Avoiding the spin

A right royal ramble, but hopefully I make some points about what spinning might really look like when it happens by mistake. Also sorry about moving my head around so much - a convenient place to mount the camera! Oh - and I did make it back to Pocklington! Check out my book - Adventurous soaring - at my website - www.mikefox.org

[@BrunoVassel]

Thank you so much for sharing!

[@mikefox5284]

Cheers Bruno - if you are ever in the UK, let me know.

[@cernauta]

This is one of the most formative and useful safety videos available. Thanks a lot, Mike!

[@francescodepascale7188]

I had the unusual luck to have an ex-french airforce instructor as my glider instructor. He learn me “real life” spinning entries (over rudder low speed low bank turn, loss of speed in a typical thermal turn...). After that any usual training of induced spin (stall an full rudder) seems to me as artificial as a roller coaster at Disney. Fun but almost useless. I fully agree with the other comment: why waiting “full développed spin” to take the correct action? Later I was thermaling, a lot of inverse yaw and induced roll on this sailplane meaning a lot of rudder in and stick out. Get distracted, speed going down, stick becoming “empty” and voilà I was almost in a spin in no time. Thanks to my training, immediately recognized the situation, take corrective maneuvers and no drama. But quite a reminder...

[@RogerM9]

Nice "real world" explanation and demo. How can 3 people "not like" this?

[@georgehaeh4856]

Brilliant! I see all too often a fetish among certain check pilots of requiring a spin to develop before recovery begins. That builds the wrong muscle memory when you get a spin entry turning final.

[@hj45lp]

Brilliant, thank you for sharing. I just got my licence this summer and spin training is definitely something I need more of. An interesting comment came from my examiner after my check ride, he said too many students wait for the nose to drop to realise they are in a stall, but you can stall with the nose staying up, so watch speed and variometer. He said if you descent in slow flight more than 3 m/s you are in fact in a stall.

[@tadeksmutek5840]

Thank you for sharing this interesting video. I think this kind of spin avoiding exercise would be really good to practise with all gliding students or newly certified glider pilots. Because as we know from accident reports - this kind of spin caused by over-ruddered turns has already killed many glider pilots/students.

[@walterbrown8694]

In the early '50s when I first began learning to fly, my flight instructor had me doing stall and spin recovery in the first hour in an Aeronca Chief over the northern Illinois farmland. If your airplane is not placarded against intentional stalls and spins, you should be practicing those maneuvers occasionally with emphasis on recognizing conditions leading to a stall or spin, and timely smooth recoveries.

[@MSBWilson]

Great demos and explanations Mike. Useful for training and review.

[@cjhammy47]

Using this video at weekend on 5 Year refresher. Thanks Mike

[@addisonhuddy9663]

Fantastic video Mike. Thank you.

[@grahambambrook313]

Bloody Hell! I was suddenly transported back to my Ass Cat course with you and DB!! I've never been able to demonstrate the 'nose below the horizon' that well. Cheers Mike!

[@StayUpStrack]

Great demonstration. Thanks!

[@jamesfollon]

A really informative video on spinning !!!

[@SuperEightball1]

Guessing it's all about coordinated flight. CFI always told me use all tools available , My seat almost always got me in trouble. Great vid

[@MikeSealguitar]

Thanks for sharing this helpful video.

[@stephaniekent8483]

I hated spinning so much in my training that when I went solo I swore I would overcome my fear and became very good at spinning... so much so that all the single astirs we had where grounded for a while and notices sent world wide lo because I held an astir in a spin for ,,,well lost count at six revolutions,,,recovery was a terrifyingly slow process... so much so I panicked and pushed so far forward on the stick ....I bunted the glider.... lost an insane amount of height and recovered at 800 feet never again lol

[@mikemorgulis9657]

Hi Stephanie, the Grob-family of gliders were designed to be mostly spin-stable or spin-reluctant, the G103's especially. I tried to teach a spin recovery in a G103 Acro II years ago, my student over-ruddered so much that the fin stalled. We had to pull back on the stick fully and kick full rudder to get it to enter the spin, and as we'd been warned prior to the flight, it would take at least 2 full turns to recover, which it did. We did this at height, so not a scare. Later on I was flying the CS-77 (license built G102) in a contest, I was the lowest in the thermal. I very much over-ruddered and it snapped into a spin immediately. As I'd been teaching spin recoveries all summer, my height loss was minimal but it definitely shook me up and I didn't make that mistake again. Grobs are stall and spin resistant, HOWEVER, like all planes, will eventually bite you in the butt. I'd recommend using a Puchacz to a refresher as it has a similar mass and inertia to a Grob. Glad you eventually recovered, 6 turns is test pilot territory!!

[@rhettscal]

Excellent!

[@JohnCinOz1]

Great info, thank you!

