Spin practice

[David Isaac]

To your valid point Oscar, nothing quite like adequate familiarization training with type. e.g going from a C182 to C206/C210 with the IO-540 engine. Make the mistake of selecting a low fuel tank on approach and then fly out of balance or just run out of fuel in one tank; the engine stops producing power so you change tanks and would expect the engine to restart quickly from the windmilling rotation .... wrong ... it wont, the C182 0-470 will, but not the IO-540 ....

 

If you read the manual properly and were trained properly in the aircarft systems you will know the engine can take up to 5 minutes to get the fuel through and restart if you are relying on the mechanical injection system. If you hit the fuel hi boost pump she will burst into life in seconds, otherwise you may end up in real strife .... how do I know this ????? don't ask, I experienced a whole new dimension of sphincter exercise I didn't think possible. That lack of familiarisation cost the lives of some folks at Port Macquarie in a 210 many years ago.

 

Going from basic types to tricky types could be a real bitch without proper knowledge and training.

 

 

[silvercity]

The Lancair 340/360 is, statistically, one of the most deadly things ever to take off (after, possibly, the Messerschmidt 163, though I believe it may well have flown better than a Lancair..). Read the original CASA flight testing report; from memory, it dropped a wing violently to 70 degrees or so in a stall, repeatedly, with a highly-experienced test pilot doing the testing. About the only really safe position for the stick in one of those is to put it in a small concrete bunker and leave it there.

Is this statement based on personal experience Oscar?

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

There is no substitute for going to first principles. Trying to teach people to fly in the absence of proper theory courses, will always cause those problems. I have a particular aversion to "multiple guess" principles of flight exams; I have an engineering degree in aeronautical engineering, dammit, and I have trouble passing that style of exam. Why? Because those exams are set from "pilot's lore", not from basic aeronautical engineering principles. "Pilot's lore" has drifted quite a long way from basic principles, nowadays; so I no longer try to coach my young relatives for their exams; nowadays I tell them to learn the patter from the course book and regurgitate it to pass their exam - and after that I'll teach them what the aerodynamics really are. The two are a long way apart, nowadays. They were not, back in 1963. This is one of the fundamental issues with pilot training, as it stands to-day.

 

The foregoing debate about how to teach spin recovery really demonstrates this - and we're a reasonably knowledgable group, it seems. The fundamental principle is that the wing airfoil has an upper limit to the angle of attack; exceed that angle, and the flow will separate. The closer one can get to something that indicates the angle of the airflow as it approaches the wing leading edge, the closer will be the means of indication. "Stick position at stall" is a very poor indicator, because it will vary not only with flap setting, but also - hugely - with centre of gravity. A far better indicator is the position of the front stagnation point on the leading edge (recognise the term? It's where the streamline that divides the air going above the wing from the air going beneath it, hits the leading edge - think of it as where the wing "parts its hair", if you like). As the angle of attack increases, the front stagnation point moves further towards the underside of the wing; it can only go so far back under the leading edge before the airflow says "enough". This is the basis of virtually all stall warning indicators, because it is completely independent of CG position and aircraft stability, and also pretty insensitive to flap position on most common airfoils.

 

However, it's not easy to produce a continuously-variable instrument to read this; so the next-best thing is usually a pivoting vane on the side of the fuselage, some way forward of the wing. Because the upwash ahead of the wing increases faster than the angle of attack increases, such a vane may be calibrated in bananas - but that does not matter, because the thing will almost always stall at the same number of bananas, and that's what the pilot needs to know.

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

Is this statement based on personal experience Oscar?

I don't know about Oscar, but shortly after that CAA FTR came out, I was asked to go for a ride in Mike Davies' Lancair 235 and see for myself. I do not know where the CG was in the "allowable" range - I doubt Mike bothered with such trivia - but I found it had absolutely zero stick-free longitudinal stability - i.e. it was neither stable nor unstable - it was as close to dead neutral stability as one could imagine - and that was with zero flap. It must have been quite negatively stable with the flaps down, but Mike was not about to let me try that. He sweated a lot getting it back on the ground, though. It also had dead neutral lateral stability. The characteristics made it completely unresponsive to turbulence, and many people equate that with "stability", but that is dead wrong. After those two discoveries, I told Mike I'd seen sufficient and could we please go back.

