ASK 21 spin ballast installation

I'll be blunt here, and for that I make no apologies,
if you are not capable of running a safe and informative
basic lesson in a spinnable trainer, you do not have
the skills to be an instructor, and if you would not
trust your pupil to be safe in that same trainer on
their first solo, you have not done your job as an
instructor.

Jamie, I agree.

The standard at the club I learned at was to only teach spin recognition and
recovery. We have Bergfalkes for trainers, with post solo types getting advanced
training in a Blanik L13.

Consider this scenario:

The Bergfalke will theoretically spin, although we do not permit intentional
spins in them. Bloggs has made the old 1956 'III shudder and shake at 56km/h
indicated and the yaw string all over the place 'thermalling' in training.
Without an aerobatic entry, she simply refuses to even enter an incipient spin.

Bloggs is a little ham fisted but gets sent solo after a couple of demonstrated
incipient recoveries in the L13.

A couple of months later Bloggs is flying at a different club, or with a K13 and
a hoary old CFI. Said CFI is well endowed with large amounts of RLC (Rat Like
Cunning) and a wicked sense of humour. Or Bloggs gets to fly with me, who
learned something from such a CFI. So Bloggs gets to do a check flight and is
swanning about a little sloppily, but perfectly safely. CFI gets Bloggs to
initiate a gentle turn and distracts him while surreptitiously moving the trim
lever back. Then the speed bleeds off and the "reasonably coordinated" turn is
now over ruddered. People are suggestible so - At the precise/appropriate moment
the instructor only has to complain pointedly about the yaw string, while
mentioning too little bank as the problem (as opposed to too much rudder) and
Bloggs does the rest. Mind goes, observe yaw string is in the outside corner,
leave the rudder where it is, and apply copious into turn aileron.

If you have timed it right the down going aileron stalls the outside wing, yaws
the nose up and you enter a spin around the outside wing. The root of which is
now partially in the lee of the fuselage, so the stall is over a large part of
the wing. This can be quite violent, even in a K13.

Bloggs has just learned you don't have to be cross controlled to spin, and that
you don't automatically apply rudder opposite to the direction you were turning,
unless you like the earth to rotate like that...

This is in a "docile" trainer.

This works best low down where the horizon is higher, or where you can make the
turn towards rising ground, so that Bloggs tends to raise the nose to keep the
apparent attitude constant. Unfamiliar terrain, or aircraft or other
distractions make it easier.

Our instruction patter emphasises well banked turns near the ground. The theory
being that there is less chance of a spin entry, and the recovery is much
quicker. All this is true, but the exercise above demonstrates that the pilot
who has set it up wrong can kill himself correcting a poorly executed low turn.

Good thing to be exposed to some instructors who know how to teach full spins
and recovery. That way you get to learn to think about recovery from the context
- aircraft type and configuration (C of G flaps? flapperons? ballast? engine
out? airbrakes?)
- meteorology (wind gradient? turbulence/rotor? curl over? ice?)
- how you entered the spin. (aerobatic? slow turn? thermalling? from level?)
- how the aircraft is spinning (flat? vertical? inverted? unstable?)

There are more but you get the idea.

The permutations all make the recovery different, best to know how to do this
before you are gyrating earthward...

I will never understand people who think it is sufficient to teach a single,
artificial incipient spin entry and recovery mode. Instructors should do a
propper job of teaching.

I am not personally particularly fond of spinning but I have made a point of
being as proficient as I can be in the types I fly. With understanding comes
safety. Put another way -- That way other people tend to be less nervous of you
being above them in a gaggle in a Cirrus ;-)

--
Bruce Greeff
Std Cirrus #57
I'm no-T at the address above.