I was the pilot in the front seat, undergoing an annual spin check, I have been flying gliders for nearly 30 years, I have nearly 2000 hrs in gliders, am a retired level 3 instructor (what was called a NGS instructor, in other words a instructor trainer), the checking instructor had equivalent qualifications to myself with similar hours and experience.
I have been monitoring this thread for the last couple of weeks and until now stayed silent, here is my considered response.
1) both pilots on this flight were around 85 kgs, no chance of a rearward C.G. with those weights on board
2) the puchacz was not that new, and had been used for general training for a couple of years or so before this incident
3) the conversion to QNH rather then QFE has no bearing on this incident, it is just a smoke screen
4) I initiated a spin from a turn and then commenced recovery after a turn or so of rotation, the rear seat checking instructor on seeing a successful recovery, requested he have the controls and initiated a spin reversal half way through the recovery, the puchacz then flicked into a spin in the reverse direction, the checking instructor then handed back the controls for me to recover from, although the flick spin reversal had disoriented me I applied correct spin recovery , as monitored from the back seat, the A/C did not respond and continued rotating nose down, the stick was on the front stop by now as we were running out of height and options, the checking instructor commented at this time that we had better recover or we were going to dig a hole, I offered the control's to the checking instructor who declined saying that there was no time for change of pilot, either I got it out or we were stuffed, the aircraft eventually recovered either by itself or because I applied aileron in an attempt to halt the rotation, I will never know for sure why it recovered. I don't call that "predictably and quickly."
4 ) we ended up at about 200 ft or lower AGL and had to put it on the ground quickly as we were all out of options.
5 ) the checking instructor then (over the next couple of weekends) tried to simulate the scenario again in an attempt to reproduce the symptoms described above with out success.
6) we were lucky that there was enough height to recover ( from memory the initial spin entry was just below 3000 ft AGL) but it was a close call, another 5 seconds and there would have been a hole in the ground.
7) I do not believe it was pilot error, and was unaware of the Puchacz spin history before this event.
8) do I, or would I spin a Glider again ? yes happily and do so on any form 2 evaluation flight or annual check flight, would I spin a Puchacz again ? no way, only to insipient stage and that's all !
I believe this is symptomatic of the Puchacz, it behaves 99.99% of the time, the other 0.01% who knows ? history says it is unpredictable.
Chris Runeckles
----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 1:29 PM
Subject: [Aus-soaring] Re: Spining the Puchacz and learning to eliminatepilot error
Quoting Dave and Cath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Well put, Mark. My sentiments exactly.
Dave Long
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When I last had an input to this forum on this subject some months ago, I felt
I couldn't persuade the nee sayers and had other "facts" thrown in my face. Now
that Mark has, I feel, just hit the nail on the head with further logical
additional point re aerobatics by Leigh, I feel it is worth another entry from
the west.
It was earlier mentioned that two of my very experienced fellow pilots had to
land in a paddock shortly after a low recovery several years ago, when the
Puchacz was still new to this club. This serious incident coincided with the
requirement to change from the practice of using QFE to QNH. This subsequent
PILOT error used up 720ft of the height thought to be available for the
recovery. This was further compounded by performing this manoeuvre over
undulating hills of approximately 300ft to the west of the circuit. Guess what,
they didn't recover 20ft below the ground; they noticed their error when well
below 1000ft during the manoeuvre and made a quick recovery once they used the
correct anti-spin recovery procedure. The ACFT, only knowing that it was still
in the air and not caring how close the ground was, performed just as it has
always done; predictably and quickly.
At Beverley we spin the Puchacz almost daily and perform many aerobatic flights
with manoeuvres including accelerated stall/spins requiring spin recovery
techniques close to the minima. We warn trainee aerobatic pilots of the push-on-
itis syndrome at the end of the aerobatic sequence near these limits. Once on
the ground almost all of these aerobatic students have stated that they feel
much more confident in their general flying as a result of flying the ACFT
further into its allowable performance envelope.
We still have pilots who don't like spinning or aero-batting but I THINK they
are beginning to realise that the ACFT they see spinning and aero-batting
nearby is in fact very predictable and very safe. We keep looking to produce
safer pilots by attempting to eliminate pilot error while building one's
natural fear of the "extreme" into a respectful caution in our training of such
manoeuvres.
Best regards,
Daryl Mackay CFI - Beverley Soaring Society
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