Houston crash today

On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 3:34:58 PM UTC-4, Kevin Neave wrote:
OK Kevin, if you're keen on statistics...



In the 30 or so years that the Puchacz has been available how many solo

pilots have died in stall spin accidents?

What 2-seater did they do most of their training in?



It's a relatively small sample so should be fairly easy to obtain the data

I don't know what your definition of "small" sample size. We know there is in excess of 25 stall / spin accidents in the Puchacz alone. Stall / spin accidents clearly must exceed 100 and likely well in excess of that. Also how would you find out what glider the single place pilots trained in?

Signing off of this thread. Turning into personal attacks without any basis in fact.

On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 2:47:09 PM UTC-4, Kevin Christner wrote:
I have great respect for Tom K. and his safety work, but I don't



agree with him that P.s should not be spun until modified. They



do what they are designed to do - act as a trainer, which will



spin, and will recover, and can be used to demonstrate correct



and incorrect techniques safely (if flown properly and at suitable



heights) and repeatably.





Others may feel free to take their chances. Personally I'll take Tom's advice.





What is your evidence for the contrary, with fact from accidents,



not just numbers involved?





Since typically no one knows what actually happened, we have to rely on statistics, which say there is some sort of issue.





And if you can, please answer the dilemma that I mentioned



previously - how to stop so-called experienced pilots from



inadvertent spins when thermalling or final turning low down? Do



you really thing that training everyone in unspinnable gliders will



cure it? If so, how?



Plenty of pilots, including the instructors that you mentioned that put the P. in, have had the training and have still failed to do so. I highly doubt anyone could recover from a spin turning final at 400 feet.



Genuine questions - seeking sensible answers.



Fair enough. Hope I've obliged.

Kevin, you would do well reading 5 times the post by Chris Rollings to make sure you get what he wrote as he is way more experienced in this area than you are.
No sense to argue with you as you don't listen.

Have a good day.

I have spun the P like most people,that's what you do with them ,I would
suggest that they spin more than any other none military aircraft.
Which would give a higher accident rate.I think most single seaters are
just
as prone to spinning but we don't deliberately do it ,if you want to get
the
best out of a x country day you don't mess around spinning ,not to mention

the strain you are putting on the airframe .
If you want to practice spinning you do it in a spin able 2 seater with a
good
instructor to critique what you are doing and sort it out if you don't .
Some times the instructor gets it wrong for lots of different reasons ,it
could
just be leaving it too long to take over ,and you get another bad stat .
Personally I have been more scared in a DG1000 with max tail weight .
High performance sailplanes with c of g well aft need treating with respect

On Sunday, July 13, 2014 11:01:46 PM UTC-4, wrote:
A JS-1C crashed today near Houston. Pilot died.

In the event there is not a cross thread issue, this is supposed to be a thread about a Houston JS1 pilot dying in a crash. Under these circumstances, nobody cares about spinning a Puchcaz. Please move your Puchcaz discussion to the Puchcaz spinning thread by Don Johnstone. Thanks.

At 20:10 16 July 2014, Kevin Christner wrote:
On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 3:42:12 PM UTC-4, Chris Nicholas wrote:
Sorry, you haven't.



Chris N

Some reasonable questions:

Are there over 25 known accidents (likely more than 50 fatalities) from
stall / spin accidents in the Puchacz?

Have very experienced advocates of safety (Tom Knuaff, Cindy Brickner)
opined that they have serious concerns about the P. and do not feel it is
safe to spin?

Is there any other glider type that has lost ~10% of its production in
spin
/ stall accidents?

If the answer to these questions is yes, it is very irrational to
continue
putting people at the risk of death. Sorry but think that is arguable.


I think you'll find that the Schweizer 2-32 has lost considerably more than
10% of the fleet inn spinning accidents.

At 08:11 17 July 2014, Chris Rollings wrote:
At 20:10 16 July 2014, Kevin Christner wrote:
On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 3:42:12 PM UTC-4, Chris Nicholas wrote:
Sorry, you haven't.



Chris N

Some reasonable questions:

Are there over 25 known accidents (likely more than 50 fatalities) from
stall / spin accidents in the Puchacz?

