Puchacz fatal accident 18 Jan. 2004 at Husbands Bosworth.

At 23:00 13 January 2005, T O D D P A T T I S T wrote:
Stewart Kissel
wrote:

A very thorough report...don't see how the Puchasz
can be the culprit here....

I read it and came away thinking the Puch was still
a
possible culprit.

How? As stated in the report the Puch spins readily
but recovers very easily. Quoted from the report:

'It can reasonably be concluded that the only control
mishandling of the PUCHACZ
that can lead to delay in spin exit is the retention
of full pro spin elevator…. '

It is actually difficult for us to teach proper spin
recover in the Puch simply because it recovers so easily.
You have to watch what rudder pedals are doing, common
problems a

1. Not removing pro spin rudder but moving the stick
forward (glider usually recovers).
2. Centralising the rudder and moving the stick forward
(glider pretty much always recovers).
3. Not removing opposite rudder promptly after spin
stops (danger of flicking the other way or overloading
the rudder).

The danger is that a pilot gets the impression 'all
I have to do to recover is relax the back pressure'
that'll kill you in a glider with genuinely nasty spin
recovery characteristics like the DG500.

1.) Spin entries are permitted at 1500', with an easy
spinning ship this does not give one a lot of leeway.

1500' should be enough, but the report indicated that
the
Puch was more difficult to recover than other trainers
and
implied that this might have contributed to the accident.



Eh? Where did it say that? It's easier to recover than
other trainers!

2.) Having an instructor with a bad ticker teaching
these manuevers.

Regardless of the advisability of instructing with
this
medical condition:

1) The instructor was still alive after the accident,
not
dead/incapacitated.

2) The instructor's legs were injured, and they seemed
to be
leg injuries consistent with conscious reaction to
the
imminent approach of the ground.

3.) Combining (1) and (2) with a relatively green
trainee...who might not recognize when things head
south.

The trainee's right leg was injured in a way the report
considered to be consistent with applying full opposite
rudder to the left spin.

They had made at least two successful full spin recoveries
prior to their final spin (perhaps more, the witnesses
didn't see the full flight).

Two or three full spins and recoveries down from 3000
to 1500' sounds about right, usually you have to have
at least a few seconds of debrief after each recovery
along the lines of 'you forgot this or that, try again'.
Personally I'm happy enough demonstrating a spin entry
and recovery at 1500' but I won't let the P2 initiate
the spin below 2000' except maybe if every entry and
recovery up to then has been 'textbook'. Having said
which, quite often at my club we can climb to 3200',
push out over flat ground, practice spinning down to
1800' then climb back up to 3200' on the ridge again
for another go.

Sure it's possible that they
did two correctly, and then screwed up. It's also
possible,
the instructor had a partial attack, slumped to block
the
stick, then recovered, etc. But the bottom line is
we still
don't know why.



I'm sorry, 'slumped to block the stick', the last time
I flew HCD (a long time ago admittedly) I'm pretty
sure it had a five point harness, how the heck do you
'slump to block the stick' wearing a five point harness?

I do, however, have to agree, we will never know exactly
what happened in this awful tragedy and any further
speculation over it is probably counter productive.