"mike regish" wrote
He took the controls again at one point
for a thermal and he started cranking around to turn back into it. I was
thinking we were pretty slow for that steep a turn (it was getting down to
40 knots with a 34 knot straight and level stall speed) when I felt a
distinct buffet. Next thing I know, the nose is falling through adn we're in
a spin. The stick is in my belly and I hear Bob saying "What the heck is
happening?" I tell him we're in a spin as I watch the Earth spinning in
front of me. I told him 3 times to let go of the stick before I finally took
it, centered it adn stomped the right rudder. We came out of it pretty quick
and the glider accellerated real quick. Vne was 125 and we hit 100 in almost
no time. I pulled the nose back up and slowed us back to our 45 knot target
speed.

Frankly, I'm concerned about this. Not about the stall, or even the
spin entry - that's an occupational hazard of soaring. Read Dylan's
post.

The problem is with the way the recovery was handled. Feeling the
buffet when working narrow, turbulent lift is pretty normal - but at
that point, recovery begins. If you had time to see that you were in
a spin, and then time to tell Bob multiple times, that makes me really
worried about his ability to recover. It worries me more that you had
to recover for him. Your point is well taken - what if that had been
a non-pilot in the front seat. "What the heck is happening?" is not
something you really want to hear from the PIC. It might just have
been a bad day, but it's cause for concern.

Bob gave me an A+ for my recognition and timely recovery from that spin.

Yeah, I would too. On the other hand, I'm not sure what grade to give
Bob...

Michael