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#11
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John Shelton wrote:
Gee. This looks like a nice place to misbehave: So, while ignorance is bliss, training is the only way to improve ones chances of completing a flight safely. While insurance companies do not want helicopter trainees to practice full autorotations, your only chance for walking without a cane is knowing how to do one when you need to. So, the first time you do one is the first time you need to. Not very smart. If the training is killing people, then maybe the training procedures need tweaking. But canceling training is a very bad idea. In the end, the Air I guess my question is how many is enough? Teaching a spin and recovery once? Teaching it 10 times? Teaching it 100 times? Or is it sufficient to simply teach spin avoidance? What causes a spin and how to not do it? How much should we focus and teach spin avoidance vs. spin proficiency? The same question comes up about instrument training. The IFR training requires 3 hours of instruments for power PPL, but is silent about the number of hours of training of how to avoid inadvertent IFR. Some pilots are emboldened by their IFR and their spin training and either enter these conditions on purpose, or become bold because of their training. I've had students do both: spins solo and intentional IFR without a rating. Since then I have spent a LOT more time talking about the hazards of these manuevers by low time pilots, both before and after I give them this training. And I now spend a LOT more time teaching about how these things develop and can be avoided, rather than teaching the emergency procedure for recovery again and again and again. I've done maybe a hundred spins in a dozen different aircraft, but when I teach it to a new student, I always do it only once (for PPL) and we spend a lot of time and take a lot of precautions (remove all potentially flying projectiles, wear parachutes, do an actual W&B not just paper, etc). I don't do this for me (I know the W&B beforehand, I've done the pre-flight myself already, I know if this particular aircraft needs forward stick for recovery, etc). Instead I want to show them by example that spins and instrument flight are serious business, and that even the professionals are extra thorough before these manuevers. So I guess I'm saying doing these dramatic manuevers repeatedly inadvertently may in some students convey the wrong impression that such things are routine. They are not. They are emergency procedures, and taught to convey the full impact of such an emergency, to focus the student on avoiding the emergency. As many accident reports show, spin recovery procedures, in real life, rarely get used when it really counts, because one is too low (400 feet up base to final). Spin recovery at 3000ft is just something we do after the demonstration so we can fly some more that day. Spin avoidance is the key, at least in my book. Just like IFR avoidance for the power PPL. If a pilot is looking for more, take an acro course or get an instrument rating...or join the military :P My two cents... |
#12
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Another one which works well in the Puchacz is the thermalling turn with
just a little too much into turn rudder. Bleed the speed back to the stall and it rolls smoothly into a spin, just like many single seaters. Now translate that into scratching at 800 feet ... My view (for my own flying) is that being trained in spin recognition/avoidance would have been of little relevance. I've now had a fair amount of experience of putting a glider into a spin in most of the likely modes I'd encounter in a single seater (final turns, thermalling turns, failed winch launches, high speed stall with yaw etc.), and think I'm far better placed to avoid a spin in the first place because of this. Given that a reasonable performance single seater is likely to spin far more readily than a training glider, because that's the trade off to achieve the extra performance, I'm never really confident flying one until I have spun it and noted any subtleties in spin entry and recovery. Are those of you who don't want to spin sure that you would recognise the imminence of a spin in your single seater? "SNOOP" wrote in message om... Folks would like to plod through life thinking that they will recognize the good old nose up, stall, kick rudder, this must be the entry to a spin, I can recover from this. Who wouldn't. The one we like to pound into their memory is the nose level on the horizon, cross control (over shooting the final)feed in top aileron, and away you go into the nicest spin entry. Recognize it and recover. We don't need to let it wind up either. Again a good cirriculum lets you do this training with a high degree of safety, if the instructor is properly trained. Stewart Kissel wrote in message ... OK JJ, I'll bite (sorta)- With spin entry training being done so often in benign-handling ships, what in fact are we teaching/learning? 