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Experienced my first spin yesterday


rbridges

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2 hours ago, MyNameIsNobody said:

What was your altitude?  We were only at 3000.  I won’t do stalls that low anymore.  I will do them, but not that low.  Most instructors don’t know what Mooney’s act like in a stall spin scenario.  I feel I need to educate and respect them for both of us.

About 2000 AGL in a 150.  Won’t do stalls that low again.

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I had a new to me instructor for my last BFR. He hadn't been in a Mooney in decades. He said perform a stall to the first warning. I slowly pulled the throttle back raising the nose, then the throttle came back far enough for the gear warning horn. He though it was the stall horn and told me I could recover. Easiest stall recovery ever.

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I went in my friends Pitts here in San Diego and he took me through all the acrobatic maneuvers. It was a blast when it was at my pace and control. Then he started talking to me about the acrobatic routines and how violent it gets in the cockpit. I asked why was that and he said it was because you are performing for the audience and judges. Everything has to be quick, sharp and precise. I asked him to take controls and do a routine for me. I made it about 3 minutes before I called it quits! Not only was I starting to feel sick but I couldn’t keep my head from hitting the sides of the canopy. It is crazy how physically demanding it is own you. Unfortunately he ended up dying in a performance using a plane that was not his. His plane was still being shipped back from an air show in Europe he competed in so he borrowed a plane. It is thought that a control linkage had failed. His wife still flies their Bravo that is hangared a few hangars down from me.

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If they are rigged right they will stall straight ahead. If not they can snap roll. Unfortunately I know this for a fact.

So if your 40+ year old plane is rigged correctly, if you are perfectly coordinated, if you approach a stall gently...you can get it to stall straight ahead. And don’t forget we get the announcement “lets do a stall”.
In real world you don’t get a the cfi announcement, if you are mistakenly stalling the plane you probably are not coordinated, etc
You are going to get a wing drop, since this almost always happens at less than 1000’, you never are going get a chance to recover from a spin. We are not accomplishing anything in my opinion with this type of practice.
I would let student just yank the plane into a stall.
1. Will teach them that stalls are to be avoided
2. I would teach incipient spin recovery, with the requirement that the student recovers within 500’
3. Would practice recognition of slow flight characteristics.
I see no value of teaching stalls except during landings.
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47 minutes ago, teejayevans said:


So if your 40+ year old plane is rigged correctly, if you are perfectly coordinated, if you approach a stall gently...you can get it to stall straight ahead. And don’t forget we get the announcement “lets do a stall”.
In real world you don’t get a the cfi announcement, if you are mistakenly stalling the plane you probably are not coordinated, etc
You are going to get a wing drop, since this almost always happens at less than 1000’, you never are going get a chance to recover from a spin. We are not accomplishing anything in my opinion with this type of practice.
I would let student just yank the plane into a stall.
1. Will teach them that stalls are to be avoided
2. I would teach incipient spin recovery, with the requirement that the student recovers within 500’
3. Would practice recognition of slow flight characteristics.
I see no value of teaching stalls except during landings.

I do see a benefit of teaching stalls, but not accelerated stalls in the Mooney.  You are just about guaranteed to go into a spin if you accelerate into the stall.  Gently approaching the stall from my experience will show the tendency of the plane to drop off on a wing.  At the burble, if the plane is not rigged just perfectly one wing will start to go over.  At this point it is easy to recover.  From this experiment you will know that it is not a good idea to go to the stall in your landing.  I've had students whose plane had a tendency to drop a wing do the same just before touchdown and when they had misjudged their height above the runway.  I've never had a wing hit the ground, but once did come close.  All the new planes pretty much stall straight ahead.  Some of the older ones don't.  For those that don't it's a good idea to get to your friendly Mooney Service Center and get the plane re-rigged.

BTW, when calibrating an AOA, you need to go to the stall to be able to setup the donut for 1.3 Vso.

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3 hours ago, teejayevans said:


So if your 40+ year old plane is rigged correctly, if you are perfectly coordinated, if you approach a stall gently...you can get it to stall straight ahead. And don’t forget we get the announcement “lets do a stall”.
In real world you don’t get a the cfi announcement, if you are mistakenly stalling the plane you probably are not coordinated, etc
You are going to get a wing drop, since this almost always happens at less than 1000’, you never are going get a chance to recover from a spin. We are not accomplishing anything in my opinion with this type of practice.
I would let student just yank the plane into a stall.
1. Will teach them that stalls are to be avoided
2. I would teach incipient spin recovery, with the requirement that the student recovers within 500’
3. Would practice recognition of slow flight characteristics.
I see no value of teaching stalls except during landings.

