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Spin Training

The spin was unintentional. A Cardinal is not approved for spins. Yes, it was a spin, I have done a lot of steep spirals and this was diffently a spin. It was my own fault. I had fixated on the EGT/CHT readings. I didn't realize I had done so until I was on the ground thinking about what had happened and what I should learn from it. It is too bad spin training is not a requirement until CFI training. You can do solo stall training as a student training to get your PPL, but no spin training is given.

Thanks for the acronym P.A.R.E. when the instructor gets back maybe we'll take the Pitts up and work through this problem.
 
Yes, I am aware why an a/c spins instead of stalling properly. I was looking for good experienced knowledge on how to break it a little more quickly, and good ways of conducting this training, besides the obvious dual time with a CFI answer. But I guarantee the CFI will be there next time!
 
In my experience, the addition of power in or near a spin (in a light single) will tend to either encourage a spin to develop, or will deepen the already existent spin. In fact, one of the best tricks I learned to throw a stubborn 152 into a full spin was to 1) put yoke in lap 2) full cross controls 3) add in a little throttle as the a/c starts to slip. Worked like a charm every time, and if you maintained the throttle you had added, the spin would get flatter in a couple of turns.
 
Just be cautious with nose down to break the stall. IDLE/NEUTRAL works in nearly ALL light singles, and nose down to break the stall after IDLE/NEUTRAL has already got you flying again is going to have you pointed down at the ground with Vne come and gone if you're not careful.
 
It is too bad spin training is not a requirement until CFI training.
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How about too bad its not a part of PPL...not teaching a pilot or wannabe about something that can kill them and how to fix it, seems to me to be setting people up for failure.
 
scoober78 said:
How about too bad its not a part of PPL...not teaching a pilot or wannabe about something that can kill them and how to fix it, seems to me to be setting people up for failure.
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Agreed. I am working on my PPL right now and my instructor has never even mentioned this to me. I don't think he's a bad instructor for it...it's not part of the training.

Should be though, good stuff to know;)
 
How about too bad its not a part of PPL...not teaching a pilot or wannabe about something that can kill them and how to fix it, seems to me to be setting people up for failure.
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The sentiment makes sense, but the requirement to actually enter a spin and recover was removed because more people were augering in to the deck during spin training than due to inadvertent spins. I guess the government figured it wasn't worth killing 10 student pilots to save 5 others.

Not discussing the proper method of recovery, however, seems like a poor lack of distinction between not having a requirement to teach it and the good judgement to do so anyway.

Something similar happened to me once. My second solo in a 152. I was instructed to take the aircraft to the east of the field at 3500 feet, practice steep turns, approaches to stalls, and then return for pattern work. Executed 60 degree AoB turns to right, then left, then proceeded to do an approach to a stall ( I think it was power-off). Stall warning was written up as inoperative, so I did not intend to enter the stall, only to get the control mushiness and buffeting and then back off. Instead in the blink of an eye I had lost about 500 feet and had gone through about 110 degrees of heading change. I just about put my right foot through the firewall I was mashing the pedal so hard. I think I also was putting aileron inputs in (shouldn't have, but this was all gut reaction) and it leveled out and stopped rotation after maybe 2 seconds or so (don't know for sure, time seems to do strange things sometimes). Me being the fearless whipper-snapper I was at that point (this was 7 years ago) I did another approach to a stall and the same thing happened, except I was ready for it and recovered much more quickly. I never told my instructor about it, but spent the next couple of weeks thinking about it. My conclusion was that fuel cross fed from the right tank to the left tank during the steep turn to the left, causing the CG to move left of center and the strange stall characteristics. Don't know how feasible that is, but I watched the ball like a hawk the second time I did it, and I was coordinated.

As a random tidbit, the requirement for spin training was removed from the Private Pilot syllabus in 1949, and since then spin related fatalities have continued to decline steadily.
 
Augering into the deck spin training? WTF? That is shitty CFI's if it's true..

Look how many spins we do in the -34... Cant think of one that spun all the way down.. (I'm sure there is one, but I cant recall it)

152 and other trainers have to about be FORCED to spin.
 
GaugeNeeded said:
A Cardinal 177RG.
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You do NOT spin a Cardinal, or 172 RG, or any other cessna retract for that matter. You need to dig into the books, and fully understand Normal, Utility, Restricted categories, etc as well as what defines each.

Take what happened as a lesson learned, and pay closer attention to whats going on when you're going to manuver the airplane like that.

Quick story, I spun a 172RG before I knew better and wound up in an inverted spin that didn't recover all that quick. Not talking down to you, speaking from experience, don't want you to learn the way I did.

