Taking Mooney for a Spin (poll)

[BigTex]

Famous last words....When the Jet pilot "Byron" tells you not to approach spins , and everybody that has inadvertently had the unfortunate experience to be in one tell you how bad it is , and the manufacturer of the aircraft tells you not to..   I think you should listen to big Tex who says power on stalls are no big deal........ 

I've done my share of spins... Likely much more than Jet Pilot Byron... Stalls are apart of flight and should not be feared.  But maybe you are right... when "Jet Pilot Byron" tells us something we all should get down on one knee and listen... Whatever.

[Cris]

Spins should not be attempted for all the reasons cited. Unfortunately many Mooney pilots are also fearful of practicing stalls. Assuming the A/C is rigged properly and the BALL is CENTERED the A/C will not enter into a spin. In my experience what I see happen is that as the student gets close to the stall he/she is looking out the window and not glancing at the ball or worse has their feet on the floor as opposed to the rudder pedals. I am watching that student like a hawk to be certain they are coordinated and this is the single biggest issue I find necessary to correct when practicing stalls. Fact is most pilots do not get close to slow flight except on touchdown and seem oblivious to the rudder in order to remain coordinated. Stalls are not inherently dangerous but terribly unforgiving in done incorrectly.

[Piloto]

Back in 1985 I did spin testing with the FAA pilot in a Mooney M20F for the certification of long range tanks. The FAA pilot was Lucy Young, a Navy Top Gun see details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Young A very charming lady with impressive flying skills and personality 

 

We did 49 spins in different flight configurations as per FAA spin matrix. All off them at full gross weight with aft CG (sand bags in baggage area). We both were wearing parachutes. The cabin door was rigged for quick ejection. The testing took two full days. We could only be aloft one hour before refueling to keep the tanks full. The test were performed at 10,000 feet. 

 

The FAA found the Mooney to be in compliance with FAR 23.221  http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgFAR.nsf/0/78909ED5A6DBEB9485256687006D0568?OpenDocument  When long range tanks were installed.

 

Unlike a C150 a Mooney will take at least half a turn or more to recover after antispin controls are applied. On the average you will loose about 1000 ft. Spin recovery is a function of angular momentum. The more fuel you have the longer the recovery. This is why the spin test was required.

 

We also performed fly tests beyond Vne to verify no flutter condition. Even though the GVT test showed flutter at 600kts

 

It was quite an experience and I felt very comfortable flying the Mooney.

 

José 

 

 

[RJBrown]

 The quick spin recovery noted above might be because of the light weight and the forward balance with 2 in front. Try the same manuver at gross with the weight biased to the rear and it might not be so "easy"

 The prohibition for spins in the owners manual is there for a reason. Keeps pilots from Dieing.

  All certification tests are run at the worst possible configuration. For spins that would be at gross at the rear balance limit. At that configuration some spins could become unrecoverable.

  DONT tempt fate. NO "Fricken way"

[wiseng]

For my own education I looked on the NTSB database for the last 5 years to see If there were any fatal accidents in Mooney's that were attributed to unrecoverable spin scenarios.  I was not able to find anything.  Maybe  I need to go back farther..  

 

There was some stall, controlled flight into terrain, loss of control,  but nothing about problems with unrecoverable spins.  Has anyone heard of spin related crashes?

[Dave Marten]

But in normal operation I treat it like a jet. Never stall the airplane during flight.

 

What? Be careful with dropping aerodynamic absolutes- IE, 'never stall a jet'. Not true. Instead try: Avoid prohibited maneuvers as published in the flight manual or other operational guidance.

 

OK, if you're talking about during the course of routine flight operations you should avoid stalling the airplane...yes, good tip.

 

BUT, we all should be comfortable performing both power on and power off stalls in our Mooneys. WIth a competent CFI if you're uncomfortable.

 

Back to spins in the Mooney (or any other aircraft where intentional spins are prohibited). NEVER intentionally set out to go for a spin in your Mooney outside of an approved flight test program.

[Marauder]

For my own education I looked on the NTSB database for the last 5 years to see If there were any fatal accidents in Mooney's that were attributed to unrecoverable spin scenarios. I was not able to find anything. Maybe I need to go back farther.. There was some stall, controlled flight into terrain, loss of control, but nothing about problems with unrecoverable spins. Has anyone heard of spin related crashes?

Look up N9596M

[mike_elliott]

I had to do a cross controlled stall under the hood for my CFI ride with an FAA guy. When he asked me to demonstrate it, I looked at him like "do you know you are sitting in a Mooney?".  After it dropped a wing and began the rotation, I quickly recovered, but I knew it was coming. If it were a surprise, we would have went to a place I wouldn't want to go. Do not try this, as it is NOT for the faint of heart. And this was done in a plane I know intimately, my aluminum mistress.

[Alan Fox]

I've done my share of spins... Likely much more than Jet Pilot Byron... Stalls are apart of flight and should not be feared.  But maybe you are right... when "Jet Pilot Byron" tells us something we all should get down on one knee and listen... Whatever.

Whatever , when some inexperienced pilot comes to this board , for advice and info and reads that its no big deal , and trys and dies , its no big deal......

[aaronk25]

Spins should not be attempted for all the reasons cited. Unfortunately many Mooney pilots are also fearful of practicing stalls. Assuming the A/C is rigged properly and the BALL is CENTERED the A/C will not enter into a spin. In my experience what I see happen is that as the student gets close to the stall he/she is looking out the window and not glancing at the ball or worse has their feet on the floor as opposed to the rudder pedals. I am watching that student like a hawk to be certain they are coordinated and this is the single biggest issue I find necessary to correct when practicing stalls. Fact is most pilots do not get close to slow flight except on touchdown and seem oblivious to the rudder in order to remain coordinated. Stalls are not inherently dangerous but terribly unforgiving in done incorrectly.

"THE A/C WILL NOT ENTER A SPIN". what the heck are you smoking?????? Even with the ball centered if action isn't immediately taken to break the stall once the a/c starts to nose over in the stall the pilot following your advice is going for a hell of a ride.

I thought at one point a mooney would stall like a warrior/archer where as long as the ball is centered the yoke could be pulled all the way back and the air plane would stay level and buffet down gently like a leaf. Just try doing that in a mooney and your ass will he upside down in the spin cycle

You might be able to hold it in stall condition for a couple seconds but that ball won't stay centered for long as the rudder input will increasingly become more to keep the wings from dropping and then ya know what happens? The rudder eventually runs out of authority and weeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[aaronk25]

I will say stalls are safe in a mooney if recovery takes place immediately at the onset of the stall. But really what are we teaching here? I suppose that we teach that a high performance a/c isn't going to stall like a trainer so respect it??? Not sure there is a lot of value in that.

They don't go out at practice stalling 747s. May a ride in a sim but I'd speculate during sim training trey might make the pilot approach a stall or recover after stock shaker but they don't put it into a deep uncontrollable stall/spin.

Fly the mooney like a 747 and all will be good.

[jetdriven]

Actually you recover at the shaker which gives you a ~10 knot margin until a true stall. Then you firewall it and maintain altitude and use increasing airspeed to fly out of the stall. Well, until my last PC check, anyways. Now some higher-ups at the FAA have decided to change the recovery procedure to what you see in small airplanes, shove the nose down, unload the wing, get the airspeed, then bring the nose up and recover. It isn't working so well, because now when you attempt to raise the nose it loads the wing and you get a secondary stall which is quite surprising. Just like a mooney, really.

[AlanA]

I stalled my J while under the hood practicing IFR stalls with an instructor. The abrupt wing drop scared the instructor so bad which then scared me. I was afraid to even practice after having seeing his fear. I mentioned this months later to a CFI friend familiar with Mooneys and he reassured me that it was because my instructor was use to trainers and didn't understand that the wing of a performance plane is different. It stalls much faster or all at once rather than very slowly like the trainers.

I went up for my Biannal with my CFI and practiced bad stalls of all kinds for almost two hours. Best instruction I ever received. I am much more confident about stalls but still only practice with lots of altitude below. I still give them lots of respect and would never purposely let a stall proceed to a spin. However all the talk about flat spins has me worried again. I need to get more information about fat spins. That's why this forum is sooo good. Just when you think you know what you are doing you find out there is more to learn. Thanks everyone!

[carusoam]

Something to study up on,

Forward CG helps avoid flat spins...

Rear CG, like with passengers in the back, is more challenging for recovery.

Best regards,

-a-

[Shadrach]

I only have about 500hrs in an F model, but I had no idea it was a death machine until I came here.   Being ignorant of the fact that I was cheating death, I have been doing both departure and power off stalls in the airplane for the better part of a decade.   I dislike departure stalls because it will hang at some rather obscene angles before it will break.  I do full break power off stalls under the hood for every BFR.   I liked Don Ks article, but I think that some of you all are using his article to justify something that has nothing to do with the article.  Don intentionally took off with an airplane full of people and set about doing cross controlled stalls...that's as close as you come to pro spin control inputs without actually putting in pro spin control inputs.  His article makes no mention of the danger of stalling a Mooney in coordinated flight.  He does say that he has stopped routinely giving cross controlled stall instruction in Mooneys and that one should be very current when embarking on such an endeavor.  However, no one here is suggesting such an endeavor...I certainly wouldn't.  If your airplane is a monster that tries to kill you during a coordinated straight and level power off stall, then have the rigging checked, including the gear doors.  I have had the left wing drop to about 90 degrees during a partial flap, gear down stall, but I believe that was due to asymmetric fuel load (I had run the right dry in anticipation of opening up the tank the following week). Even in that case, opposing rudder and forward elevator brought about the desired result in a comfortable way and in less than 500 ft.

 

I do think Byron is correct in suggesting that you put plenty of space between you and the ground the first time you do it in a new to you Mooney. I would add that having a spin trained pilot along would be obligatory. If there are issues with the flight charectoristics, you want as much time to sort it out as possible. Better to know than to not know...

 

I also found Jose's real world experience interesting, not that anyone even acknowledged his post or the experience within it. Flying is serious business, and there are risks involved, but chanting "you'll shoot your eye out" does not really help anyone.

[adrian]

Interesting input from piloto. All Mooneys will have had to demonstrate safe and predictable spin recoveries with standard control inputs as part of their certification, so there shouldn't be any surprises - not that I have any intention of experimenting.

Fortunately thanks to YouTube we can all watch a spin.... looks like an F model, with a teenage boy in the right seat being filmed by his dad in the back. The pilot demonstrates a stall, then spins from 2,800ft - inadvertently if one believes the boy's comments below the video, but who knows?

[fantom]

It's sometimes better to be lucky than be good. That video has been debated for some time. I suspect the instructors underwear had to be burned.

[kmyfm20s]

Back in 1985 I did spin testing with the FAA pilot in a Mooney M20F for the certification of long range tanks. The FAA pilot was Lucy Young, a Navy Top Gun see details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Young A very charming lady with impressive flying skills and personality 

 

We did 49 spins in different flight configurations as per FAA spin matrix. All off them at full gross weight with aft CG (sand bags in baggage area). We both were wearing parachutes. The cabin door was rigged for quick ejection. The testing took two full days. We could only be aloft one hour before refueling to keep the tanks full. The test were performed at 10,000 feet. 

 

The FAA found the Mooney to be in compliance with FAR 23.221  http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgFAR.nsf/0/78909ED5A6DBEB9485256687006D0568?OpenDocument  When long range tanks were installed.

 

Unlike a C150 a Mooney will take at least half a turn or more to recover after antispin controls are applied. On the average you will loose about 1000 ft. Spin recovery is a function of angular momentum. The more fuel you have the longer the recovery. This is why the spin test was required.

 

We also performed fly tests beyond Vne to verify no flutter condition. Even though the GVT test showed flutter at 600kts

 

It was quite an experience and I felt very comfortable flying the Mooney.

 

José

Jose,

Did your spin recovery control inputs differ in any way than other trainers? Could you give us use a step by step? I think it could be be valuable for us Mooney pilots.

Thank you!

[Carl S]

I love doing spins. I've done ten turn, fully developed spins to the left. I've done them to the right. I've even done them inverted. I love spins -- in an airplane properly designed to do them.

In a Mooney? I've read enough of other's exploits to convince me that I don't even want to try. I do practice stalls but recover at first sign of a wing break. Never had the classic roll over but have had the wing drop out PDQ.

< edit > My training was in Super Decathlon, Citabria, and a little Pitts S2B < \edit >

[Piloto]

Jose,

Did your spin recovery control inputs differ in any way than other trainers? Could you give us use a step by step? I think it could be be valuable for us Mooney pilots.

Thank you!

