Another stall spin

On 8/27/2012 5:08 PM, wrote:
On Monday, August 27, 2012 6:40:42 PM UTC-4, Ramy wrote:
...Intervening snip...

My thoughts
exactly. we need the actual data to learn something from those accidents,
but it is almost never provided. We should have enough statistics to be
able to determine how low is too low to recover, so we can adjust our
threshold. This is what safety culture is all about. If we keep this info
to ourselves, no much can be learned. Ramy

I do not agree. There is nothing new to learn from Jim's accident. People
just keep repeating the same stupid stuff they know better than to do.

Below is an excerpt from a soaring book, copyright 1940. (The book is "Flight
Without Power" by Lewin B. Barringer. Note the U.S. distance record at the
time of writing wasn't even 500 km. What could glider pilots - who by today's
standards were rank beginners - POSSIBLY teach us experts today?)

From p. 180, 1942 edition...

"A common mistake of students making tight spirals is to pull back too hard on
the stick and either forget about the rudder or apply rudder on the downside.
The usual result is a sudden stall followed by a fast spin as the nose drops.
*It may sometimes take as much as 200 feet to recover, so it is obvious that a
beginner should never make steep turns at low altitude* (emphasis added)."

The last bit of the final sentence is worth repeating: "...so it is obvious
that a beginner should never make steep turns at low altitude."

Some points to ponder...

1) Barringer was writing about lightly wing-loaded (by today's standards)
utility gliders of lower than 2-22 performance. (How much altitude will *you*
require in the event of a low-altitude, inadvertent departure from controlled
flight, in your more heavily wing-loaded glider, at an altitude low enough to
already be raising your anxiety levels [and probably tend you toward
hastily-/anxiety-ridden, life-threateningly-urgent recovery motions]? We all
fly our best when anxious, right? I wonder if any of this year's dead pilots
ever even got the chance to implement recovery motions? If they did, obviously
it didn't matter.)

2) We've 72 subsequent years of evidence demonstrating Barringer's observation
shouldn't be limited to "a beginner". This year's North American record
tragically punctuates the point...

3) For those inclined to practice inadvertent departures from controlled
flight and rapid recoveries, once you've established your minimums (presumably
from practicing at a safe height agl), just to be certain you've got things
right, practice them in the landing pattern, "where you'll always have a
runway within reach." You survivors, let us know how things go; better yet,
YouTube things for the rest of us wimpoids. Meanwhile we'll be reading about
the non-survivors.
- - - - - -

Understand, I'm not arguing against spin practice, honing skills, learning
efficient "departure recovery" in lost-height-terms, or even against the
concept of establishing minimums. That's all great stuff. I think every
soaring pilot should actively practice such things every season.

But to lose sight of the fact that thin margin flying activity is necessarily
increased-danger flying activity, and, the fact the line between "recovery by
skill" and DEATH can never be firmly known beforehand or rigidly quantified,
is (arguably) to still have one's thinking inclined away from the unavoidable,
established by physics and Mother Nature (neither of which care one bit about
you or me or anyone else), risks of flight and *toward* continuing to push
one's limits, perhaps in areas where they should not be pushed.

So what new IS there to learn from all the low-altitude stall-spin deaths in
North America this soaring season? (This is not a rhetorical question.)

Is any of that knowledge guaranteed to prevent future such deaths?

Like practicing Russian roulette or playing on the freeway, there seem to be
some things that just aren't ever a good idea. (Ask survivors' family and
friends.)

How a person thinks, matters.

Bob W.