Mike Borgelt wrote:
Well, I talked to the pilot being checked whom I happen to know and his
story is nothing like you say. The instructor put the glider into a spin,
reversed direction and then handed to the guy I talked to for the recovery
which DID NOT happen right away even though full anti spin control was
applied.
Where is it written that aircraft are supposed to come out of spins
*right away* when full anti-spin controls are applied?
An aircraft in a fully-developed spin can take several turns to
come out of it when anti-spin controls are applied. Relaxing the
anti-spin controls and retrying can sometimes reset the clock,
causing an *additional* delay of several more turns before recovery
(that's why trainees who "pump" the stick during recovery require
retraining: they're likely to kill themselves if they fly a glider
which behaves like the book says gliders behave)
This is covered with pilots during their basic pre-solo training.
Is it something that's magically forgotten as a pilot gets older
and more experienced, or is there some kind of deliberate confusion
happening here between the "dangerous in a spin" concept and the
"doesn't recover immediately" concept? C'mon, Mike, I'm pretty
sure that *you*, of all people, know that non-instantaneous spin
recovery is an expected and normal part of aerodynamics! So I
don't know why you even bothered bringing up the point you made
above.
From your description above, it sounds like the Puchacz behaved in
precisely the way student pilots are trained to expect. Which is
why it *is* dangerous to start spins in any glider close to the ground.
The other message that's coming through pretty clearly is that some
of the participants here have been lead to believe that the artificially
benign spin recovery characteristics of German gliders are actually
normal; so normal that it's the only outcome they expect, and any
glider which performs according to the pre-solo textbooks is assumed
to be unsafe.
So I'd ask you to think about this: What kind of experience is going
to deliver a safer pilot? Training in a glider which behaves as the
book says followed by post-solo flying in a glider which is more
benign, or training in a glider that's artificially benign followed
by post-solo flying in less-forgiving and potentially "surprising"
gliders?
I'd rather be trained in a glider which sets realistic expectations
so I can set my safety margins accordingly (since safety margins will
always be based on experience and personal risk thresholds, right?).
It seems to me that training a pilot in a glider which falls out of
a spin as soon as the stick leaves the backstop will teach that pilot
that recovery from a spin will occur in a couple of hundred feet,
leading to a rather unfortunate surprise on the first occasion that
they spin a "livelier" aircraft solo.
Who knows? A few accidents involving pilots who have been trained
using the second method might actually lead third-party observers
to consider that the gliders they've been flying solo are "unsafe"
in a spin, mightn't they? After all, they keep dropping out of the
sky! Must be the glider, rather than any deficiency in pilot training
or technique!
Finally: Exactly how useful do you think third-hand accident reports
on a mailing list ("I read it on the Internet so it must be true!")
really are? You might know the pilot concerned, and you may have
spoken to him about what happened; But none of us have, and none of
us are in any position to judge the veracity of one side of the report
or the other (and that goes for everyone, by the way, not just Mike).
Nobody, anywhere in the world, is going to get any benefit at all
out of a "it was like this/no it wasn't" argument about an accident
report.
- mark
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried an internal modem, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
but it hurt when I walked. Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777 -----
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