So as far as I am concerned, the CAA flight test was spot-on, and Oscar is quite correct - whether from personal experience or not. The mandatory enlarged tailplane no doubt improved the long stab issue; but one could only disguise the lateral issue by using rudder/aileron interconnect springs, whereas what it really neede was increased wing dihedral. I've not tried a 320/360, but they were little more than a 235 with larger engines, which would if anything degrade the stability. As a CAR 35 I have had to contend with a number of structural issues in them, and I have a very low opinion of them as a consequence. They are indeed a very dangerous aeroplane in my opinion. The Lancair 4 was a much better beast.

 

 

[M61A1]

To your valid point Oscar, nothing quite like adequate familiarization training with type. e.g going from a C182 to C206/C210 with the IO-540 engine. Make the mistake of selecting a low fuel tank on approach and then fly out of balance or just run out of fuel in one tank; the engine stops producing power so you change tanks and would expect the engine to restart quickly from the windmilling rotation .... wrong ... it wont, the C182 0-470 will, but not the IO-540 ....If you read the manual properly and were trained properly in the aircarft systems you will know the engine can take up to 5 minutes to get the fuel through and restart if you are relying on the mechanical injection system. If you hit the fuel hi boost pump she will burst into life in seconds, otherwise you may end up in real strife .... how do I know this ????? don't ask, I experienced a whole new dimension of sphincter exercise I didn't think possible. That lack of familiarisation cost the lives of some folks at Port Macquarie in a 210 many years ago.

 

Going from basic types to tricky types could be a real bitch without proper knowledge and training.

In his biography, Chuck Yeager was a strong advocate for understanding your aircraft systems. It prevented his demise several times. Not only your mechanical and electrical systems, but making the effort as Dafydd suggests, to understand how your aircraft is interacting with the air.

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

I can't really leave this thread without pointing out that it is entirely possible to design a simple single-engine aeroplane to be extremely resistant to stall/spin "departures" (a test-pilot's understatement for "trying to flick-roll into the ground"). The secret to this lies partly in learning how to control the lateral spread of stall across the wing span, and partly in finding a way to use the change in downwash at the tailplane from stalling of the wing centre-section, to inhibit the elevator authority so the aircraft cannot be made to pitch up any further once that point is reached. I cannot take credit for its design, but the aircraft that achieves this par excellence is the Seabird Seeker. I did manage to get somewhat similar docility by suitable use of VGs and wing fences and stall strips, on an Aeronca Champ, so the Seeker's pusher layout is evidently not essential to achieve this. The Seeker is the only aeroplane I have ever flown, in which one can, starting from around 1.4 times the stall speed, apply full rudder, with sufficient opposite aileron to keep it from turning, and then bring the stick back onto the up-elevator stop - and it just keeps flying. It does this at any CG within the allowable range.

 

 

 

[Oscar]

Is this statement based on personal experience Oscar?

Absolutely not! - after all, I'm still here... but (and like I think quite a few people), when they first appeared, I was very much taken with the racy look of the thing, even though not then a power pilot, just gliders. Then I started to notice the frequency of reports of accidents in them and asked some questions of knowledgeable people, and as they say in the classics, saw that there was a pattern emerging here...

 

And obviously, my recollection has some gaps - such as the fact that it was the old CAA, not yet CASA, doing the testing!

 

This 'stick position' thing seems to me to be a very potentially dangerous idea to promulgate; it suggests that there is a magic position which, if not gone beyond, will keep people safe from stalling. As Dafydd has pointed out, that is simply not correct. It is as simplistic and fundamentally daft as the idea that the posted speed limit for car driving is an immutable line between safety and crashing. Try driving a ute into town empty, happily cruising at the speed limit, and then drive back with a tonne of cement in the back - in some utes, the same speed on the same piece of road would be entirely lethal.

 

I have bugger-all experience (yet - this is a new adventure for me) of power flying, but some useful glider experience, and I certainly do not remember any reference to stick position in any of my glider training - we were taught to recognise what was happening through the feel of the thing through the stick, and to a degree, the seat of the pants. When in a thermal, one is mostly flying in a tight turn, usually pretty close to the stall and continually adjusting the stick to maintain airspeed as the inside wing starts to drop away and kicking a bit of outside rudder to help pick the wing up. If there are several of you in the one thermal, you watch the other guy(s) like a hawk (pun intended) as you climb through (or are climbed through) - and you have no time to watch the ASI (and nor does the other guy(s): everybody depends on everybody else to not let a spin develop and come hurtling down on top of you.

