I used to do joy flights for tourists in a Pitts Special. During the ski season we’d go and do some aerobatics over a ski field then back off the mountains and spin down into the circuit (not recovering at 1000’ or anything, more like 3000’ and then just a steep spiral descent onto the downwind). I think once I counted 7 turns. Some of the passengers thought it was great, some thought it was the scariest thing. One laughed and dubbed it the “death spiral”. We stopped spinning the Pitts on passenger flights though, as there was some evidence to indicate that it could be unpredictable, though ours was always very positive to recover.
I have to stop now before I bore you all with flying yarns.
I Hope you do some more spinning and enjoy it. You’ll become more comfortable with your aircraft and your abilities. Be bloody careful though, let altitude be your friend, the only thing more useless than runway behind you is sky above you. Too many of my aviation stories have unhappy endings.
So too with Mooneys. Plus the Mooney is placarded with “no intentional spins.”
Most are docile but if rigging is off or the stall strips have been moved they can change drastically.
A friend who’s a Mooney master instructor used to teach cross-controlled stall entry to pilots learning their Mooneys. That is until he hit one that was difficult to recover. The finally got it out of the spin but rudder alone was not enough to do it.
Aah! Don’t say “power-on stall!” My experience with them went something like this:
Me: My flight test is coming up, and we never did power-on stalls.
Instructor: Yes, we did, way back near the beginning of your training.
Me: I don’t remember that…
Sure enough, the Big Day arrives, and what does the examiner ask me to do? That’s right - a power-on stall. I try, but I can’t seem to get the plane to stall. Every time the stall warning goes off the plane just settles down and keeps behaving itself (which is what a trainer should do, but…) The examiner, who yelled at me a lot during my test (gotta see how us prospective pilots perform under pressure!) says, “No, no, no! This is how you do a stall!” and yanks back on the yoke hard. Whee! I’ve never seen a Cessna 172 pitch up that far before. Then, as promised, it stalled, and then I’d never seen one pitch down that far. We leveled out again and my vision was doing all sorts of funky things and we weren’t even half way through the test yet. I kept going, though, and even managed to pass! What a day…
I envy you guys who’ve gotten the chance to do spin training. I’m diabetic now, so I’m not even flying any more. Oh, woe is me…
Globe Swift, can anyone say Globe Swift? Bawhahahaha
Ryan PT-22?
BT-13 ?
I have never flown any WWI birds but have heard over the years that the pilots then would use a spin to get down through an overcast because it is the one maneuver where the plane is stable with the controls stationary. The planes would spin and IF there was room underneath, they would / could recover and continue.
Only got to fly a Pitts once (S2B-260?) and it seemed to hold the spin stable with the controls at the stops. ?? Just fluke or?
We had an S2A which has the 200hp engine. The B has the 260hp. What do you mean by holding the spin stable with the controls at the stops? Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? Our Pitts would spin just nicely with the stick hard back and with full rudder. Move the stick forward slightly and it would accelerate it’s rotations. Let go of the controls (or relax and let them go to their neutral positions) and it would recover. Apply full opposite ruuder half a turn prior to desired heading, push the stick just past neutral with a quarter turn to go and it would recover nicely on heading.
We also had a Tiger Moth that was good fun for spinning.
Skogcat – I’d love to hear the Tiger Moth stories. The last one I saw was 10 years ago just outsdie Chicago and I was told that it was one of only 3 flying in the world.
I seem to remember in the 60’s that there were quite a few TM’s still around. :: sigh :::
On the Pitt’s spin thing, I was just asking it they would hold the spin stable and not tighten up or go flat or inverted with the control held in position. Sort of asking if indeed the WWI boys could get down that way ?
Some aircraft will go flat if held in the spin too long. = ( Swift)
Many years ago when I was trying to live through all my bad judgement, I got trapped on top with a sick C-150 with NO gyros or radios. (Old straight tail fast back) What I did was establish a full flap level semi-stall mushing condition to get the slowest fwd ground speed incase the clouds went all the way to the ground and then used the stand-by compass as an direction and attitude indicator. Needless to say, lots of sweat and prayer and concentration allowed me to be lucky enough to survive. I had 500 foot ceiling and ½ mils visibility underneath and that is practically VFR to pipeline patrol pilot. Ferrying sick, non-radio, wore out, patrol aircraft was sometimes a bit too exciting.
I wish I had more acrobatic experience but… ::: shrug ::: $$$$$$
I took off on a 120nm night cross country last summer, after a year of only flying TWICE. As soon as I took back off headed for home, I had a complete electrical system failure. No nav lights, strobes, nothing. Thought about turning back, but my departure airport had pilot controlled lighting. Sooo, I plunged on towards my destination in the dark. My flight took me over the middle of nowhere, and it was pretty lonesome being up there in the cold and dark with no radios. I was cruising along, flashlight clenched in my teeth, and the seatcover firmly clenched between my cheeks. It was hazy enough out where I didn’t have a decent horizon, so I reminded myself that I should keep a careful scan of the instruments, mostly the AI. I achieved what I thought was straight and level flight, and looked down at the AI, which showed me in a 45 degree bank!
:eek:
Wee bit of panic set in. I certainly didn’t feel like I was banked, but we pilots know that what we feel ain’t necessarily what we are doing. Hummm… checked the vacuum gauge, and it showed good. DG still agreed with the compass, so I concluded it must just be an instrument failure. Luckily I was starting to get a little closer to civilization, so I had some ground lights to use for reference. Winds weren’t what they forecast (are they ever?), so it took a lot longer to get home and make my no flap, no light, landing.
I look upon that as an adventure and a good lesson now, but it sure didn’t feel like it then.
Yeah the pitts is stable. If you want to flatten it you need to apply full power once you’re spinning. To make it go inverted you need to push the stick full forward and hold it there. If the stick is held full aft then no aircraft should go inverted YMMV. In fact the easiest way to recover from some bizarre tumbling they may occur at the top of a verticle manoeuvre is to just hold the stick back, wait for the aircraft to settle into an upright spin and then recover from that - assuming you have the altitude.
As far as descending in the murk, you may have very little forward speed in a spin, but your rate of descent is very high and you may need up to 1000’ or more to recover. If you hit the ground spinning you will probably not survive.