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

Herb wrote:

The times that spoilers were designed to limit speed to vne in a
vertical dive are long gone.

Where did I say vertical dive? JAR asks for a 30 degrees dive, or 45
degrees if certified for aerobatics or cloud flying. Nevertheless, the
spoilers are designed to hold the speed below Vne in the discribed
situation and can be used up to that speed.