Have very experienced advocates of safety (Tom Knuaff, Cindy Brickner)
opined that they have serious concerns about the P. and do not feel it
is
safe to spin?

Is there any other glider type that has lost ~10% of its production i
spin
/ stall accidents?

If the answer to these questions is yes, it is very irrational t
continue
putting people at the risk of death. Sorry but think that is arguable.


I think you'll find that the Schweizer 2-32 has lost considerably more
tha
10% of the fleet inn spinning accidents.

It is not the number of gliders lost that concerns me, it is the number
lost following deliberate spins.
In the absence of any other finding of technical defect there are only two
possible causes:
1. The pilot(s) mishandled the glider and failed to apply the correct
action to recover from the spin
2. Under certain, maybe very specific loading conditions it is impossible
to recover from a spin in that particular glider.

Given that the only people who could tell you for certain are dead the
assumption has always been made that the pilots screwed up. The other
possible cause has always been vehemently denied. That is extremely poor
investigative practice, not to mention wooly thinking.
I concede that the 2nd possibility is extremely unlikely but there again
the airline safety people thought that a double engine failure on a twin
engine airliner was extremely unlikely. It took a pilot with the skill of
Sully Sullenberger to recover from that "impossibility"

In the UK over the last 50 years there have been something approaching 100
fatal spinning accidents in gliders.

One was definitely deliberate (they were running an audio casstte recorder
so we know all that was said) and the handling pilot (an instructor being
trained for up-grade) did not initiate the recovery action until the glider
was abour 250 ft agl. As he was about to initiate the recovery, the Chief
Instructor in the front seat exclaimed "Jesus Christ", two and a half
seconds later the tape cut off (the conclusion we reached was that the
handling instructor was so wrapped up in what he was saying and doing he
didn't register how close the ground was getting and the senior instructor
in the front seat was looking at the rudder pedals to ensure that full
opposite rudder was used, the exclaimation came when he looked up and saw
the ground 300 feet away.

Another came in a spin down from about 5000 feet at the end of a soaring
flight. The, very experienced, pilot was known to deliberately spin off
height at the end of soaring flights, the failure to recover was probably
due to the fact that he was 20 lbs below minimum cockpit load (and knew it)
and behind the aft C of G limit.

One other was a Puchacz on a pre-solo training flight, it spun in some
distance from the field, no witnesses and no evidence as to whether the
spin was deliberate or accidental.

All of the other spin-ins were in circumstances that left no doubt that the
spin was accidental.

Accidental spin-ins occurr when the pilot is distracted from speed
monitoring by some outside circumstance and, when the glider stalls and
starts to spin, fails to recognise the spin departure and take immediate
recovery action (I once arrived at the site of a spin-in only a minute or
so after it hit the ground. The relatively unhurt pilot said, "I can't
understand what happened, there must have been something wrong with the
elevator, I kept pulling back on the stck but the nose wouldn't come up. A
few minutes later he realised he had spun. He had been trained in a regime
that taught spinning but had probably not practiced any in the 400 hours
and 8 years since he finished training). The vast majority of spin-ins
occur from less than 500 feet agl.

The majority of composite single-seat gliders have spinning charactoristics
as bad as, or worse than, the Puchacz.

At 10:26 17 July 2014, Don Johnstone wrote:
At 08:11 17 July 2014, Chris Rollings wrote:
At 20:10 16 July 2014, Kevin Christner wrote:
On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 3:42:12 PM UTC-4, Chris Nicholas wrote:
Sorry, you haven't.



Chris N

Some reasonable questions:

Are there over 25 known accidents (likely more than 50 fatalities) from
stall / spin accidents in the Puchacz?

Have very experienced advocates of safety (Tom Knuaff, Cindy Brickner)
opined that they have serious concerns about the P. and do not feel i
is
safe to spin?

Is there any other glider type that has lost ~10% of its production i
spin
/ stall accidents?

If the answer to these questions is yes, it is very irrational t
continue
putting people at the risk of death. Sorry but think that is arguable.