 

Since I am a very inexperienced power pilot, I have a question. Is there any source for 'authoritative', or informative, pilot handling information that one can access to get a real picture of how a type of aircraft that is new to one can be expected to behave? I'm not talking about the POH nor the vendor's blurb, but the sort of information one can tuck away in one's mind as foreknowledge of how it behaves. By way of example, if I were writing about how to drive early Range Rovers, I would include ( in large, unfriendly letters): 'do NOT lift off the throttle on corner entry to an off-camber dirt road corner - it WILL spin! (ask me how I know, and why I am so sure of this..) Perhaps this is something that RAA could develop as a member's database?

 

 

[djpacro]

Oscar, some more discussion points or you and some excellent advice for some people in FAA's AC 90-109, Airmen Transition to Experimental or Unfamiliar Airplanes (sorry, my iPad won't paste the link here).

 

I can't really leave this thread without pointing out that it is entirely possible to design a simple single-engine aeroplane to be extremely resistant to stall/spin "departures" ...... The Seeker is the only aeroplane I have ever flown, in which one can, starting from around 1.4 times the stall speed, apply full rudder, with sufficient opposite aileron to keep it from turning, and then bring the stick back onto the up-elevator stop - and it just keeps flying. It does this at any CG within the allowable range.

Dafydd, see what you think of the Husky (one with no VGs) if you get a chance. Very docile flaps up and full flap even at full aft cg. However, like some others a specific combination of partial flap and partial power will readily "moose stall".I have worked on some aeroplanes to get a docile stall at the same time as easy snap roll entry and reliable spin entries - all upright and inverted. Interesting to see at the recent World Aerobatic Championships that one or two used similar tools on a couple of the flash new composite aeroplanes.

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

Oscar, some more discussion points or you and some excellent advice for some people in FAA's AC 90-109, Airmen Transition to Experimental or Unfamiliar Airplanes (sorry, my iPad won't paste the link here).Dafydd, see what you think of the Husky (one with no VGs) if you get a chance. Very docile flaps up and full flap even at full aft cg. However, like some others a specific combination of partial flap and partial power will readily "moose stall".

 

I have worked on some aeroplanes to get a docile stall at the same time as easy snap roll entry and reliable spin entries - all upright and inverted. Interesting to see at the recent World Aerobatic Championships that one or two used similar tools on a couple of the flash new composite aeroplanes.

I'll be interested to try one, if I ever get the chance. The interesting thing about the Seeker is that it remains equally docile with any combination of flaps and/or power; turning stalls or straight - it simply doesn't care. In the spin tests, by booting full ruddr and in-spin aileron immediately prior to reaching the back stop with the stick, one could of course get it to do a sort of half-baked barrel roll, from which it fell into a spiral if one held pro-spin controls; and that usually consumed about 800 feet if one held pro-spin controls for a full turn (and with some risk of overspeeding the engine). It's quite manoeuvrable - but the complete opposite of an aerobatic aeroplane. Fly it if you get the chance.

 

 

[djpacro]

Just adding a note about the Husky "moose stall" in that particular configuration - in a turn flying through its own wake the tailplane can stall resulting in a violent nose down pitch. Exciting at high altitude.

 

I have flown the Optica quite a bit so have followed the Seeker development with some interest and I keep in contact with young Mick H.

 

 

[facthunter]

Dafydd, I think you and I share a respect for Bill Whitneys views, and I would recommend anybody who wants a practical approach to these design matters to reference his material

 

With respect to AoA indications or "reserve lift meters" or " slow fast " Needles, they have to compensate for FLAP configuration because that changes the basic design of the aerofoil especially with droops or kruger flaps which changes the place all this separation happens. . The whole thing does little more than a piece of string does on a glider. Cof G which I dare say is not given the respect it deserves, can make a good plane totally unstable in pitch which is the one axis you must have control in. Nev

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

That would be a most interesting comparison. I've never been within touching distance of an Optica; however I've studied it, and it always struck me as being a piece of excessive cleverness for its job. The Seeker is a far simpler concept, and I suspect, far less costly to maintain (tho it's not the epitome of easy maintenance by any means). The airflow kit that gives the Seeker its remarkable handling was not evolved during Mick's time there; it radically transformed the stall handling. I've never experienced the sort of tailplane stall you mention - but the Seeker has VGs under its tailplane; it's not elevator-limited in the normal sense; you can get the wing centre section to stall at any CG in the permissible range; but the effect of that amount of stalling prevents the elevator from driving it any deeper into the stall. So under the circumstances you describe, the tailplane is probably a considerable way from stalling. Say "Gudday" to Mick for me, please.

