Hi Glen,
Sorry your post had gone unanswered, life has been really crap due to two deaths in the family just recently, so just haven't had the time or inclination to check the Forum, it would be better if you send a PM which will go to my email address which you are more than welcome to:
neil@spooner60.orangehome.co.uk I will post the same here as on the AvCom website forum so as not to preclude anyone. I had posted details of the flat spin on this forum before:
[quote="Neil Spooner"]Hi Guys (& Gals!)
I posted those messages before I found (unintentionally!) that a Nipper would spin flat, I was also operating close to the rearward limit. The flat spin entry was from a competition "prefered" entry, ie fully stalled rather than flicked in, up until that point I had always flicked it (gently) into a spin. It was always reluctant to spin to the left, and would spin to the right given full pro-spin controls. After having done much research I would recommend using these settings to avoid a potential flat spin:
Do not use a rapid rudder input.
Do not use any power on during the spin.(Unless you WANT it to go flat!)
Make sure you centralise the ailerons immediately the spin develops.From Alan Cassidy's book "Better Aerobatics" flat spin recovery:
First you apply full opposite rudder, then you move the stick back, into-turn aileron and forward (to the stops) There must be three distinct stick movements and they should be made without rushing so that all three actions have time to work. You must not go directly from the start position to the finish position without visiting the other two stations on the way.
If you make this recovery with power on, in one of the aircraft I have listed at the start of this section , the spin will stop in less than one rotation; normally in about half a turn. If you do the same throttle closed, the recovery will take longer; perhaps two or three turns depending on just how flat and fast it was rotating.
This is because, in order to stop rotating, the nose has to go down. After a developed flat spin the aircraft has almost no forward speed. With just an idling slopstream there is little the elevator can do (mine felt as though the elevator cable had been disconnected during the flat spin). You just have to wait for the nose to go down under gravity as the rudder and in-spin aileron slowly overcome the yaw couple. As the nose drops the spin will speed up before it momentarily before it finally stops.
With power on, the rudder is quicker at overcoming the yaw, and so the nose-up gyro also reduces quickly. With full span ailerons , the increased slip stream also boosts the anti-yaw efects of the in-spin aileron. Lastly, the now-more-effective elevator is able to force the nose down quickly.The control input I used to recover from the flat spin with a stopped engine was (before I had the pleasure of reading the book!): everything in the far right hand corner and held it there. Alan's recovery used full opposite rudder (engine on), I used full pro-rudder.
I started my spin enty from 3500ft, and recovered about 700ft (not sure because I couldn't read the instruments after 26 turns due to severe dissorentation) Take a look at:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bvbS-oHi9ro to see what it looked like from my seat! (Make sure you have the sound turned up, I didn't think I was going to survive) And after that I hope that it will encourage you to
A: Take precautions to make sure you don't end up in a flat spin.
B: Get some spin training including recovery from flat spins.
C: Make sure you start any manouver from an adequate height, you may not be intending for the manouver to go wrong, but an aircraft can do all sorts of things you don't expect it to.
Messing about with slow loops etc may be fun when the aircraft drops out or does something weird, but please remember that the aircraft is now in a potentially unique attitude/speed/yaw/roll/power setting etc that may propagate something you don't know what to do with. Aero's are a very serious subject, it is easy to become complacent."
That is from a post I made on this forum some time ago, its easy for it to get lost in amongst all the other posts, so please excuse me re-iterating it here.
G-ONCS is going really well and am really enjoying it again.....see the other youtube videos.
All the very best,
Neil
A little help goes a long way.
Nipper G-BRPM and G-BALS
RV4 G-IKON