 

There is no difference on anti spin control procedures, check the POH for recovery procedures. But unlike a C150 a Mooney will not stop rotation right away, so hold the nose down and rudder until rotation stops and then recover from the dive. Recovery time and altitude also depends on how much fuel you have onboard. The more fuel the longer the recovery. Best way is to avoid the stall/spin condition. Specially when turning base to final were most spin accidents happens. When on downwind allow 1nm parallel distance from the runway so you do not have to do a tight turn when turning base. and then to final. A tight turn at slow speed is a receipt for a spin condition. The Mooney simply will not recover safely from a spin at pattern altitude. Practicing spin recovery is futile because the plane will not recover at low altitude. I keep 85kts or higher before turning final.

 

José      

[RJBrown]

I love doing spins. I've done ten turn, fully developed spins to the left. I've done them to the right. I've even done them inverted. I love spins -- in an airplane properly designed to do them.

In a Mooney? I've read enough of other's exploits to convince me that I don't even want to try. I do practice stalls but recover at first sign of a wing break. Never had the classic roll over but have had the wing drop out PDQ.

< edit > My training was in Super Decathlon, Citabria, and a little Pitts S2B < \edit >

And this is pretty much it on spinning Mooneys. DONT.

[jetdriven]

There is no difference on anti spin control procedures, check the POH for recovery procedures. But unlike a C150 a Mooney will not stop rotation right away, so hold the nose down and rudder until rotation stops and then recover from the dive. Recovery time and altitude also depends on how much fuel you have onboard. The more fuel the longer the recovery. Best way is to avoid the stall/spin condition. Specially when turning base to final were most spin accidents happens. When on downwind allow 1nm parallel distance from the runway so you do not have to do a tight turn when turning base. and then to final. A tight turn at slow speed is a receipt for a spin condition. The Mooney simply will not recover safely from a spin at pattern altitude. Practicing spin recovery is futile because the plane will not recover at low altitude. I keep 85kts or higher before turning final.

 

José      

 

I fly a tighter pattern, 1/2 NM or less from the runway on downwind, and my standard bank angle is 30-45 degrees.   You can bank  60 degrees  in level flight, (2G) and the stall speed is 83 knots (95 MPH) with flaps 15 and gear down at full gross weight.  There is plenty of maneuver margin already at a 75-80 knot airspeed.

[Hank]

I also fly a ½-mile pattern [the runway is a little inside the wingtip], but my bank angle never reaches 30º. I don't use the PC Cutoff button, and the extra resistance reminds me to bank gently in the pattern. Vintage speeds are 90 mph, rolling level on final at 85 mph, slowing to 70-75 by weight over the numbers.

[Shadrach]

I too fly tighter patterns, and have even been know to use bank angle to deplete energy when solo. Know your margins and stick to them, there is no perfect approach/pattern speed that works for every flight, every day. The only pattern speed for me that is always the same is 120mph which is gear speed and my goal is to be there by the time I'm abeam the numbers.

[oldn0tded]

I almost passed this up, thinking I had little to add to the conversation. BUUUUT in the end, couldn't resist adding my experience:

 

I was working on MCA, fully configured for landing (gear out, full flaps), felt the burble at 65mph, indicated, and held on for a few more seconds trying to squeeze out a couple of more MPH. At 60mph, I decided this was all I could get, I gently applied power for the stall recovery, and she broke loose.

 

Some background, I have lotsa of hours and a few type ratings, I have done spin training and had practiced MCA and stalls in my airplane before. All this is to say, I thought I knew my airplane and was entirely comfortable with what I was doing.

 

The airplane rolled 90 degrees to the left and dropped the nose vertical, with a left handed rotation. I applied right rudder (anti spin, as per my prior experience and training), which had no immediate affect. I eased rudder pressure slightly, briefly thinking I was applying incorrect inputs, then reapplied full right rudder, and pulled off the small amount of power I had added initially. After roughly a turn and a half the rotation stopped and I pulled out of the dive.

 

My lesson(s), and I only offer this to people that will hear it for what it is:

1. It's my opinion every Mooney pilot should experience this, at least once. I know I'm glad to know what the stall/spin scenario actually looks like

2. IF you elect to do this, be sure to have plenty of altitude. I'd suggest at least 5k AGL

3. As per the manual, stall recovery is pitch first (lower the nose), then power!

 

As I indicated, I'm glad I got to see this and live to tell about it. After experiencing the stall/spin, it's easy for me to understand how pilots die in the "base turn to final" stall/spin scenario. I learned a LOT that day, not the least of which is, "God takes care of fools and children"

 

Respectfully,

Oldnotdead, it's more than a screen name.