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

Dafydd, I think you and I share a respect for Bill Whitneys views, and I would recommend anybody who wants a practical approach to these design matters to reference his materialWith respect to AoA indications or "reserve lift meters" or " slow fast " Needles, they have to compensate for FLAP configuration because that changes the basic design of the aerofoil especially with droops or kruger flaps which changes the place all this separation happens. . The whole thing does little more than a piece of string does on a glider. Cof G which I dare say is not given the respect it deserves, can make a good plane totally unstable in pitch which is the one axis you must have control in. Nev

You're right - but not many little aeroplanes have Kreuger flaps, or automatic LE slats. On anything with fixed-geometry leading edges, the "old faithful" Safe-Flight stall warning switch works pretty well for all flap positions. The comment that the Drifter had been spin-tested leave me to ask, "at what CG?"; spin recovery is the one thing that does not alter progressively with CG change; it is "knife-edged" - i.e. it may change from "won't enter a spin" to "won't recover from a spin" with only a small change in the CG. One has to be extremely conscious of CG position in certification flight testing.

 

 

[facthunter]

Another factor almost never mentioned is fore and aft distribution of mass. ie mounting an engine high on the tail. Centralised mass makes everything better? Yes /No? Nev

 

 

[djpacro]

... spin recovery is the one thing that does not alter progressively ... it is "knife-edged" - i.e. it may change from "won't enter a spin" to "won't recover from a spin" with only ..... One has to be extremely conscious of CG position in certification flight testing.

We called it "cliff-edge" effects - no change as in a plateaux then a sudden adverse change. CG is obviously important within the range but I have observed more significant effects on spinning with rigging and manufacturing tolerances (eg washout and leading edge shape).

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

Another factor almost never mentioned is fore and aft distribution of mass. ie mounting an engine high on the tail. Centralised mass makes everything better? Yes /No? Nev

Yes, indeed. Do you remember Julius Sumner Miller's trick with a school ruler, a piece of string, and a hand-operated twist drill? It demonstrates perfectly why a spin tend to flatten. The effect is wholly due to the centrifugal forces acting on masses near the ends of the fuselage.

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

We called it "cliff-edge" effects - no change as in a plateaux then a sudden adverse change. CG is obviously important within the range but I have observed more significant effects on spinning with rigging and manufacturing tolerances (eg washout and leading edge shape).

Yes, one certainly does NOT want wash-in! However, I've found washout rather a mild palliative, and it tends to spoil the high-end performance. VGs - if they are correctly used - are much more effectife. And out-of-tolerance rigging is asking for trouble.

 

 

[Oscar]

Dafydd, I think you and I share a respect for Bill Whitneys views, and I would recommend anybody who wants a practical approach to these design matters to reference his materialWith respect to AoA indications or "reserve lift meters" or " slow fast " Needles, they have to compensate for FLAP configuration because that changes the basic design of the aerofoil especially with droops or kruger flaps which changes the place all this separation happens. . The whole thing does little more than a piece of string does on a glider. Cof G which I dare say is not given the respect it deserves, can make a good plane totally unstable in pitch which is the one axis you must have control in. Nev

Hey, don't knock the 'piece of string' on gliders! It's way better than a ball on the panel to tell you you're flying a sloppy turn - it's right there, in your face, the ultimate HUD display! You simply can't ignore the little bugger, it's more persistent than a cat.

 

The AoA device is now regarded by the FAA as a very desirable addition in any cockpit, but as you say, needs to be linked to flap position to be really useful. That ought to take very little in the way of sensors and electronic smarts, and most of them I've looked at are 'calibrated' by in-flight setting. One can - if I am correct - 'dial-in' one's comfort zone for warning level, from 'on the edge' of nose-drop back to 'I think you ought to know where this nose-up thing is headed, Cully'. I'd like to have (a good) one in my aircraft, and in my dreams it would have full self-contained battery back-up so that when one has to put down dead-stick with the master switch off, it's still doing its job faithfully as one heads for that paddock that is at best a 'maybe, but probably not..' big enough one to stop in before the trees, ditch, and barbed-wire fence.

 

 

[bilby54]

If that is the case RAA Aus should NOT have stall/ incipient spin training in our flight training manual and we should definitely NOT be teaching incipient spins as defined in our flight training section of the Ops manual, because NO RAA Aus aircraft could meet the necessary requirements. So am I correct in going back to my original assertion that RAA Aus should just teach stall with wing drop and remove any reference to incipient spin?

