Good morning Mode One,

After reading your post I decided to test the spin characteristics of my Bridi Trainer 40! YIKES!!! would be the best description for my experience yesterday!!!


I tried a few spin entries on my first flight but the elevator travel was a bit low for a real solid stall break into the spin. On landing I set up a high rate on the elevator and on the next flight I got the entry I wanted. No hesitation before the spin, just a solid wicked break. I think the character of this symmetrical wing gets progressively more wicked as the angle of attack increases. In fact, when I rounded the leading edges some 25 years ago, I may have left them a bit on the sharp side, a blunted leading edge would make for softer stall characteristics..............hence the experience I have written below...........................

I climbed up quite high so as to give myself some recovery room. The previous spins seemed to be pretty tame, but I only did about about 2 turns before recovery. This time I pitched nose up and when she snapped into the spin I heald the controls for as long as I dared. I must have counted about 6 or more turns when I decided the ground was getting a bit close. I released the controls to neutral to see what would happen..........nuthin!.................I gave opposite rudder.................nuthin...............Now I'm getting concerned because I've burned up my marin for error and she's still spinning.................With my mind RACING and the ground too close for comfort I gave it every thing I had and PUSHED FULL DOWN ELEVATOR..........THAT finally broke the stall!!!!! She straightend out hurtling straight for the ground and I pulled back for all I was worth! OMG!!!! I missed the ground by about 10 feet!!!!! WHEW!!!!!!! Played it off for the crowd like I "intended" to do that.

The only reason I recoverd, was because I used to spin a real Super Decathalon when I was getting my tail wheel endorsement and that aircraft really stopped on heading when you pushed the stick hard forward coming out of a spin. That is what popped into my mind as she was failing to recover and that's all I had left in my bag of tricks to save it! If I would have paniced and just kept pulling back on the stick when the ground got close I'd be the owner of a pile of sticks right now!!!!!

WOW! Guess I learned something yesterday.

T