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If
you've spent much time at the
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| airport,
any airport, and have listened or participated in some of the hangar
flying, I'm sure that the topic of spins has been discussed more than
once. In fact, I would be willing to wager that this topic has been
the center of conversation more than any other flight-related topic
discussed. |
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Yet
it seems to be the most mis-
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and feared of all flight maneuvers, and why not, stall/spins account
for 10 percent of general aviation accidents but 25 percent of fatal
accidents. And upwards of 20 percent of the fatal stall/spins occurs
with a certified flight instructor on board. |
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So
what's the big deal here, why
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we get this thing figured out? Well, I'm not the man with the answers.
I have entered spins both deliberately and inadvertently, and my inadvertent
spin entries usually were the result of unintent-tionally flown and
uncoordinated maneuvers at a low speed, triggering a spin. (In other
words, I screwed up.) |
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I
will say that the spin itself never
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to be inherently dangerous, but more than any other maneuver, the
potent-ial loss of altitude seemed to be astounding. |
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Typical
inadvertent spin accidents
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when at low altitude and slow airspeed, such as turning base to final.
Add a little rudder, causing a banked skid, in order to line up with
the runway, and wham, your aircraft enters a stall/spin at a very
low altitude with no chance to recover. |
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It
always made sense to me to be
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to recognize the stall/spin "symptoms" and take corrective
action, as well as understanding how to recover from it. |
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In
1912, Lieutenant Wilfred Parke,
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completing a series of maneuvers in an Avero G cabin biplane, was
setting up a spiral approach back to the airfield. He must have gotten
a bit slow and a little nose high because at 800 feet, the left wing
suddenly fell out of the sky, the nose dropped and Lieutenant Parke
was staring straight at the ground. He had inadvertently fallen into
a spin. |
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Parke
tried everything that he could
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of to recover. Power on, power off, full rudder-he even pulled the
stick back, hoping at the same time, Parke let go of the controls
to brace himself for a crash. |