I had a look in the first AUF Ops Manual and the syllabus refered only to stalls with a wing drop. In the 2006 version it has the same reference but has incipient spin in brackets while the latest publication has dropped all reference to 'wing drops'.

 

It may have been done by some well meaning attempt to keep up with the times but in reality has set future training on a path to destruction as the recoveries from each situation (wing drop versus incipient spin) is very different as has been outlined. Every ultralight Flight Manual or POH that I have read has the words 'No intentional spinning' but the Ops Manual is telling us to teach it??? As an aside, the Ops Manual also refers to 'miss' approach for 'missed approach' training and on more than one occaision.

 

I fully agree with you David in that all reference to incipient spin recovery should be removed and a bulletin issued to emphasis the correct recovery technique to be used in these aircraft.

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

Yes, well, if I may summarise where I think this thread has got to:

 

(1) Spinning is a "natural" behaviour of a fixed-wing aircraft; in fact it is one of the two stable modes of flight inherent in fixed-wing aircraft, which inherently tend to autorotate at angles of attack exceeding the stall. Unfortunately, the spinning mode entails rapid loss of height, so that the ground tends to get in the way. Therefore, it is necessary to either prevent the aircraft from entering the spinning mode, or to design it so that it can be recovered from that mode with minimal loss in height. The design standards have become more stringent in regard to the tendency to wing-drop at stall, but truly spin-resistant aircraft are very rare (though not altogether non-existent). Therefore, we cannot forget about the need to train pilots to handle spin-entry situations.

 

(2) Many aircraft designers do not place sufficient importance on the spinning mode (or are ignorant of the means available to deal with it) so their aircraft are - at the very least - suspect in this regard. The usual fault is using empennage layouts that cause blanketing of the vertical tail by the stalled horizontal tail, and/or have the rudder hinge line swept backwards so the rudder is ineffective when the airflow is predominantly "upward" rather than predominantly "rearward" - or of compounding these faults by too small a vertical tail. (The "Spitfire" image is still there in most pilot's eyes; however, the history of the evolution of the Spitfire was one of continual problems with too small a vertical tail; it more than doubled in size between the prototype and the Mk 22 - and some of the later marks needed installed spin-recovery parachutes).

 

(3) The early design standards for recreational aircraft were deficient in this area.

 

(4) The "one-turn spin" case - as used for aircraft that are placarded "no intentional spinning" - is in reality only intended to ensure that a mis-handled stall will not result in an unrecoverable situation within one turn.

 

(5) The training syllabi for pilots, as these have existed since "spinnable" trainers fell out of general use (i.e. after the surplus WW2 military trainers reached the end of their practical lives, in the mid 1960s), have not really faced up to the issue of adequate pilot training in regard to spinning. The availability of utility-category GA trainers such as the C 152 and the PA-28-140 alleviated this to the extent of allowing incipient spins, or slightly more than incipient spins. This situation is more serious for recreational aircraft, because of their more rapid response (due to smaller wingspan) and their smaller overall flight envelopes - especially in regard to the design dive speed.

 

(6) The AUF/RAA training syllabus, apart from the original one written by Bill Dinsmore, has turned a blind eye to this situation, and is inadequate as a consequence, and in fact places RAA instructors in a hazardous dilemma in regard to stall training involving any element of autorotation.

 

(7) Aircraft manufacturers see no demand for truly spinnable trainers, because of the way training syllabi have evolved since the mid 1960s; so the available trainers are not qualified for, and are in fact poorly designed to cope with, any form of stall training that involves autorotation. Cessna may have started the 162 design with some idea of producing a spinnable trainer - but they failed dismally to do so, mainly due to "styling".

 

Therefore, the current RAA syllabus is unrealistic in regard to "incipient spinning" in that doing this is dangerous (and quite possibly illegal, given CAR 138, which requires the pilot to operate IAW the POH); and, if corrected to be consistent with CAR 138, will not allow adequate training in regard to "incipient spins".

 

If this thread has achieved a general understanding (amongst its readers) that this is the reality of the present situation, the effort has been worth while. Given that understanding, what can be done about it? The RAA instructors can demand an amendment to the syllabus; and pending the advent of a spinnable trainer, the RAA can require trainees to gain such training elsewhere; but the real cure is to make sufficient noise about this issue that the manufacturers stop putting out aircraft that are marginal in regard to spinning, plus a real spinnable trainer.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Good summary Dafydd.

