Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

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danfoto
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Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by danfoto »

Any ex-pilots (in the "intrepid aviator" sense) about, or perhaps any still-flying pilots who are getting on a bit? I've just read something about contemporary pilot training and am puzzled by it ...
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kwackers
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by kwackers »

I have a PPL, "contemporary pilot training" doesn't ring any bells though...
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danfoto
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by danfoto »

Just the man :)

OK, please understand that it's a long time since I left the RAF, I haven't flown anything full size since, and I'm so not up to speed re aviation nowadays that it's laughable.

Now, I just saw on the BBC News site the story of that Cirrus coming down in somebody's yard on a parachute. Didn't know light aircraft did such things, so I checked out this 'ere Cirrus thing, and was more than somewhat amazed by much of what I read.

In one part of the Cirrus site, there's an explanation of their trick wing which "improves low speed handling". The wing makes sense, even to me, but what doesn't is this quote ...

Spins were eliminated from basic flight training decades ago; recovery from a developed spin is long gone from certification tests


Now I know that's relating to the US, but what's the situation in the UK nowadays? Surely you still need to learn how to get out of a spin?
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kwackers
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by kwackers »

danfoto wrote:Just the man :)
Now, I just saw on the BBC News site the story of that Cirrus coming down in somebody's yard on a parachute. Didn't know light aircraft did such things, so I checked out this 'ere Cirrus thing, and was more than somewhat amazed by much of what I read.

Ballistic parachute - quite common these days. Whether they actually save lives is debatable, some are saved but some are also lost. There have been a few cases where people would have survived if they hadn't triggered it.
(It's also pretty nasty in the event of an engine fire...)

Now I know that's relating to the US, but what's the situation in the UK nowadays? Surely you still need to learn how to get out of a spin?

I don't think you need spin recovery... I think it used to be compulsary for PPL but JAR doesn't. Although tbh it's about 5 years since I did mine. Some schools do teach it though as part of 'recovery from unusual attitudes'.

What I found more surprising (in the light of the French airliner that disappeared over the Atlantic) was that commercial pilots aren't taught stall recovery!
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danfoto
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by danfoto »

kwackers wrote:I don't think you need spin recovery... I think it used to be compulsary for PPL but JAR doesn't.


Hmmm ... Well, if nothing else, if that's the case I reckon folks are missing a lot of fun. I used to really enjoy spinning, although having said that, I've only ever done it in Chipmunks and Jet Provosts, which I do realise does date me somewhat 8)


kwackers wrote:What I found more surprising (in the light of the French airliner that disappeared over the Atlantic) was that commercial pilots aren't taught stall recovery!


Doesn't surprise me one bit. My understanding is that where commercial flying is concerned, we've almost got the point at which airliners are flown by one man and a dog - the purpose of the man being to feed the dog, and the purpose of the dog being to bite the man if he attempts to touch the autopilot ...

ETA - I love the way the BBC reckon the pilot "crash-landed it in a garden". I supposed that sounds funkier than the reality i.e. "By sheer luck, the aircraft fell to earth in a garden". Whatever, IMO 76 is way too old to be driving an aeroplane.
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Daniel Fox
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by Daniel Fox »

Hi,

I instructed to the old CAA PPL syllabus in th elate 90's and spins were not taught to PPL's then. The main drive was to recognise when you were getting close to the stall and recover then. If you don't stall, you cannot spin.

As part of the course to qualify as an instructor you had to learn how to recover from spins.

As far as airline pilots recovering from stalls, it's been taught on every conversion course I hae done (4). The emphasis has until Air France, been on minimum height loss. More recently it has been on getting airspeed back and accepting some height loss.

The Air France scenario was an unusual one. In normal circumstances what the pilot did might have been ok because of all the software protections in that aircraft. However, those protections were lost when the airspeed became unreliable due to icing conditions.
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honesty
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by honesty »

danfoto wrote:Hmmm ... Well, if nothing else, if that's the case I reckon folks are missing a lot of fun. I used to really enjoy spinning, although having said that, I've only ever done it in Chipmunks and Jet Provosts, which I do realise does date me somewhat 8)



As a massive thread tangent. Yey Chippies! I used to fly them (and my fly I mean get thrown around the air by bored Tornado pilots on a slow rotation) in the ATC. So much more fun than the Bulldogs they replaced them with.
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by kwackers »

Daniel Fox wrote:As far as airline pilots recovering from stalls, it's been taught on every conversion course I hae done (4). The emphasis has until Air France, been on minimum height loss. More recently it has been on getting airspeed back and accepting some height loss.

Is that right?
Whilst I know a few commercial pilots I've never spoken to them about it so what I "know" is based almost entirely on a documentary about the Air France episode.
They had an 'expert' on there who talked through what data they had, showed how the computer would respond to the 3 pitot tubes blocking (though supercooled water, or so they think) and showed how this would cause the airspeed to drop until the plane stalled. The data suggests this happened twice loosing tens of thousands of feet each time and the recovered airframe suggests the plane hit the water flat with very little forward momentum.
Which suggests a stall and/or spin. He explicitly said that airline pilots weren't required to learn to recover from a stall - something I remember because it seemed quite shocking...
(Unless he really meant spin recovery?)

It's all interesting stuff.
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by bikepacker »

I did some instructing in the early 80s and spin recovery was taught up until about 83. It then changed and recovery was only covered at the insipient stage. The change came because of recovery was difficult in some of the newer two seaters and a thought that it was almost impossible to accidently go into a spin. Although some instructors using Cessna 150s or 152 often continued to allowed the student to go into the spin and recover, for demonstration purposes.
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meic
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by meic »

Not in your guys league but I used to fly gliders, I never went solo because I was hopeless in a spin.

I just dragged out my old pilots log and there it is as a requirement before going solo and unticked to verify my memories.

Full Spin Recovery.

That was back in 1993.
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danfoto
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by danfoto »

meic wrote:Not in your guys league but I used to fly gliders, I never went solo because I was hopeless in a spin.


I had no idea that folks did spins in gliders! Dunno why, but the thought had never occurred to me.

I do admire you guys who flew gliders. It would have scared me whitless if whatever was strapped to my backside had neither a fan on the front nor a blowlamp at the back ...
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by kwackers »

danfoto wrote:
meic wrote:Not in your guys league but I used to fly gliders, I never went solo because I was hopeless in a spin.


I had no idea that folks did spins in gliders! Dunno why, but the thought had never occurred to me.

I do admire you guys who flew gliders. It would have scared me whitless if whatever was strapped to my backside had neither a fan on the front nor a blowlamp at the back ...

I think spin recovery is mandatory with gliders (mainly because I think they're easy to spin. There are recommendations on various forums to learn spin recovery in a glider)
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by tatanab »

meic wrote:Not in your guys league but I used to fly gliders, I never went solo because I was hopeless in a spin.
I did my 3 solos, back in the air cadets days, which earned me a basic A&B licence. Almost all of my gliding was from Tangmere.
That was back in 1993.
1969 for me. I've just looked at the photograph of a 16 year old me in the back of the licence - just a nipper.
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danfoto
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by danfoto »

tatanab wrote:I did my 3 solos, back in the air cadets days, which earned me a basic A&B licence.


Forgive my ignorance, but what is an A&B licence? All my flying was RAF pilot training so that's all I know :roll:
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Re: Paging ex-aircrew, PPL or CPL holders

Post by dbascent1986 »

Exercise 11 in the EASA PPL course deals with incipient spins - the Cessna 152 will typically oblige with a wing drop at the stall. Demonstration of a full spin and recovery is not required, although some PPL students request it - some schools then teach spin recovery in a fully aerobatic aircraft. The RAF had a robust approach with fully aerobatic aircraft, high floor altitude (5000'), parachute (and a bail out altitude if the aircraft had not recovered from the spin), or exploding furniture. This probably reflects correctly that all types have their share of spins which went rogue and the pilot was not able to recover.
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