Another stall spin

On Saturday, August 25, 2012 10:11:45 PM UTC-6, Jp Stewart wrote:
From TA's Dansville contest write-up:

"Unfortunately, we were also saddened to hear of yet another apparent stall-spin fatality; Jim Rizzo, Finger Lakes club president and FAA Designated Examiner for the area was killed when his glider crashed into a farmer’s field not far from the Dansville airport. Jim was not part of the contest and was just flying locally when the accident occurred. All we know is what the farmer said (and this is 3rd hand to me) that apparently Jim was trying to thermal away from a low altitude and spun in (sound familiar? – it should – this is the 3rd almost identical fatality this season here on the east coast)."

http://soaringcafe.com/2012/08/day-6...ille-region-3/



JP

Gliders don't ever "just spin" - pilots spin them. These accidents are not something which happens to pilots, they are something pilots do to themselves.

Practicing full spins at low altitude is stupid and deadly. If you want to practice how to avoid this kind of accident, practice incipient spins and recoveries - over and over. Learn to instinctively recognize the onset and to instinctively recover. Caught early, recoveries cost zero altitude. Look at Bruno's video again. How much altitude did it take for him to recover?

Tape some "pitch strings" to the sides of the canopy so you can see the angle off attack and how it slowly increases in slow flight until the glider stalls with the nose barely above the horizon then rudder a turn to see the real killer. Hauling the nose way above the horizon and kicking rudder is not how accidental spins start.