 

In response to your "what can be done about it?" I would suggest it might be an option to have RAAus use some its surplus for funding the spin testing of an existing aircraft to prove its suitability for incipient training purposes.

 

Although they're not tested, certified etc, therefore not legal for spin training at this time, we do have some good Australian aircraft that could be contenders, perhaps with a little modification if it proved necessary, as might become evident during a flight testing program.

 

An example might be the Lightwing. As has been alluded to above, a certain (excellent) Ops Manager was very pro spin training and when we did our CFI training/Approvals with him back then there was no way he was signing anyone off without testing their comfort-zone in spins. A Lightwing was employed for the purpose and it behaved perfectly in the two-three rotations executed.

 

Later I flew extensively with an aerobatic nut (in another Lightwing) and on several occasions lost count of the revolutions after about 15 or 16 and the aircraft recovered in a blink as soon as you relaxed the controls.

 

So the point is that although they might not be certified for it we all know that several existing Australian planes do spin and recover well - granted that all control positions and CG range might not have been explored. Ultralight/LSA planes I've either been spinning in (inadvertently of course) or watched spinning (I'm referring to multiple rotations and on many occasions, not just once or twice) are - Lightwing, Sapphire, Drifter, Thruster Gemini, Hiperlight.

 

How much would it really cost to have a beefed-up one built and tested and available for use by all FTFs on a regular basis i.e. it could be flown around Australia once a year giving everyone in the country a chance to brush up on their skills, and that way all the instructors could be drilled in spins annually Perhaps the Ops manager/SMS bloke could use the plane as their transport while visiting all the FTFs regularly to check their compliance ...

 

For this purpose it might not be necessary to fully certify a plane for spinning i.e. if it is to be used for this specific purpose then is there really a need to flight spin test it at both ends of the CG range and at all flap settings? Couldn't it be restricted to spinning only when within the forward 30% of CG range and without flaps deployed, for instance? It could be permanently fitted with a spin chute as well as a BRS ...

 

We could even embark on a cost-recovery program by offering spin training for GA students.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

So the lightwing is spin certified?

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

So the lightwing is spin certified?

Not to my knowledge, I wasn't saying that it was. But back then if you wanted a CFI (or instructor) rating the Ops Manager wasn't going to issue one until he'd checked you out in spins and on the occasion of my CFI course/Approval it was a Lightwing that was available.

 

The thing is that quite certainly some aircraft have a reluctance to recover from spins in some situations, be it CG or flap or whatever, and ones with blanketed rudders may be worse than others but there are also many designs that may have theoretically bad spin-related design features but which recover just fine in practice because there are more variables than just those mentioned. As a result I think many people back then were a little less reticent than they now are and most conventional aircraft were considered to be recoverable, just that some might take a bit more coaxing than others. And so some people showed no hesitation giving it a go. Interestingly it is those same people who are alive and well today. The ones who come unstuck in spin scenarios seem to be the ones who show most reluctance to getting spin-trained beforehand.

 

I might add that I learned more about flying in that five day course than I had in the years of flying previously (including the GFA gliding course and that was fantastic too), and that was the opinion of all that attended the course - all of whom are still alive and most are still flying. That alone is a testament to the quality of the teaching provided and the learning gained. That particular Ops Manager was a very knowledgeable man, highly respected in the GFA from which he was sourced, and did remarkably well in helping his students to separate fact from mythology where flight theory is concerned.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

yep. Awesome. Spin testing for CFI's in non certified aircraft. My instructor used to spin his uncertified (for spinning) aircraft aswel. He's pushing up daisies now after tearing the wings off. Im glad we have moved on from the "good old days" where even the LEADERS of our organisation were cowboys.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Fair comment, but it's just a sign of how things have changed over time. At least those of us who attended those courses got spin training, these days students are signed off by CFIs and trained by instructors who haven't themselves been spin trained except in theory. So the student with his new licence justifiably believes he has now been properly trained and is safe to go flying but is that really the case? Or is it a case of the blind having been leading the blind?

 

If ever there was to be an interesting case to be tried for lack of duty of care it could be a crippled new certificate/licence holder complainant stating that he paid to be trained to fly safely, received his certificate that stated he had been, but was taught by people who hadn't been trained in practice in the situation that is well documented as being the most deadly scenario of all.