Sender: <marv@lancaironline.net> (Marvin Kaye)
To: lml
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 19:58:39 -0400
Message-ID: <redirect-1516513@logan.com>
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 originator="Paul Davis <pdavis@pdavis.bmc.com>"
From: "Paul Davis" <pdavis@bmc.com>
Reply-to: "Paul Davis" <pdavis@bmc.com>
Subject: Re: [LML] Legacy Spin Testing? 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 27 Jun 2002 19:27:43 EDT."
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And I promised myself I'd stay out of this.

>>>>> On Thu, 27 Jun 2002, "VALIN" == THORN, VALIN B. JSC-OM NASA
>>>>> wrote:

  VALIN> Would you, as a Legacy builder, pay $500 to provide
  VALIN> Legacy spin testing and eliminate this vital unknown?

I'd go $500 (or more) for that.  Especially if the equipment is 
"portable" (i.e. we could each hang the spin chute on our own aircraft 
for spin testing.)

I had a draft e-mail asking about just what you're proposing.  Didn't
send it because I didn't think it would get anything but ridicule.
Several folks seem to think that I'm daft for worrying about this is
the first place.

I'd love to be more comfortable stalling the airplane.

Hey.  I'm not opposed to doing stalls OR spins.  I'd done spins before
my first solo and have done stalls and/or spins ever since -- when I
knew the stall/spin characteristics of the aircraft.  I'm just not a
test pilot.  Even with a parachute I'm not sure I could get out of the
Legacy in time and not eager to watch $100,000 and a lot of work smack
the ground even from the safety of a chute.

Even though the AVWeb articles raises doubt about whether or not
extensive stall training (stall/spin training if you prefer) actually
reduces accidents, I'd still do it in the Legacy IF I had some
confidence either that inadvertent spins aren't likely or that spins
are recoverable.  That's all I'm asking for.  Otherwise I plan to not
practice full stalls in the Legacy, practice initiating recovery at
the first sign of the stall, continue to do full stalls and spins in
other aircraft whose spin behavior IS well characterized.  I suspect
that practicing full stalls isn't going to do much more than incipient
stalls to improve my stall recognition.  And if I've been so far
behind a high-performance airplane that I've managed to stall it at
low altitude, I'm not going to "suddenly" get sharp enough to recover
before I hit the ground anyway.

Since I've already broken a promise to myself about not posting 
further on this topic I have a couple of related questions.

1.  When preparing for that first flight have any of you, or do any 
of you plan, to test-run the engine with the airplane inclined (say 
by having the tail held down)?

Just seems like a lot of experimentals have fuel problems that cause 
engine failures on their first flights, but that don't show up in 
normal ground run-up or taxi tests.

2.  Do any of you practice stall recovery without adding power?

I can't explicitly remember ever doing this except "sort of" when
intentionally converting a left-hand spin to a right-hand spin).
And then I'm not stabilizing between spins, my head is definitely out 
of the cockpit and I'm losing some altitude anyway.  BTW, it's fun to 
do this if you can get the airplane to cooperate -- try to get 
precisely one turn (or 1/2 turn or some multiple) each way on a road 
or other land-line.

Just got to thinking about this when reading about how many stall/spin
accidents occur on takeoff.  I know that the way I've learned stall
recovery is to unload the airplane (by pinning the nose), leveling
wings (rudder) AND applying power.  Might be interesting to practice
recovery with the engine still at idle.  I know I can recover either
a power-off or power-on stall with little or no altitude loss WITH
power in most of the spam cans I've flown, but I realized that I have
no idea how much altitude I'll need to recover a power-off stall to a
survivable descent rate WITHOUT power.  Right now I'm out of medical
and putting my flying budget into the airplane in the garage, so I
can't even go out and try this.

-------------------
Paul Davis
Lancair Legacy builder
pdavis@bmc.com
Phone 713-918-1550
-------------------
Bene qui latuit bene vixit (Tristia)
He who has lived in obscurity has lived well