I think you'll find that the Schweizer 2-32 has lost considerably mor
tha
10% of the fleet inn spinning accidents.

It is not the number of gliders lost that concerns me, it is the numbe
lost following deliberate spins.
In the absence of any other finding of technical defect there are only tw
possible causes:
1. The pilot(s) mishandled the glider and failed to apply the correc
action to recover from the spin
2. Under certain, maybe very specific loading conditions it is impossibl
to recover from a spin in that particular glider.

Given that the only people who could tell you for certain are dead th
assumption has always been made that the pilots screwed up. The othe
possible cause has always been vehemently denied. That is extremely poo
investigative practice, not to mention wooly thinking.
I concede that the 2nd possibility is extremely unlikely but there agai
the airline safety people thought that a double engine failure on a twi
engine airliner was extremely unlikely. It took a pilot with the skill o
Sully Sullenberger to recover from that "impossibility"

Machine chops the last charactor off each line on my posts, for 10 fatal
spinning accidents read 100 no 10 as it appears.

At 12:50 17 July 2014, Chris Rollings wrote:
In the UK over the last 50 years there have been something approaching 10
fatal spinning accidents in gliders.

One was definitely deliberate (they were running an audio casstte recorde
so we know all that was said) and the handling pilot (an instructor bein
trained for up-grade) did not initiate the recovery action until the
glide
was abour 250 ft agl. As he was about to initiate the recovery, the Chie
Instructor in the front seat exclaimed "Jesus Christ", two and a hal
seconds later the tape cut off (the conclusion we reached was that th
handling instructor was so wrapped up in what he was saying and doing h
didn't register how close the ground was getting and the senior instructo
in the front seat was looking at the rudder pedals to ensure that ful
opposite rudder was used, the exclaimation came when he looked up and sa
the ground 300 feet away.

Another came in a spin down from about 5000 feet at the end of a soarin
flight. The, very experienced, pilot was known to deliberately spin of
height at the end of soaring flights, the failure to recover was probabl
due to the fact that he was 20 lbs below minimum cockpit load (and knew
it
and behind the aft C of G limit.

One other was a Puchacz on a pre-solo training flight, it spun in som
distance from the field, no witnesses and no evidence as to whether th
spin was deliberate or accidental.

All of the other spin-ins were in circumstances that left no doubt that
th
spin was accidental.

Accidental spin-ins occurr when the pilot is distracted from spee
monitoring by some outside circumstance and, when the glider stalls an
starts to spin, fails to recognise the spin departure and take immediat
recovery action (I once arrived at the site of a spin-in only a minute o
so after it hit the ground. The relatively unhurt pilot said, "I can'
understand what happened, there must have been something wrong with th
elevator, I kept pulling back on the stck but the nose wouldn't come up.

few minutes later he realised he had spun. He had been trained in a
regim
that taught spinning but had probably not practiced any in the 400 hour
and 8 years since he finished training). The vast majority of spin-in
occur from less than 500 feet agl.

The majority of composite single-seat gliders have spinning
charactoristic
as bad as, or worse than, the Puchacz.

At 10:26 17 July 2014, Don Johnstone wrote:
At 08:11 17 July 2014, Chris Rollings wrote:
At 20:10 16 July 2014, Kevin Christner wrote:
On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 3:42:12 PM UTC-4, Chris Nicholas wrote:
Sorry, you haven't.



Chris N

Some reasonable questions:

Are there over 25 known accidents (likely more than 50 fatalities)
from
stall / spin accidents in the Puchacz?

Have very experienced advocates of safety (Tom Knuaff, Cindy Brickner)
opined that they have serious concerns about the P. and do not feel i
is
safe to spin?

Is there any other glider type that has lost ~10% of its production i
spin
/ stall accidents?

If the answer to these questions is yes, it is very irrational t
continue
putting people at the risk of death. Sorry but think that is
arguable.


I think you'll find that the Schweizer 2-32 has lost considerably mor
tha
10% of the fleet inn spinning accidents.

It is not the number of gliders lost that concerns me, it is the numbe
lost following deliberate spins.
In the absence of any other finding of technical defect there are only
tw
possible causes:
1. The pilot(s) mishandled the glider and failed to apply the correc
action to recover from the spin
2. Under certain, maybe very specific loading conditions it is impossibl
to recover from a spin in that particular glider.

