Unintentional fully-developed spins...

Bob Kuykendall wrote in message ...
Earlier, Marc Ramsey wrote:

OK, I'm curious. How many of you have
had to recover from a fully developed
(greater than one turn), unintentional
spin that occurred during normal non-
aerobatic flight?

I've watched an ASW-20, flown by a well-respected pilot,
flick into a spin while thermalling. Including the
recovery, it went about a turn and a half. The thing
that impressed me about it was the dynamic and asymmetric
flexing of the wings in the entry. I seem to recall
that it was an over-the-top entry, but I could be wrong
on that. I have no idea what precipitated the entry,
but I can say that it made more of an impression on
my opinion of the ship than on my opinion of the pilot.

I came away from that incident wondering to what degree
the limber structures of second-generation composite
wings might interact with hard-to-predict post-stall
aerodynamic behaviors to incite spin entries and perhaps
inhibit recovery.

Thanks, and best regards to all

Bob K.

Do you also mean high aspect ratio wings with poorly glued spar caps?

Earlier, (Slingsby) wrote:

Do you also mean high aspect ratio
wings with poorly glued spar caps?

Geez, there you go again.

No, I don't.