MasterBates said:
Look how many spins we do in the -34... Cant think of one that spun all the way down.. (I'm sure there is one, but I cant recall it)
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It's happened, the one that comes to mind is a spin that turned into a steep spiral and they went into the bay nose low at the speed of heat.

The spin training accident rate was more a function of the diversity of a/c it was being done in during training. Not enough people fully understanding it, and trying to teach it the same way in different a/c. The Piper Traumahawk comes to mind. As well as my experience above.
 
Never been in a spin. I wanted to do spin training so bad, but we couldn't do it. The flight school had "insurance restrictions" against it. My instructor was a Marine F-18 NFO and I can remember repeatedly chair flying spins instead. I doubt if I'll ever forget the procedure to break a spin because of that. Good times...good times.


Also, I'm not calling you a liar by any means, but I think it unlikely that a discrepancy in the difference in the amount of fuel in the tanks is going to cause a spin; especially because the big problem is the net force about the vertical axis. The fuel in the tanks is only going to affect the aircraft about the long axis of the aircraft when they stop producing lift. The only way I can see the fuel causing a problem is if there's such a big difference that the fuel in the full wing sloshes forward as the nose drops and causes a net torque about the vertical axis.
 
usmarinemike said:
Also, I'm not calling you a liar by any means, but I think it unlikely that a discrepancy in the difference in the amount of fuel in the tanks is going to cause a spin; especially because the big problem is the net force about the vertical axis. The fuel in the tanks is only going to affect the aircraft about the long axis of the aircraft when they stop producing lift. The only way I can see the fuel causing a problem is if there's such a big difference that the fuel in the full wing sloshes forward as the nose drops and causes a net torque about the vertical axis.
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Think about trimming the ball, if it's out of trim (unbalanced on the vertical axis), you'll get a fuel split between the tanks. A movement about the vertical axis is defined as a yaw. A spin is induced by providing a yawing moment at the time of a stall, which in turn stalls one wing more than the other...hence the spin. If you've got unbalanced fuel loads, it would be possible at the point of stall to impart some sort of yaw.

That said, I can't see a fuel split alone causing a spin to develop, but it could definitely decrease the total amount of rudder (movement about the vertical axis) needed to induce the spin. So, if that's how your fuel was, you might have had a tad bit of rudder in and not realized it and hence the spin developed.
 
insanebikerboy said:
Think about trimming the ball, if it's out of trim (unbalanced on the vertical axis), you'll get a fuel split between the tanks. A movement about the vertical axis is defined as a yaw. A spin is induced by providing a yawing moment at the time of a stall, which in turn stalls one wing more than the other...hence the spin. If you've got unbalanced fuel loads, it would be possible at the point of stall to impart some sort of yaw.

That said, I can't see a fuel split alone causing a spin to develop, but it could definitely decrease the total amount of rudder (movement about the vertical axis) needed to induce the spin. So, if that's how your fuel was, you might have had a tad bit of rudder in and not realized it and hence the spin developed.
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Yeah. Yaw, torque about vertical axis...same friggin thing. I'm just using the technical words cuz a ma skoolin. I'm a fizziks major. Anyway, yeah, we said the same exact thing. It would take a hell of a difference in the fuel loads to cause the yaw. And it would have to happen pretty violent and ricky tick too in order for the pilot to not be able to catch it on the turn coordinator.
 
Considering you said "fuel in the tanks is only going to affect the aircraft about the long axis", I assumed you meant the longitudinal axis, which it wouldn't, but yeah, otherwise same same.
 
usmarinemike said:
Never been in a spin. I wanted to do spin training so bad, but we couldn't do it. The flight school had "insurance restrictions" against it. My instructor was a Marine F-18 NFO and I can remember repeatedly chair flying spins instead. I doubt if I'll ever forget the procedure to break a spin because of that. Good times...good times.


Also, I'm not calling you a liar by any means, but I think it unlikely that a discrepancy in the difference in the amount of fuel in the tanks is going to cause a spin; especially because the big problem is the net force about the vertical axis. The fuel in the tanks is only going to affect the aircraft about the long axis of the aircraft when they stop producing lift. The only way I can see the fuel causing a problem is if there's such a big difference that the fuel in the full wing sloshes forward as the nose drops and causes a net torque about the vertical axis.
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It has nothing to do with fuel in the tanks, it's about CG. Like I said the definitions in categories is something you need to better understand. IIRC a Cardinal is Normal category which prohibits spins. And for good reason.
 
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