'Pull back, Pull back, okay kick in full rudder'-and the thinking might go-'Gee, how does anyone get into a spin, this is way to much work' How does this apply the first time someone gets in a ship that may fall off on its own? At 18:24 23 January 2004, Mark James Boyd wrote: In article , JJ Sinclair wrote: It's winter, I'm bored and I haven't started any good controversies (this year) so here goes: In the early 50's the USAF had a policy to give jump training to all aircrew personnel. They soon learned that they were getting twice the injuries in training that they were experiencing in real bail-outs. They decided to stop the actual jump training and just give PLF and kit deployment, etc training. So, JJ asks, In light of recent events that show its been reining Puchaz's, Do we really want to teach full blown spins? Isn't spin entry and immediate recovery, all we should be doing? JJ Sinclair With three times as many fatalities in training than flying (helicopters), one wonders the wisdom of practicing hundreds of autorotations during helicopter training as well. |
#13
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I guess my question is how many is enough? Teaching a spin and recovery
once? Teaching it 10 times? Teaching it 100 times? I don't know. How about until the student gets it right? Or is it sufficient to simply teach spin avoidance? What causes a spin and how to not do it? No. What usually causes a spin is inattention. When a student is concentrating on a maneuver in a canned situation, you cannot possibly simulate the circumstances that will lead them to a spin entry, that moment of confusion when nothing seems to be working right and then a calm recovery. There are some counter-intuitive things that must go on and they must be taught, not talked about. How much should we focus and teach spin avoidance vs. spin proficiency? Not spin proficiency. We are not aerobatic pilots. Spin recovery. When I was getting my helicopter license, I told the instructor that if we didn't do autorotations to the ground, I would go shopping for someone who would. In that manner, I learned before I needed it the very critical timing required to pull it off. If I had had to guess how to transition mentally and manually from an auto to a hover to an auto to the ground and had to bet my spine on it, I very likely would have lost the bet. I am a firm believer in instruction to prepare the pilot for whatever he/she may face. If we face spins, then train us how to get out of them. I already know how. If nobody else wants to teach it or learn it, I shouldn't care. So I won't. |
#14
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"F1y1n" wrote in message om... I once asked an instructor to demonstrate a spin in a two-seat aircraft I was transitioning into. Did you have chutes? In the US, the only time you are allowed to spin dual without chutes is when you are working on a rating that requires spin training. If you were asking the CFI to spin without chutes (just a wild guess), he was 100% correct to turn you down. I would too. I would also refuse to spin a student in a glider that I had not previously spun myself. ...In my opinion this guy should have been stripped of his FAA ratings. Somebody who hasn't spun a glider and recovered should not be allowed to carry passangers, Like it or not; in the US, spin training is not required for the commercial rating... much less to instruct. ...but it is required for CFI. That does not make every CFI a qualified acro jock. A spin is a well-behaved, predictable flight regime... Not necessarily true, not even true of all trainers. Some gliders have, (or at least are reputed to have) multiple spin modes. Not all aircraft have perfect rigging, and a certain percentage have accumulated repairs and/or mods over years of operation that change the distribution of mass about the various axis and have an unknown effect on spin behavior. Just two weeks ago, I found myself practicing stalls in a 152 that I wouldn't spin in a bet. It had a dent in the leading edge of one wing and had a nasty wing drop at every stall, but otherwise performed well. Vaughn that is documented in the aircraft manual (of most gliders). Somebody unable or unwilling to enter this flight regime is incompetent and can not call himself a pilot in my opinion. |
#15
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If I took charge of a gliding club using Puchacz(s) for basic training, the
