Hi Harry,
Merry Christmas to you.
You have of course (and as usual), correctly identified the real
problem. It is safe speed near the ground. Maintain that and there
will be no chance of spinning. Spinning is a secondary effect of flying
too slow, yet somehow it is now the spin and not the speed that is
considered all important in our training system.
If we want to safely train for safe speed near the ground, including
spin recognition and recovery, we should be making much more use of
simulators, at every level of experience. If people on the list have
never tried this, visit Benalla and see what happens when you spin a
Ventus 2, a K21, an Astir or an Antares. You can try all in the space of
30 minutes. It is genuinely realistic. Recover wrong (depending on the
glider) and it flicks the other way. And if it turns into a spiral
dive and exceeds VNE it flutters and the wings fall off. You can do a
flat over-ruddered turn at any altitude including on final. No one
dies, but the experience is genuine and the lesson graphic. The same
by the way is true for teaching rope breaks and launch failures, on both
aerotow and winch. And if anyone thinks that simulators are not putting
enough "pressure" on, try it first. You won't make that claim after you
have just "killed" yourself. The sim at Benalla was made out of an IS28
fuselage because it has all the controls, it has a wraparound 180 deg
screen, and can be used for all phases of flight including
cross-country. It cost less than $10,000 to make, uses off the shelf
components and costs next to nothing to run. It isn't portable though.
Oh and there is nothing at all wrong with old gliders. They are often
beautiful, historic and a pleasure to fly. But basically irrelevant for
training people who are going to fly modern gliders.
The way forward won't be found by looking in the rear view mirror :)
Cheers
/Tim Shirley/
/tra dire é fare c' é mezzo il mare/
On 26/12/2014 10:15 AM, Harry wrote:
Hi All,
I wrote the attached article and it received a few comments, both on
and off the web.
I should have summarised as follows.
1. If you enter a spin a modern glider below 1,000 ft. AGL you will
almost certainly die. No amount of prior training will make much
difference.
2.Your first defence is to maintain safe speed near the ground. Your
early training should be such that you feel very uncomfortable if
below this criteria.
3. To maintain this speed you must monitor the ASI. Ground features
mean relying on the horizon attitude is not accurate, particularly
with modern slippery gliders. The ASI should be checked regularly and
the closer to the ground and more adverse the conditions the more
frequently the check. On final under turbulent conditions a quick
check no more than every 5 seconds is needed to ensure safe speed is
maintained.
4. Learning and practicing incipient recovery. If things go wrong
incipient recovery means living to a ripe old age more certain,
whether in a thermal or close to the ground.
5. Spin training helps in spins at altitude. Enter a spin below about
1,000 ft AGL in a modern glider and you will most likely be dead in
about 5 seconds.
Harry Medlicott
Hi All,
Sorry to be controversial but I believe most of our spin training is
marginal in saving lives in the real world. Of far greater
significance are design factors reducing the propensity of gliders to
spin. Spin related accidents in Europe have substantially reduced over
time. No changes in spin training but modern gliders are far more
forgiving.
My first club had winch launching only and every year a tug was
brought in and towed gliders to 3,000 ft for spin training. After
briefing, students were quite comfortable going through the standard
recovery procedures.
My second club was winch launching only. Often there were periods when
we had students due for spin training but weather conditions were such
that thermals were not able to give us much by way of height. I
experimented with a Blanik by a spin of the top of a winch launch
which after one turn allowed recovery by 1,000 ft. before using the
procedure with a student. OK in a Blanik but certainly not in some
other types
Despite very careful briefing a few minutes before the results were
entirely different to those when entering a spin at 3,000 ft. Upon
seeing the ground below them the student would immediately pull the
control column right back and sometimes also move the control column
away from the descending wing. It was an involuntary reaction but the
one we would use to keep the glider in a spin.
So far as I am aware most spin accidents occur close to the ground,
below about 1,000 ft unless one is flying a particularly nasty glider
such as an IS28, which can take over 1,000 ft for the whole process.
If what I am saying is correct, then what are the chances of a pilot
using the correct recovery processes in a low level spin, perhaps a
considerable time after undergoing spin training or refreshing? Not
very high. When asked to give a nervous pilot spin training I would
say “We are going to undertake spin avoidance training” whereupon they
would relax. After release at say 3,000 ft I would establish safe
speed near the ground and invite them to mishandle the glider with
rudder and aileron and try and induce a spin. The message was that if
you establish and maintain safe speed near the ground, a spin is
improbable. After that, of course, we undertook standard spin training.
Instructors right from a students very first flight should emphasise
that they have established and maintained safe speed near the ground
when they are at a height at which they would not like to attempt a
spin recovery. Just as importantly, that their lookout procedures are
excellent. My message to a student or visitor in an introductory
flight was that I could not see where we going from the back seat and
that their good lookout was needed to keep us safe,
Harry Medlicott
*From:* Peter (PCS3) <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Wednesday, December 24, 2014 10:48 PM
*To:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* [Aus-soaring] Spinning Re: IS-28B CQC's last flying day:
On 24/12/2014 8:41 PM, Colin Collum wrote:
G’day All,
One of the ironies of gliding seems to be that modern sleek gliders
are not only faster in virtually every sense, they are also safer in
that many of them are much less likely to spin, but unfortunately our
novice pilot can’t be guaranteed to always fly an aircraft that won’t
spin.
I was instructing a girl in the front seat of a Twin Astir and said to
her: "Twin Astirs just mush instead of spinning" To my surprise, she
managed to spin it easily (because of her light weight) and it
required full opposite rudder to stop it as well as easing the stick
forward and a very steep dive enough for a loop.
I was in a Ventus 2b on a Xcountry having lunch in a thermal. I
reached behind me to grab the water tube; the bottle was strapped on
parcel shelf above and behind me and the tube had slipped down beside
me out of reach and I was going to find it from the bottle. When I
looked round, the paddocks were in my direct field of vision
rotating. I absolutely had no idea I was in a spin. Full opposite
rudder took a loooong time to stop the rotation and the height lost
was significant but fortunately did not end in an outlanding.
I recite this to all my students when instructing on spins.
PeterS
So we need to teach them in aircraft that can be spun safely, but we
also need to keep them keen and I must say that when I was learning
10 years ago, even then the IS28s gave the impression of being way
too out-of-date in their performance and appearance. After going solo
I graduated to the giddy heights of a Junior—the novelty wore off
that pretty quickly when from 8,500’ AGL I couldn’t make it 40km home
at best LD into a light breeze without another thermal!
It’s no use saying I learned in one of those, and if it was good
enough for me then it is good enough for the current generation of
learners. We need to keep them interested, a little excited, able to
progress quickly enough for it to be satisfying and also very safe.
I don’t claim to know the answers, but I doubt if it is IS28s, K13s,
K6s and Juniors. K21s? Probably, but I don’t know what to recommend
for a first single-seater.
Merry Xmas,
Colin
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