[@christopherstevenson9737]

Thanks...good amount of details and clear "how come it spins". Maybe include the steps for recovery? !!

[@go2cloudbase]

Excellent, thank you.

[@MarkJWilliams0]

Great video :) Thanks Mike.

[@wernerstrauss337]

Thank you. Great video

[@brunotagliapietra6397]

Quite instructive! Thanks!

[@squaks07]

very helpful, thanks for sharing

[@354dw]

Great explanation.

[@bevobus]

Great stuff, thank you!!!

[@AngusSuter]

Great video for me a student pilot. Thanks!

[@tomjdesigns1280]

Thanks, had my spin syllabus ticked but still learn something from your video.

[@grahambambrook313]

Just remember the aircraft will not spin unless at least one of the wings is stalled.

[@IsaakDieleman]

When I was practicing landing as a student glider pilot I once managed to induce a spin while turning final. Luckily my feeling had developed well enough to immediately recognise my inner wing falling away and take corrective actions. I didn't feel any steering input from the instructor but he did reprimand me afterward. I'm glad I'm still alive because I was less than a second away from being unable to recover at 80m/250ft agl. Very informative video!

[@spinning_cirrus]

What glider were you in?

[@IsaakDieleman]

@@spinning_cirrus It was a Twin Astir II Acro :)

[@spinning_cirrus]

Ah never flown in that, but in a Blanik you literally have to bully it into a spin.

[@wgmskiing]

Great video.

[@jamesfollon]

interesting and informative ... thank you

[@casaamaril]

No lack of thermals there, it should be relatively easy to reach the airfield, thanks for the informative video

[@mikemorgulis9657]

this is an excellent demonstration of an over-ruddered spin, which can catch any one of us by accident if we're concentrating on something else, or if we react too quickly to something in a thermal. What can also catch the unaware is a straight-string spin, flying perfectly coordinated but at a slow airspeed. After watching this video, our club brought both spin-entries into the springtime check ride. It also sneaks up on you and has fewer pre-spin symptoms than the skidded turn. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bV64gICKithqrqM Although the plane in this video is a Puchacz, the same can happen in any other sailplane once you bleed off the speed in a turn. The higher the bank angle, the higher the stall speed. Straight strings don't prevent spins!!!

[@mikefox5284]

No - straight strings don't prevent spins, but you get an awful lot more warning of the stall and spin if the string is straight in a turn. The nose is higher, you get a lengthier and deeper buffet, and the controls feel different for longer. Thanks for the comments. Where do you fly? By the way I have spun the Puchacz thousands of times during instructor training, and you can get it to spin the opposite way to the turn with top rudder. Great fun!

[@gerryfletcher4686]

As others have said, great video and thanks for posting. So.... did you get back? I hate spinning and dread my annual flying review. Last time I practiced spinning in Puchacz, I didn't recover properly and it went the other way. Couldn't resist putting the video on KZbin.

[@grahambambrook313]

I believe the Puchacz is prone to spin reversal, though I do not have first hand experience.

[@hpmaxim]

I've never seen spin recoveries that were that... benign... How much altitude was lost?

[@will15280]

Nice video Mike, but you only give the case of over-ruddered turns versus string in the middle. Why not do a separate video explaining under-ruddered and why a lot of types climb better and seem safer that way. Correct me if I am wrong, but most of the types I have flown feel safer when under-ruddered (even compared to string in the middle). I have no empirical evidence to prove this, only my experience of how it feels. I have also not found a type that doesn't climb better with a bit of top rudder.

[@henrih3080]

In theory the glider should climb a little bit with the string in the middle! During the hakw 3d wind variometer test flights they compared thermaling with different amounts of side slip angle

[@go2cloudbase]

Again, thanks for the video. Can you comment on the CG location during this flight if it is unusual in any way? This video is getting some traffic among glider pilots for how demonstrative it is. I've got a couple hundred hours in a 4 and thought it was not possible for it to enter a spin so dramatically (I tried). Can you comment on the CG location during this flight if it is unusual in any way?

[@mikefox5284]

CG was about 5cm in front of rear limit. I have been able to spin it when it was nearer the middle of the range. I find all gliders spin the best from the over-ruddered entry flown here. The oldschool raising the nose and kicking on the rudder is not so effective. 4 is the best - been flying mine for about 15 years, and have nearly 1k hrs in it. Keep thinking about changing, but what would be the point!?

[@nob0dy27_]

number 1 tip for avoiding spins: monitor your airspeed!

[@TomKirkman1]

I assume you were showing a spin caused by skidding the glider. Bad deal if you're making final turn into landing.

[@iansimmonds9076]

Did you make it back? :)

[@mikefox5284]

Yup!

[@iansimmonds9076]

Well done Foxxy - knew you had plenty amoregas in the tank :)

[@gooshidildos2635]

minimum manoeuvring speed

[@dannycochrane4330]

Don't stall you dont spin