ASW 20 SPIN CHARACTERISTICS

Chris OCallaghan wrote:
Owned an A for 17 years. Spun it many times (never inadvertently). If
you abuse the controls at stall, it will spin promptly from positive
flap positions. The more positive, the more dramatic. However, as long
as you use coordinated controls, it handles predictably, though
sometimes sluggishly, with a tendency to spiral dive after stall
break.

The handbook recommends not applying landing flap until on final and
clear of last obstruction. Based on experimenting with recovery from
spins initiated with flaps in landing, this is a very good practice to
maintain.

I think my C model prohibited spinning in Landing flap, so I didn't try
spinning. Attempts at incipient spins were futile, as it took so much
coarse mishandling of the controls to even stall it, I didn't really get
to the start of a spin. The negative angle (up about 5 degrees when the
flaps were down 40 degrees) of the ailerons in landing flap seemed to
give them good authority even as the glider bucked and rocked with lots
of back stick. My CG was about 75%, I think.

How did your A model respond? It had more Landing flap available than my
C model (60 degrees vs 40).
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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA