Winding up the Rubber Band

AVweb was kind enough to post this video to YouTube:



It's from 94 so it has been around the web for a while but it is nice that someone found it so we can all look at it again, or for the first time if that's the case. Wikipeadia has a good article on spins and spin recovery as well as another spin video link.

Both these videos have the airplane spinning to the left. A left hand or anticlockwise rotation is common because, even though fixed wing trainers are usually certified for spin recovery they often have design elements which make them resistant to spinning, gyroscopic precession of the rotating propeller, as the nose pitches down, will tend to yaw the plane to the left, assisting a spin in that direction. Stalling with high propeller RPM may be enough to cause a spin without any other encouraging input, and carrying high RPM through the incipient phase can cause the spin to flatten. I have done the occasional spin to the right, other than being slightly more difficult to enter than a left spin, I haven't noticed any significant difference in the spins themselves or the recovery, except for one time.

After a hiatus in my flying I thought it prudent to take some extended recurrent training. So I shopped around till I found a school with an instructor that impressed me with his plan to bring me up to speed. Using a Cherokee 140 over several days we worked our way through the standard PPL syllabus, smoothing out the rough spots as we went. Once done he asked me if I wanted to do some spins, they weren't required, but why not! So we climbed up and between us did 4 or 5 spins, all to the left. It was a real hoot and very good revision. I stabilized in a climb after the last one he looked at his watch and announced that we were getting near the end of our time block but we might have time for one more if I was up to it. Of course I was! He said I could try one to the right if I wanted, so standard entry technique, right rudder and smart as you please we were spinning to the right with a nice stable rotation. He called for recovery, and I applied full left rudder. To my surprise the rotation to the right accelerated. He must have been expecting it because simultaneously his arms left the standard instructor position (crossed on his chest) and flew to the yoke. I beat him though and got the nose down, the rotation stopped and recovery was completed without any additional excitement. When we got down my instructor walked up to the dispatcher (who was working on his commercial at the time) and said "You're right, spins to the right in that plane do...". Well it was a surprise to me, but good training and a confidence booster for all that.

So if you're a pilot, or student pilot, have you done spin training? What is your left right ratio, and have you encountered any quirky spin behaviour?