first thing I would do is pile them all in a heap in the corner of the field and set fire to them. This may come across as something of a controversial viewpoint. Let me explain. As far as I know, we are now into double figures (in the UK alone) in terms of fatalities when it comes to stall/spin accidents in the Puchacz. Compare this to gliders like the twin Grob and K-21: there are far greater numbers of them flying many times more hours with a much better record. Even older machines such as the K-13 stand out well in comparison. I really can't see the advantage of a training glider that spins so readily and kills you if you get the recovery (slightly) wrong. I think some of the instructing fraternity (in the UK) have become too focussed on spinning as an 'exercise' and not something to be avoided. I believe that if a significant group of pilots are having _inadvertent_ stall/spin incidents/accidents when they are flying solo, then there is something very very wrong with the most elementary training we are giving. I read and hear much concerning technical details of spinning, i.e. what glider X does after 5 turns with part aileron and that glider Y flicks when you yank and stamp on the controls. All fairly irrelevant. If you get to the point of having to do a full recovery one might question as to how you got there in the first place. If you are low down (especially in machines like the Puchacz), where most bad accidents occur, knowing how to recover from a spin is probably not going to be of much use. Indeed, it may help to make the subsequent impact unsurviveable. What we seem to be failing to do is to instill a basic awareness of what the glider is up to, and the _instinctive_ reactions required if the airframe stops responding to your commands. Mike Cuming wrote a seminal article in S&G, some years back, entiltled: "STOP PULLING THE STICK BACK!". This should be required reading for all pre-solo students. If you really want to show people full-blooded spins and recoveries, take them up to a safe height in an aerobatic power aircraft, certified for those kind of manoevres. You will be able to do much more for a lot less money. Frankly, I see little point in making pilots deliberately demonstrate their 'expertise' in abusing a glider to the point it autorotates, then attempting to do something about it. This is not the world aerobatic championships. I would much rather see immediate instinctive corrections to any possible loss of control. To the experienced pilots/instructors reading this: when was the last time you ended up (inadvertently) in a spin? Yes, you get wing drops in thermals etc. but do you sit there, doing nothing, until the ground and sky start going round very fast? No. I'm sure you don't, as you are alive to read this. What drove me to stay up at night to write this post was a feeling of anger/helplessness/sadness that yet more people have died in what I regard as a pointless exercise. I knew the P1 in the double-fatal crash this week but not his fifteen year old student. Safe flying to all of you. |
#16
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That full-blown glider pilots would question the need for spin training is
unbelievable. But all the oppinions I read on this tread just shows how much ignorance there is on the subject, it's really sad. What nobody seems to realize is that the Puchacz is used more extensively in these types of training than anything else. Older gliders are simply not spun at the very low altitudes that they seem to do it in the UK, which is why other models don't appear on any statistics. Spin training is an absolute MUST for any glider pilot. I've done it time and again in Puchacz with many students, and none of my students share these sad oppinions, none of them think of it as some obscure black magic, life-threatening manouver. But I've always done spin training at 3000ft, until the student realizes what does it take to recover from the spin, and how the controls behave, and therefore, how to realize you're about to spin in the low base-to-final. Enough of this nonsense. "Stewart Kissel" wrote in message ... OK JJ, I'll bite (sorta)- With spin entry training being done so often in benign-handling ships, what in fact are we teaching/learning? 'Pull back, Pull back, okay kick in full rudder'-and the thinking might go-'Gee, how does anyone get into a spin, this is way to much work' How does this apply the first time someone gets in a ship that may fall off on its own? At 18:24 23 January 2004, Mark James Boyd wrote: In article , JJ Sinclair wrote: It's winter, I'm bored and I haven't started any good controversies (this year) so here goes: In the early 50's the USAF had a policy to give jump training to all aircrew personnel. They soon learned that they were getting twice the injuries in training that they were experiencing in real bail-outs. They decided to stop the actual jump training and just give PLF and kit deployment, etc training. So, JJ asks, In light of recent events that show its been reining Puchaz's, Do we really want to teach full blown spins? Isn't spin entry and immediate recovery, all we should be doing? JJ Sinclair With three times as many fatalities in training than flying (helicopters), one wonders the wisdom of practicing hundreds of autorotations during helicopter training as well. |
#17
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Why is it when there is a fatality we set off on a