I wasn’t talking about pilot technique. I’m talking about approaching the stall perfectly coordinated and having the plane roll inverted violently with no warning. That shouldn’t happen. That same plane now gently stalls straight ahead with a pre-stall buffet like it should. 

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19 hours ago, rbridges said:

Probably less than a complete turn, but it's amazing how much stuff can fly through your head in an instance. 

Happily, it sounds more like an "incipient spin".  Good job on the early recognition/recovery.  That's the best recovery.

From what I have heard, once a Mooney enters a fully deveoped spin, a recovery within the first turn is unusual.

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If anyone needs a stall, spin ,inverted loop et.confidence builder, just Google, U-Tube Svetlana Kapanina. One of her quotes, "The procedure itself is very easy, to score a 10 is the challenge".

Now to settle the Ford Chevrolet argument, did you neutralize the stick or push the stick forward?

The military teaches, fast forward, while most civilian CFI"s seem to neutralize.

Best,

 

 

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11 hours ago, donkaye said:

I do see a benefit of teaching stalls, but not accelerated stalls in the Mooney.  You are just about guaranteed to go into a spin if you accelerate into the stall.  Gently approaching the stall from my experience will show the tendency of the plane to drop off on a wing.  At the burble, if the plane is not rigged just perfectly one wing will start to go over.  At this point it is easy to recover.  From this experiment you will know that it is not a good idea to go to the stall in your landing.  I've had students whose plane had a tendency to drop a wing do the same just before touchdown and when they had misjudged their height above the runway.  I've never had a wing hit the ground, but once did come close.  All the new planes pretty much stall straight ahead.  Some of the older ones don't.  For those that don't it's a good idea to get to your friendly Mooney Service Center and get the plane re-rigged.

BTW, when calibrating an AOA, you need to go to the stall to be able to setup the donut for 1.3 Vso.

Don, during my Commercial training we did accelerated stalls while turning.  The wing did drop one time, but we never entered a spin (recovered by unloading the wing (release back pressure), picking up the wing with rudder, and then power. 

I did insist that since we were flying a Mooney, and though we could do stalls at 3,000 feet, I'd rather do them at 5,000+ feet due to the spin characteristics of a Mooney and that we are to avoid spins.  He agreed.

The DPE said not to worry and we did power off straight ahead stalls at 3,000 feet.  During the check-ride those were the only stalls.  No power ons, no accelerated, and there were other maneuvers he skipped as well.

 

-Seth

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Happily, it sounds more like an "incipient spin".  Good job on the early recognition/recovery.  That's the best recovery.
From what I have heard, once a Mooney enters a fully deveoped spin, a recovery within the first turn is unusual.


I had the delight of being in a full spin in a Mooney. I was getting my complex checkout at a flight school that had a J. The instructor was a Doogie Houser, fresh out of one of those CFI cutter schools. There were warning signs, he didn’t know the speeds, could explain the emergency gear extension, etc.

We did a series of straight ahead stalls that went fine. Then he wanted to do departure stalls using full power. I can remember how quickly it snapped over and we did at least 2 turns before I recovered it. We were looking up at trees during the climb out. I also saw that Doogie had a new ashen complexion. I think whomever mentioned about the rigging was right. This was a beater of a J and didn’t fly straight well.

Of course, being the glutton for punishment, after I got 10 hours in for the sign off, I let a woman working on her CFI convince me to fly left seat. I don’t do well when a woman yells in my ears “brakes, brakes!!” when I had already decided that landing halfway down a snow covered 2600’ runway called for a go around.

Oh, the stupid things we do in our youth...


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I have done quite a bit of deep stall, spin and unusual attitude recovery training -- but all in aerobatic aircraft.  Namely, Pitts, Zlin, T-6, and Extras.  I am a big proponent of such training -- particularly of experiencing accelerated and cross-controlled stalls and recovery.   Ironically, I hate doing stalls in my Mooney.  Scares the crap out of me.  Go figure.    

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I think it creates the wrong muscle memory and habits to have the stall warning going off and have the instructor saying pull back just a little bit more.   If the stall horn beeps the first maneuver should be to push forward.  Beep   Push forward   Beeep Push forward.   Doing simulated push over when the fan quits have more value that doing stalls.   Saved me.