Given that the only people who could tell you for certain are dead th
assumption has always been made that the pilots screwed up. The othe
possible cause has always been vehemently denied. That is extremely poo
investigative practice, not to mention wooly thinking.
I concede that the 2nd possibility is extremely unlikely but there agai
the airline safety people thought that a double engine failure on a twi
engine airliner was extremely unlikely. It took a pilot with the skill o
Sully Sullenberger to recover from that "impossibility"

At 12:50 17 July 2014, Chris Rollings wrote:


One was definitely deliberate (they were running an audio casstte recorde
so we know all that was said) and the handling pilot (an instructor bein
trained for up-grade) did not initiate the recovery action until the
glide
was abour 250 ft agl. As he was about to initiate the recovery, the Chie
Instructor in the front seat exclaimed "Jesus Christ", two and a hal
seconds later the tape cut off (the conclusion we reached was that th
handling instructor was so wrapped up in what he was saying and doing h
didn't register how close the ground was getting and the senior instructo
in the front seat was looking at the rudder pedals to ensure that ful
opposite rudder was used, the exclaimation came when he looked up and sa
the ground 300 feet away.

I accept your logic up to a point, the scenario you paint has some merit.
However if the handling pilot had not started the recovery why would the
non handling pilot be looking at the rudder pedals to look for something he
was not going to see as it had not started yet. Be that as it may it does
appear that the intention to spin in the first place at that sort of height
was somewhat ill judged.
I have never understood why the requirements for spinning have not been
more clearly defined. For many years I flew with an organisation which had
very clear rules. Intentional spins were not permitted to be induced below
2500ft agl and if recovery was not in progress at 2000ft the glider was
abandoned.
Maybe that is a pain, having to take a tow to 5000ft to get the job done
but whatever the reasons for the non recovery at least the pilots would
survive.

I don't find that convincing Chris and I'm surprised to find myself
agreeing with Don Johnstone.

Discussion seems to be centred around the Puchacz vs the K21 but that's
a straw man. For over 50 years the most common training glider in most
of the world (in fact, the most common glider, period) has been the
Blanik. The K13/K7 has probably been the second most common trainer.
Yes, over 1000 K21s have been built but there were 2600 Blaniks and
around 1300 K13/K7s.

The vast majority of pilots over that period - whether trained in
countries which trained for spinning or did not - were trained in one of
those types. Both the Schleicher types and the Blanik spun and were
used for spin training. Neither has the track record of the Puchacz for
stall/spin accidents and they've had many more years to accrue a bad
reputation. They just haven't.

On 17/07/2014 22:50, Chris Rollings wrote:
In the UK over the last 50 years there have been something approaching 100
fatal spinning accidents in gliders.

One was definitely deliberate (they were running an audio casstte recorder
so we know all that was said) and the handling pilot (an instructor being...

Another came in a spin down from about 5000 feet at the end of a soaring
flight. The, very experienced, pilot was known to deliberately spin off...

One other was a Puchacz on a pre-solo training flight, it spun in some
distance from the field, no witnesses and no evidence as to whether the
spin was deliberate or accidental.

All of the other spin-ins were in circumstances that left no doubt that the
spin was accidental.

Accidental spin-ins occurr when the pilot is distracted from speed
monitoring by some outside circumstance and, when the glider stalls and
starts to spin, fails to recognise the spin departure and take immediate
recovery action (I once arrived at the site of a spin-in only a minute or...

You have lovely anecdotes Chris, but they only divert attention from the
facts. Nobody knows why, but the Puchacz has a higher rate of
stall/spin accidents than the equally certified and spinnable AND SPUN
Blanik and K13/K7.

Stories of unrecoverable Puchacz spins may be fantasy but the stall/spin
hull losses are not.

Andy Ks nonsense about the Puch being "aerobatic" is a giggle. Red Bull
flew Blaniks, not Puchacz and now they can't fly Blaniks, they sure
haven't switched to Puchacz.

GC