spin characteristics of new racers

Andreas Maurer wrote:

An excellent point. Has anyone practiced spins with water ballast?
With just one tank full? In a Nimbus DM? With the pylon extended?

Ask Martin Heide, the current Schleicher chief designer.
His first task at Schleicher was the spin-testing of the first ASW-22.

When he did what you described (spin with only one full water tank),
the first 22 prototype broke apart inflight.

Hereupon this test was removed from the German LBA certification
requirement.

BTW: Martin was convinced that the 22 would break up in this kiind of
test.

Like I said, if you have enough money, and good parachutes and
are good at bailing out, you can train spins in whatever you
want, but the insurance company may eventually become suspicious :PPPPP

On 1/29/04 11:08 AM, in article 40194c14$1@darkstar, "Mark James Boyd"
wrote:

I think one could, with enough money and altitude and good chutes
and maybe a small tail drogue chute....

So how many people have spun the tow plane? With or without glider
attached?

How do we know what will happen if we don't practice?



-------
Jack
-------

Jack wrote:
On 1/29/04 11:08 AM, in article 40194c14$1@darkstar, "Mark James Boyd"
wrote:


I think one could, with enough money and altitude and good chutes
and maybe a small tail drogue chute....


So how many people have spun the tow plane? With or without glider
attached?

A tow pilot at Black Forest, CO used to use spins as his let-down
technique. Very entertaining with the rope corkscrewing behind.

Shawn

Andy Durbin wrote:
Bruce Greeff wrote in message ...


I understand that most modern European single seaters exhibit a violent
spin entry, progressing to an approximately vertical attitude with
airspeed approaching VNE on recovery in this configuration.


Some modern gliders may have violent spin entry but others do not. My
ASW-28 appears to be as benign as my old ASW 19.

There is a paradox though. If spins are prohibited with water ballast
how can a pilot know how the glider will behave. All my deliberate
spin attempts in the 19 and 28 were dry, but nearly all of my flying
is with ballast.


Andy
Perhaps it would be wise to dump all ballast any time you expect to have
to thermal at low altitude. Then at least you are not playing test pilot.

Bruce Greeff wrote in message ...

Andy
Perhaps it would be wise to dump all ballast any time you expect to have
to thermal at low altitude. Then at least you are not playing test pilot.

Well, hopefully if the day warrants carrying a lot of ballast, you
won't need to do much low altitude thermalling. It's more likely you
will be thermalling in a gaggle, and spinning through that could also
ruin your (and other's) day. But at least out here in Arizona, some
low thermalling full is pretty common in the summertime, since we
often release from tow fully ballasted at 1000 - 1200ft agl right into
a nice thermal and climb out from there without any problem. I is
really a matter of basic airmanship - keep your airspeed up, fly
clean, pay attention to what the glider is telling you, and always be
ready to immediately unload and recover from an incipient spin.

Like an idiot I once released at 800 ft when I hit a real solid boomer
just off the end of the runway during a rushed local contest launch -
climbed out OK after recovering from the shock of looking at the
altimeter after pulling the release! Tow pilot was happy, since the
minimum charge is for 1000 ft, and there were others waiting to
launch.

Yeah, I know about always going to 2000' during a contest...

Kirk