Troubling story and some questions

John Smith (is that really your name?) wrote:

I've read further down that you flew a Sparrowhawk which I don't know.
But every glider I do know (all of them JAR certified European gliders)
allow for spoiler operation up to Vne. Sure, if you just yank those
spoilers fully open at Vne, you *will* break or at least bend something,
but if you hold the handle with a firm grip and operate them carefully,
then you're perfectly fine. After all, those spoilers are *designed* to
limit the dive speed at Vne! Of course, verify this with your POH first.



The times that spoilers were designed to limit speed to vne in a
vertical dive are long gone. One of the last gliders certified that
way was the Open Cirrus which I had an opportunity to test in that
configuration when diving through a hole in the clouds on a rare wave
day in Northern Germany many years ago. It never went past 200 km/h.
Certification requirements were changed later to allow for only top-
deploying spoilers that I wouldn't want to try on a dive-bombing run.

Herb Kilian, J7