Mike Borgelt