To follow up on my earlier comments, I also did not
find it a spin prone glider..

It's interesting that yours was placarded against deliberate
spinning - ours was not. And although they're on different
registers (and I sold my share in 1997) it would be
interesting to know why your is..

Mark

At 13:24 09 February 2004, Bo Brunsgaard wrote:
'HL Falbaum' wrote in message news:...
Given all the threads on spins lately, I would like
to know about 201 and
301 spins. I have flown both (3 flights) and have
not 'tickled the tiger'.
They both required more then average attention to
coordination. Shall I
assume the spin readily, and do anything peculiar?
Asssume CG in mid range.
Thanks

Generally, I don't find our 201 particularly prone
to spinning: I have
unintentionally stalled it while circling in rough
thermals more times
than I probably should, but never with any real spin
developing.

I have only really spun it once, and that was while
asking for it. I
tried (at 4000 feet) what would happen if I flew with
full airbrakes
and the stick held completely back against the rear
stop (silly, but
someone said that you could do that). It actually just
sat there,
pretty stable and decending at a high rate, until I
hit a little bit
of turbulence: WHAM.

It turned what felt like half inverted (probably wasn't),
fell through
and spun. No big issue - putting the airbrakes back
in and doing a
standard recovery worked fine.

It did surprise me a bit that it did roll a bit far
and took some time
before putting the nose down and entering a proper
spin, but that may
well have been the effect of having the airbrakes deployed
(memo to
self: don't fly uncoordinated and stalled on approach
with airbrakes
deployed :-)

Since that episode we have added the winglet option
to our 201 which
does make the stall behaviour (especially in thermalling
turns) very
docile, compared to the non-wingletted version. But,
if my fading
memory serves me correct, it wasn't spin-prone before
we added the
winglets. But it may feel that way though - it can
feel a little
wobbly when thermalled too slowly. In general, the
different Libelles
that I have flown tend to be quite a bit different
in handling.

Incidentially, our 201 is placarded against intentional
spins (I don't
recall whether that is in the handbook as well?).

And, anyway, I wouldn't spin any glider intentionally
with only three
flights on the type. I'd like to get to know it a bit
before doing
that.

Bo Brunsgaard
Std. Libelle OY-XKB