Puchaz Spinning thread that might be of interest in light of the recent accident.

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:15:34 UTC, (Edward
Downham) wrote:

: I agree with you about the 'specialised spin training' and the possibility it
: might end up as a 'detached' exercise. ...
: I think we may be arguing at slightly cross purposes.

I think maybe we are - lots of agreement, anyway!

: I would question the
: assumption that the pupil 'will not believe it'; 'it' being a loss of control
: near the ground.

I think the pupil ends up simply not believing that a spin will
happend at any time, because during training it so obviously - in the
average K21-equipped club - had to be very carefully and unusually
prepared for. I'm not in favour of pupils practicing spins in the
circuit!

: Some things
: just have to be understood, and more importantly, put into practice.

My introduction to spinning was in my fairly early days at Portmoak.
Said Bob: "You are flying too slowly and over-ruddering your turns. If
you do that a bit more, you will scare yourself ****less - if you're
lucky. I have control." With that he flew the Bocian out over the loch
- at about 2,500 feet, did coupleof clearing turns and flew too slowly
while overruddering the turn. And scared me ****less.

If he'd said "I'll show you what will happen when we next get the
chance to fly a different glider" or, worse "I'll tell you what will
happen" then I just wouldn't have believed him at that deep physical
oh-****-I-don't-want-to-die self preservation level.

: If you fly (one flies) with someone who starts to demonstrate undesirable
: traits low down (decaying airspeed and/or coordination mixed in with a loss of
: awareness of the glider performance), is it not time for immediate prompting or
: takeover of control?

Absolutely (caveat: I'm not a gliding instructor). But I think it's
essential to explain why these traits are so undesirable. It's a
different thing from just flying with the string all over the place:
hat just gets you down a bit sooner...

: To get back to my original point in my first post, I see no reason in having a
: everyday training glider in a club environment with such easily (and
: unintentionally) demonstrable spinning characteristics.

I think that's where we diverge. I think all training gliders should
spin like single seat gliders. I reckon the fact that they don't must
be considered as a prime candidate for the reason that so many pilots
continue to die in spins. They just don't think it'll happen to them.

: A messed up cable break in one of the German glass 2-seaters might end
: in an accident needing workshop attention but not a hospital/undertaker. In a
: Puchacz...?

If the instructor's any good ...

Ian

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