Paperless transactions

[charlie]

Cessna 172s were called a doctors airplane because they were very
forgiving. Supposedly they recovered from a "normal" spin by themselves.
The vertical stall must have actually caused the plane to go backwards
after the stall. I soloed in one, old 666xray in the middle sixties.
It was about a 59 model.

 

[Joe Morris]

Cessna 172s were called a doctors airplane because they were very
forgiving. Supposedly they recovered from a "normal" spin by themselves.
The vertical stall must have actually caused the plane to go backwards
after the stall. I soloed in one, old 666xray in the middle sixties.
It was about a 59 model.

That's true of just about all of the SE Cessnas used for flight training.
It's not particularly difficult to convince a 15x to spin, but if it's
properly loaded it doesn't take much more than thinking about backing off on
the hard rudder position to get it to break out of the spin and into a steep
dive. Of course, if you happen to enter the spin at low altitude you may
not have sufficient time to do anything but say "Oh, #" (that's the way the
NTSB crash investigators transcribe the de-facto standard last word on the
cockpit voice recorder).

You still need to be trained to respond to a spin: generally it's throttle
to idle, rudder opposite to the direction of the spin, stick full forward
(this last is counter-intuitive: the airplane is in a steep nose-down
attitude and you want me to push the stick *forward*, making it *more*
nose-down?. Yup.) And sometimes it's not easy to figure out which way is
"opposite" to the direction of the spin; the ball in the turn indicator may
point to the spin or away from it, depending on where it is on the panel and
the precise parameters of the spin. Bill Kershner, aka "The Spin Doctor,"
had a nice film of a spin where he had two T&B instruments in the panel,
both of the balls at the end of the glass but in opposite directions.

Incidentally, if any of the pilots here ever used Kershner's training
manuals, or better yet, ever managed to take his aerobatic classes, his
Aerobat is now in the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy
buiding at Dulles. After his death Betty (his widow) donated it; it's all
spiffed up on the outside but his notes to the student are still taped above
the pilot's door.

Joe

 

[charlie]

That's true of just about all of the SE Cessnas used for flight training.
It's not particularly difficult to convince a 15x to spin, but if it's
properly loaded it doesn't take much more than thinking about backing off on
the hard rudder position to get it to break out of the spin and into a steep
dive. Of course, if you happen to enter the spin at low altitude you may
not have sufficient time to do anything but say "Oh, #" (that's the way the
NTSB crash investigators transcribe the de-facto standard last word on the
cockpit voice recorder).

You still need to be trained to respond to a spin: generally it's throttle
to idle, rudder opposite to the direction of the spin, stick full forward
(this last is counter-intuitive: the airplane is in a steep nose-down
attitude and you want me to push the stick *forward*, making it *more*
nose-down?. Yup.) And sometimes it's not easy to figure out which way is
"opposite" to the direction of the spin; the ball in the turn indicator may
point to the spin or away from it, depending on where it is on the panel and
the precise parameters of the spin. Bill Kershner, aka "The Spin Doctor,"
had a nice film of a spin where he had two T&B instruments in the panel,
both of the balls at the end of the glass but in opposite directions.

Incidentally, if any of the pilots here ever used Kershner's training
manuals, or better yet, ever managed to take his aerobatic classes, his
Aerobat is now in the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy
buiding at Dulles. After his death Betty (his widow) donated it; it's all
spiffed up on the outside but his notes to the student are still taped above
the pilot's door.

Joe

Back in the early 60's dark ages, spin training and recovery was
mandatory for primary students. One of my primary instructors was an old
WWII contract instructor, the other a corporate pilot. The instruction
style and manner of flying was quite different. Fly by the "numbers" vs
visual awareness and dead reckoning first, then the numbers.

The instructor I most enjoyed was an aerobatic instructor and spray
pilot. Unfortunately, he, the spray plane, and a power line tangled,
with the power line winning. The chief instructor at the local FBO was
also the area designated FAA examiner, and a "hoot" to fly with.

I once belonged to a flying club that owned a Cessna 140. It was of an
era that "Normal" class aircraft were not required to recover from a
spin when you let go of the controls. For the most part, the then later
172s were. I also don't miss the "coffee grinder" vacuum tube and split
frequency radios of the time.