Sphincter clincher

Inverted said:
Do that in a Pitts, the upright spin will turn into an inverted spin
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Come again? You lost me. Are you talking about a cross over spin that results from excessive recovery input? I've never heard of someone going from an established upright spin to an inverted spin without doing something to cause it.
 
Here's the version of video with an interview and pilot commentary.



He aggravated the spin entry with out-spin aileron which put him into a flat spin. Who really knows how good his recollection of WHERE the controls actually were once the airplane failed to recover. It sounds like he was "stirring the pot" with the stick.

He was also adding power at the entry of the spin. It appeared as if he was trying to keep the engine running. The problem with that is, he's flying a Volkswagen.... V-Dub's turn counter clockwise. When you add power in a spin to the right, the gyroscopic precession is going to pitch the nose up, and flatten out the spin as well. Once you go flat, its hard to go back....

What finally got him out was the addition of in-spin aileron. This introduced more roll to the yaw-roll couple, pitching the nose down and exposing more rudder surface to the relative wind.

Another consideration is that there is no certification requirement to check for flat spin recovery in aerobatic aircraft. Rich Stowell once asked Sammy Mason about flat spinning a Decathlon. He said "Don't do it". If the first guy to loop a helicopter says don't get into a flat spin in a Decathlon, I'll take his word for it.

Another thing to remember is that no two spins are ever the same. Even in the same airplane. There are just too many variables that affect it.
 
rframe said:
It's legal? News to me.

Do I not understand 91.307 correctly? I thought a parachute was required for everyone if bank exceeds 60° or nose exceeds 30°, with the exception being spin practice.
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Everyone on board the aircraft other than a crew member. Meaning the PIC doesn't need one ever but pax do.
 
thevideographer said:
Um, how would you conduct spin training then? Spin certified airplanes tend to recover from spins easily enough, so how are you going to make pilots "work for it"?

Edit: I just saw the quadrouple-post you made, about flat spins. I'm not even sure how you would put a 172 into a flat spin which makes it a bit hard to do in a training environment.
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Aft CG, Power, Out-spin aileron... It can be done, but you wont like the results.
 
rframe said:
Come again? You lost me. Are you talking about a cross over spin that results from excessive recovery input? I've never heard of someone going from an established upright spin to an inverted spin without doing something to cause it.
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That is correct. I have seen people let go of the stick, it slams forward and the spin goes inverted.
 
TwoTwoLeft said:
Another consideration is that there is no certification requirement to check for flat spin recovery in aerobatic aircraft. Rich Stowell once asked Sammy Mason about flat spinning a Decathlon. He said "Don't do it". If the first guy to loop a helicopter says don't get into a flat spin in a Decathlon, I'll take his word for it.
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You have never done any flat spins in a Citabria or Super D?
 
Inverted said:
That is correct. I have seen people let go of the stick, it slams forward and the spin goes inverted.
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That is interesting, especially with the Beggs/Mueller "hands off" recovery method which says to let go of the stick and was developed in the Pitts Special.
 
rframe said:
Funny I dont know how many times I've read that and never noticed the crew member exception... haha, you learn something new every day!
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It said the reg was amended in 2008, was the exception part of the amendment?
 
Inverted said:
You have never done any flat spins in a Citabria or Super D?
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Solo, to the right, aggravated with aileron. Even then recovery took a while. I had to cross over into in-spin aileron to get it to come out when I wanted it. I weigh about 210, so I wont do it with any one up front. What I got from the conversation between Rich & Sammy is that it will recover. But the characteristics it would show was not good enough to call it 100% with anything more than the CG near the forward limit.

When I'm in the back of any Decathlon I can enter a spin and simply take my hands & feet off and the stick will find its happy place and the airplane will just stay in it. At this point if forward elevator is applied before opposite rudder it will just keep on spinning.

Spins aggravated with in-spin aileron will also keep going if only recovery rudder is applied. One time I had this small girl up front and she had her shoulder straps too tight and couldn't reach far enough forward to get full elevator deflection. By the time I figured she wasn't going to get it I pushed the stick forward against the back of her seat and counted about another 3 turns before we popped out. <----That's how you make them work for it. thevideographer

The only bummer about the Decathlon is that the controls aren't light like the Pitts. Its tough to over control to find your self in a lot of situations a Pitts could get you in.
 
From a undisclosed location with unknown pilots in a semi-anonymous aircraft ....:D


For educational purposes, notice the spin attitude vs the one in the previous video.
 
Just for the sake of conversation on the subject, not all airplanes spin the same. Some have flatter modes, some don't, and some have several different ones depending on CG, asymmetric loading, entry parameters, etc. Mine has 4 different distinct spin modes, that really aren't all that "distinct" and maybe only a couple that you can really coax out of it through extreme mishandling in normal conditions. So I think the term "flat spin" is maybe a bit inaccurate. There isn't just a normal spin, and then a flat spin.........there are various shades of spins, and a flat spin (regardless of what the movie TOP GUN says) isn't inherently worse in all cases. It might take a little longer to influence the existing inertia, and get the nose and yaw rate down, but if you can recover a typical very nose down Cessna type spin, you can also recover from a flatter more aggravated spin.
 
///AMG said:
Just for the sake of conversation on the subject, not all airplanes spin the same. Some have flatter modes, some don't, and some have several different ones depending on CG, asymmetric loading, entry parameters, etc. Mine has 4 different distinct spin modes, that really aren't all that "distinct" and maybe only a couple that you can really coax out of it through extreme mishandling in normal conditions. So I think the term "flat spin" is maybe a bit inaccurate. There isn't just a normal spin, and then a flat spin.........there are various shades of spins, and a flat spin (regardless of what the movie TOP GUN says) isn't inherently worse in all cases. It might take a little longer to influence the existing inertia, and get the nose and yaw rate down, but if you can recover a typical very nose down Cessna type spin, you can also recover from a flatter more aggravated spin.
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Exactly, one airplane's normal or (not aggravated) spin condition can be flat (a Mooney for example). Or it can be steep and want to spiral out like a 172 loaded into the utility category. It's altitude available that buys time for the recovery. As long as you're not waiting to spin into denser air, and hopefully there is enough below you to recover. Flat is just defined by the angle of the airplane's nose to the horizon. A "flat" spin doesn't necessarily mean unrecoverable. However, in most GA aircraft it is. In most aerobatic aircraft the flat spins are entered by aggravation and the recovery is initiated by removing the aggravation. Normal or some Utility category GA aircraft by design don't have the rudder surface area of aerobatic aircraft and are not spin certed to the aerobatic category. In an upright flat spin the horizontal stab and elevator blocks the relative wind making the already anemic rudder even more useless. For these types of aircraft the CGs tend to sit farther aft anyway for flying quality and payload utility. This typically isn't a requirement for GA aerobatic aircraft. Which, by design, are mass/fuel centralized with minimal places to put baggage.

Just because a 172 will recover in the Utility category, doesn't mean that it will recover out if it. In fact, with just an aft CG, recovery from a non aggravated fully developed spin was only possible around 40% of the time when entered from normal flight scenarios. Check out the spin cert tests for the Columbia 400 sometime.

All of this applies for density altitudes below 10,000 and in small GA aircraft.

Looking at the original video again, by the definition of "flat" this spin barely qualifies. I think what hindered and eventually aided the recovery were the pitch oscillations.
 
TwoTwoLeft said:
From a undisclosed location with unknown pilots in a semi-anonymous aircraft ....:D


For educational purposes, notice the spin attitude vs the one in the previous video.
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Sweet video, you made me dizzy while I ate my supper... well done!
 
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