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Chock · 25 October 2009, 05:30 PM

Continued...

In case you don't know, to recover from a spin (which is when one wing stalls before the other, making the aircraft fall like a sycamore seed as one wing tries to keep flying whilst the other one drops), you stop the autorotation by applying full opposite rudder, then centralise the rudder and push the stick forward to dive the aircraft and unstall the wings, whereupon you regain flying speed and can then pull out of the dive you are in.

All of those recovery moves which you have to apply on the controls are far from intuitive, and unless you know what to do, it seems that the obvious thing to try would be to apply opposite aileron and up elevator to stop what appears to be a rolling dive. Unfortunately, that's the worst thing you could do, and actually makes the spin even more severe. Neither will pulling back on the stick alone help, which is the other thing it might seem obvious to try, as that too will not unstall the wing. It was probably many a desperate fledgling flyer that drilled himself into the ground in 1916 whilst trying these futile efforts, because many of their instructors either had not told them what to do, or simply did not know for themselves, what to do. This was a situation which famously repeated itself when inexperienced pilots flew the very torquey Sopwith Camel.

Edward Mannock was one such pilot who had that happen, he had been taught for some of his flying training by Jimmy McCudden, and McCudden had told him that you could recover the DH2 from a spin by centralising the controls and offering up a short prayer! Shortly after having been told that, Mannock did indeed get into a spin in the DH2, and followed McCudden's advice, and to his good fortune, the DH2 flicked out of the spin, whereupon Mannock just pulled out of the dive in time, very nearly crashing into a munitions factory, having cleared it by only a few feet. Whether or not Mannock chanced on kicking in some opposite rudder or shoving the stick forward is debatable, but it is true some aircraft will recover from a spin if you simply leave the controls alone (most modern training aircraft are designed to do that).

Early in his career Mannock too was guilty of some silly things with regard to choosing pilots for roles, apparently asking for one pilot for his squadron after simply seeing him make a good landing! So you can see that even those who we regard as pretty skillful had quite a bit to learn in the early days of flight.

Al

25 October 2009, 05:30 PM	#4 (permalink)
Chock Scout Pilot Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The grim north of England Posts: 405	Continued... In case you don't know, to recover from a spin (which is when one wing stalls before the other, making the aircraft fall like a sycamore seed as one wing tries to keep flying whilst the other one drops), you stop the autorotation by applying full opposite rudder, then centralise the rudder and push the stick forward to dive the aircraft and unstall the wings, whereupon you regain flying speed and can then pull out of the dive you are in. All of those recovery moves which you have to apply on the controls are far from intuitive, and unless you know what to do, it seems that the obvious thing to try would be to apply opposite aileron and up elevator to stop what appears to be a rolling dive. Unfortunately, that's the worst thing you could do, and actually makes the spin even more severe. Neither will pulling back on the stick alone help, which is the other thing it might seem obvious to try, as that too will not unstall the wing. It was probably many a desperate fledgling flyer that drilled himself into the ground in 1916 whilst trying these futile efforts, because many of their instructors either had not told them what to do, or simply did not know for themselves, what to do. This was a situation which famously repeated itself when inexperienced pilots flew the very torquey Sopwith Camel. Edward Mannock was one such pilot who had that happen, he had been taught for some of his flying training by Jimmy McCudden, and McCudden had told him that you could recover the DH2 from a spin by centralising the controls and offering up a short prayer! Shortly after having been told that, Mannock did indeed get into a spin in the DH2, and followed McCudden's advice, and to his good fortune, the DH2 flicked out of the spin, whereupon Mannock just pulled out of the dive in time, very nearly crashing into a munitions factory, having cleared it by only a few feet. Whether or not Mannock chanced on kicking in some opposite rudder or shoving the stick forward is debatable, but it is true some aircraft will recover from a spin if you simply leave the controls alone (most modern training aircraft are designed to do that). Early in his career Mannock too was guilty of some silly things with regard to choosing pilots for roles, apparently asking for one pilot for his squadron after simply seeing him make a good landing! So you can see that even those who we regard as pretty skillful had quite a bit to learn in the early days of flight. Al __________________ Wiseman: When you removed the book from the cradle, did you speak the words? Ash: Yeah, basically. Wiseman: Did you speak the exact words? Ash: Look, maybe I didn't say every single little tiny syllable, no. But basically I said them, yeah.