Chukar's own account

Probably worth noting some aircraft are placarded "Spins Prohibited" for good reason. During certification spins are approach gingerly, often with a spin chute that can be deployed to recover from the spin if normal spin recovery doesn't work. Some aircraft will exhibit raising of the nose and go into a flat spin several turns after spin entry. Some aircraft will become stable in a flat spin and resist efforts to break the spin and recover.

During my PPL training in my Mooney, I accidentally entered a spin, flipping over the top and pointing straight down. Scared the crud out of me. I quietly asked my instructor if he wouldn't mind taking the plane and saving our lives. He did that. But it took about 3 turns and at least red line pulling out of the dive. He opined afterwards that the nose looked to be rising during the spin - - I'm not sure, I was in the fetal position trying not to get in the way of the rudder pedals.

I told him I was pretty much traumatized and wanted some spin training before flying my Mooney again. He asked me if I wanted to be an instructor. I said I don't think so and he said, okay, then we can't do spin training. I changed my mind about being an instructor and we rented a C152 and went spinning. When you spin with some assurance that you might survive, it's unnerving at first but gets to be fun in short order.

I enjoyed spinning my Starduster biplane and Aeronca Champ - both rated for spins. Wish my current Husky or ASH26E was, but unfortunately neither is and I'm not brave enough to be a test pilot.

Counting on intentionally spinning a "not certified for spinning" aircraft to exit IMC is not a good plan. As some have suggested, benign spiral may work in a ship that will do so in benign conditions - inside convective or wave rotor is anything but benign, so I wouldn't count on that either. Getting some instrument training and a gyro is the best approach IMO.

GPS, even Garmin's "panel page", which normally works fine for gyro back up in power planes, would be a poor choice for primary "simulated" gyro info in a glider flying in the kind of wave conditions we get at Minden.

GPS "panel page" wings level/turn, course and speed info is all based on ground track, and in high winds track can be back asswards or sideways from the direction the glider is pointing. I have an instrument rating, so have at least some clue, but think being blown sideways or backwards would present a GPS display that would be all but unflyable in turbulence, and in smooth air, if flyable at all, would be a high workload for sure.

Flying IMC with no gyros is a great equalizer, instrument trained or no, there's a strong risk you'll get to use your parachute or worse.

On Sunday, April 26, 2015 at 1:34:53 AM UTC-5, bumper wrote:


GPS, even Garmin's "panel page", which normally works fine for gyro back up in power planes, would be a poor choice for primary "simulated" gyro info in a glider flying in the kind of wave conditions we get at Minden.

GPS "panel page" wings level/turn, course and speed info is all based on ground track, and in high winds track can be back asswards or sideways from the direction the glider is pointing. I have an instrument rating, so have at least some clue, but think being blown sideways or backwards would present a GPS display that would be all but unflyable in turbulence, and in smooth air, if flyable at all, would be a high workload for sure.


Something of that nature was contributing to what was going on during my brief story about flying by compass, in my first post to the thread "Emergency instrumentation for cloud encounters". It wasn't wave, but it was a much slower-flying aircraft than we're generally discussing in this forum, so I became very familiar with the uselessness of a simple GPS-driven "heading" display when windspeed is in the same ballpark as airspeed.

S

The other day flying near cloud base in rotor conditions I decided to
try an experiment; I looked at a bright spot off my left wingtip,
closed my eyes tightly, and began a left turn intending to roll out on a
heading 90 deg to my left. It was not hard at all! I was very careful
not to apply any pitch controls. So I tried it again, and was again
successful.

Does that mean I could do a blind 180 out of a cloud without basic blind
flying instruments? I wouldn't count on it... In fact, I doubt it
seriously. It's a whole lot different when you choose the experiment
rather than having it thrust upon you.

On 4/26/2015 12:34 AM, bumper wrote:
Probably worth noting some aircraft are placarded "Spins Prohibited" for good reason. During certification spins are approach gingerly, often with a spin chute that can be deployed to recover from the spin if normal spin recovery doesn't work. Some aircraft will exhibit raising of the nose and go into a flat spin several turns after spin entry. Some aircraft will become stable in a flat spin and resist efforts to break the spin and recover.

During my PPL training in my Mooney, I accidentally entered a spin, flipping over the top and pointing straight down. Scared the crud out of me. I quietly asked my instructor if he wouldn't mind taking the plane and saving our lives. He did that. But it took about 3 turns and at least red line pulling out of the dive. He opined afterwards that the nose looked to be rising during the spin - - I'm not sure, I was in the fetal position trying not to get in the way of the rudder pedals.

I told him I was pretty much traumatized and wanted some spin training before flying my Mooney again. He asked me if I wanted to be an instructor. I said I don't think so and he said, okay, then we can't do spin training. I changed my mind about being an instructor and we rented a C152 and went spinning. When you spin with some assurance that you might survive, it's unnerving at first but gets to be fun in short order.

I enjoyed spinning my Starduster biplane and Aeronca Champ - both rated for spins. Wish my current Husky or ASH26E was, but unfortunately neither is and I'm not brave enough to be a test pilot.

Counting on intentionally spinning a "not certified for spinning" aircraft to exit IMC is not a good plan. As some have suggested, benign spiral may work in a ship that will do so in benign conditions - inside convective or wave rotor is anything but benign, so I wouldn't count on that either. Getting some instrument training and a gyro is the best approach IMO.

GPS, even Garmin's "panel page", which normally works fine for gyro back up in power planes, would be a poor choice for primary "simulated" gyro info in a glider flying in the kind of wave conditions we get at Minden.

GPS "panel page" wings level/turn, course and speed info is all based on ground track, and in high winds track can be back asswards or sideways from the direction the glider is pointing. I have an instrument rating, so have at least some clue, but think being blown sideways or backwards would present a GPS display that would be all but unflyable in turbulence, and in smooth air, if flyable at all, would be a high workload for sure.

Flying IMC with no gyros is a great equalizer, instrument trained or no, there's a strong risk you'll get to use your parachute or worse.


--
Dan Marotta

I can tell you from experience from my inadvertent IMC, that about 90 seconds in the cloud you cannot tell what the glider is doing, and if I had responded to what I felt I would have tucked in tight and ripped the wings off.

I had practiced the benign spiral (full spoilers, hands and feet off) in my 1-26 and knew if would work from different entry speeds, different banks, ....

I watched the airspeed and the moving map.

At 90 seconds everything in my body told me I had just gone over the top, but the airspeed and the map said otherwise.

Every glider is different and you must practice in your glider and know what it will do or not do.
Some benign spiral well, some spin well, some spin a few spins than go into a spiral dive.

Kevin