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29 minutes ago, Yetti said:

I think it creates the wrong muscle memory and habits to have the stall warning going off and have the instructor saying pull back just a little bit more.   If the stall horn beeps the first maneuver should be to push forward.  Beep   Push forward   Beeep Push forward.   Doing simulated push over when the fan quits have more value that doing stalls.   Saved me.

In slow flight my stall horn is almost constant.

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55 minutes ago, MyNameIsNobody said:

In slow flight my stall horn is almost constant.

Mine, too. But now the FAA recommends just fast enough to shut the buzzer off. Spoils the fun of fkying with someone new who thinks Mooneys can't fly slow, but "since you did that, there's no way you can turn."

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47 minutes ago, Hank said:

Mine, too. But now the FAA recommends just fast enough to shut the buzzer off. Spoils the fun of fkying with someone new who thinks Mooneys can't fly slow, but "since you did that, there's no way you can turn."

I didn’t even look outside.  I would just keep ball centered and do a super slow turn to whatever direction CFI instructed.

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1 minute ago, MyNameIsNobody said:

I didn’t even look outside.  I would just keep ball centered and do a super slow turn to whatever direction CFI instructed.

You've gotta look outside! "Let's go towards that power plant over there," pointing out his side window, is hard to do with your eyes glued to the panel. But it does require much more attention than normal VFR flight. 

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9 hours ago, Hank said:

You've gotta look outside! "Let's go towards that power plant over there," pointing out his side window, is hard to do with your eyes glued to the panel. But it does require much more attention than normal VFR flight. 

And yet I did not :)

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I had a similar 'wing drop' when I was doing my transition training after I bought my Mooney.  I can say, it doesn't take much off center to cause a significant wing drop.  I was focused on keeping the ball centered as we approached a power on stall but not perfectly centered and then it happened.  The left wing dropped away.  Scared the living bejesus out of me since I was expecting it to fall straight forward like every other stall I've ever done.  I recovered with no issue and we did it again with no issue.  Long term, I'm glad it happened.  I know what it feels like, and I know how to successfuly and reflexively recover in my Mooney should the worst happen again.  The instructor wanted to do stalls on my BFR and I absolutely refused unless we had a good VFR day and could get really high.  There was no way I was going to 'train' my plane into a crash.

I can tell another story from many years go.  I was flying again after a bit of a break.  I was young and thought stall training was silly.  Something that was done becuase you had to.  I couldn't understand why anyone could/would ignore the evidence of a stall and do nothing.  That's when it happened.  I was on approach and was sinking a bit faster than I wanted to and without realizing it, I was holding backpressure on the yoke to try to slow ths decent slightly and the stall horn blared and I felt the shake of an impending stall.  Without thinking, full power, nose down and go around.  No issues other than stained pants (not really).  I then had a whole new appreciation of 1) how quickly it can happen if you aren't dilligent, 2) how imporant it is to build the reflex to recover, and 3) how important it is to stay proficient, not just current.

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1 hour ago, bob865 said:

I had a similar 'wing drop' when I was doing my transition training after I bought my Mooney.  I can say, it doesn't take much off center to cause a significant wing drop.  I was focused on keeping the ball centered as we approached a power on stall but not perfectly centered and then it happened.  The left wing dropped away.  Scared the living bejesus out of me since I was expecting it to fall straight forward like every other stall I've ever done.  I recovered with no issue and we did it again with no issue.  Long term, I'm glad it happened.  I know what it feels like, and I know how to successfuly and reflexively recover in my Mooney should the worst happen again.  The instructor wanted to do stalls on my BFR and I absolutely refused unless we had a good VFR day and could get really high.  There was no way I was going to 'train' my plane into a crash.

 

Honestly, that's pretty normal. I've taught in a lot of short and mid body Mooneys and a lot have a fair amount of roll off.

I often do the first stall with a student in an unfamiliar Mooney just so I get a sense of how much roll off that particular plane has.

Another issue I see is that many pilots and instructors don't know how to recognize a Mooney stall and pull it far deeper beyond critical AOA. Once the nose is coming down while you are pulling back, that is a full stall. Its not necessary to continue to pull deeper until you get the dramatic nose drop.

-Robert

Edited by RobertGary1
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