chest beating exercise? The poor old Puchacz. It is built to do a job, which it does excellently. It can be used effectively to teach all aspects of the glider pilots training syllabus without adding weights, spin whiskers or other fancy gismos. It does not have to be provoked into performing some of the exercises, it does them as it should, correctly and on command. Yes it spins. It is designed to do that! OK it suffers from some of its build quality. It gives plenty of warning of the approaching stall, it also gives plenty of warning that it is about to spin. It can be flown very badly on or about the stall and provided the pilot is aware of the circumstance merely regaining flying speed generally solves the problems. Capable instructors can teach the whole range of stalling and further stalling exercises. Unfortunately it allows those not familiar with it into some dangerous areas Like all gliders, instructors should be taught what the glider is capable of, its qualities and how to get the best out of the glider. I have been teaching on Puchacz gliders for over 10 years and the more I fly them the more I realise what a superb training tool they are. Other two seaters do some jobs better, but overall the Puchacz is perhaps best all round training glider in production today. It is a training tool and should be used as such. Having said that it is not a glider to get complacent with. Like many gliders even those with alleged docile characteristics if flown badly it will bite the unwary. Dave |
#18
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Some aircraft designs, given the wrong set of circumstances, can exhibit
unusual or divergent flight characteristics. They can enter a deep stall or flat spin from which recovery is impossible or difficult. Not sure if the Puchaz suffers from any of this, the accident numbers alone may make some wonder. Being your basic coward, I wouldn't spin one without knowing for sure what's going on . . . and I'll admit I don't. -- bumper ZZ (reverse all after @) "Dare to be different . . . circle in sink." "Dave Martin" wrote in message ... Why is it when there is a fatality we set off on a chest beating exercise? The poor old Puchacz. It is built to do a job, which it does excellently. It can be used effectively to teach all aspects of the glider pilots training syllabus without adding weights, spin whiskers or other fancy gismos. It does not have to be provoked into performing some of the exercises, it does them as it should, correctly and on command. Yes it spins. It is designed to do that! OK it suffers from some of its build quality. It gives plenty of warning of the approaching stall, it also gives plenty of warning that it is about to spin. It can be flown very badly on or about the stall and provided the pilot is aware of the circumstance merely regaining flying speed generally solves the problems. Capable instructors can teach the whole range of stalling and further stalling exercises. Unfortunately it allows those not familiar with it into some dangerous areas Like all gliders, instructors should be taught what the glider is capable of, its qualities and how to get the best out of the glider. I have been teaching on Puchacz gliders for over 10 years and the more I fly them the more I realise what a superb training tool they are. Other two seaters do some jobs better, but overall the Puchacz is perhaps best all round training glider in production today. It is a training tool and should be used as such. Having said that it is not a glider to get complacent with. Like many gliders even those with alleged docile characteristics if flown badly it will bite the unwary. Dave |
#19
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In article . net, John
Shelton writes If the training is killing people, then maybe the training procedures need tweaking. But canceling training is a very bad idea. In the end, the Air Force spun a zillion of us out of the sky in T-37's with only a few deaths along the way. We were required to speak and perform the T-37 spin recovery procedures with a calm voice while the little ******* started wrapping up. But to this day, I can recite the -37 spin recovery procedure in my sleep and perform it without thinking twice. A long time ago Ray Stafford Allen of the London GC invented something he called The Clots Spin. It simulated the thoughts of a recently soloed pilot doing an approach. It went something like this; I'm downwind now, I must turn about there to land THERE. Oh, I am a bit too low. I'll hold the nose up. I'm still too low, I'd better not put too much bank on. But I'm not turning quick enough, I'll rudder it round...... We were required to recite before going solo. Seems to me a very good idea, it gets it into your mind how to avoid the problem. -- Mike Lindsay |
#20
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A year or two ago, there were people suggesting that low spins, say
below 1500 agl, were an important training exercise since they let the student experience the shock of a canopy full of earth coming on quickly. By having experienced this, the pilot would be able to react more quickly to the accidental stall/spin in the pattern and thus effect a faster, safer recovery. Are you saying that you agree with this, that you practice it, and that it has become common practice in the UK? (You note that you start your training at 3000 agl, then imply that once the student is acclimated, you bring the entry altitude down.) |
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