Playing around with the pitch phugoid

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 5:40:44 PM UTC-7, wrote:
This discussion is such a mish-mash.
The phugoid came up in the discussion of the so-called benign spiral mode of exiting a cloud.
I once owned a flew a Grob 104 Speed Astir. It had a benign spiral configuration for exiting a cloud. It was full flaps, trim full aft, spoilers out, and hands and feet off of the controls. I experienced that situation and can tell you that the aircraft still had a phugoid behavior but it stayed within reasonable limits.
I now have an LS8. I practiced the benign spiral situation a couple of times and the phugoid got worse and worse until it was full stall to Vne. However, I neglected to pull the spoilers.
Last week I tried it again but pulled full spoilers. No phugoid! However, there would still be no way to control roll without proper instruments.
Now I have a full time, solid state, artificial horizon in an LX S80. No worries.

Yes - good point. One way to damp the phugoid (If you don't want to touch the elevator - either because it's jammed or because you are trying a benign spiral) is to open the speed brakes at the bottom of the oscillation. I can attest that it works on a G103.

9B