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| Our Fly II
Citabria and Decathlon are wonderful spinners.
Unlike most other Fly II aircraft they will spin
without the need for huge amounts of up trim, and
at a rate commensurate with the type. Spinning is
achieved by stalling the inner wing more than the
outer by use of generous amounts of rudder at the
point of stall. Spins can occur without rudder in
the right conditions, usually with tons of
up-trim and back pressure. In this case we start
by climbing and letting the speed bleed away. |
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| We progressively
pull the stick smoothly back with slight up trim
and await the stall. In some "real"
aircraft you can boot in the rudder before the
stall, but in Fly!, and with our aircraft, it is
best to wait till the nose begins to drop. Then
add a bootfull of (in this case) left rudder,
with stick held right back. The left wing will
begin to drop, encouraged by left rudder which
keeps the outer (right) wing semi-flying, having
a lower angle of attack and higher airspeed than
the left wing. Angle of attack does not mean
angle to the horizon but in effect the angle of
wing to the airflow. |
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| Once the rotation
begins, it feeds on itself since the inner (left)
wing is now perpetually at a higher angle of
attack than the right wing. The
aircraft will continue auto-rotating, especially
if the stick is held firmly back (again to
encourage high angle of attack) and with plenty
of left rudder to encourage the continued
rotation.
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| The spin is now
established. We can rotate half a turn or thirty
turns. The reason we can spin almost indefinitely
(given enough altitude) is that the airspeed will
remain stable, and in some cases might even slow
decrease. You can always tell a true spin from a
spiral dive - if the airspeed increases rapidly
you are definitely NOT spinning. Recovery is
simple: ease the stick forward, apply opposite
rudder (if needed) then pull out of the resulting
dive. Spins should be done with idle throttle. |
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| One way of
inducing a continued spin unwittingly, even
provoking a worse spin in the opposite direction,
is to try to recover from a post spin dive too
early. In his anxiety to get the nose up, the
panicking pilot pulls hard back on the stick as
soon as the first rotation stops, only to find
the aircraft stalls, drops another wing and
starts auto-rotating again! Make sure the
spinning has stopped completely and that the
aircraft is at flying speed and diving before
commencing recovery. |
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