Large Empty carparks are usefull for ground reference at night and a good place to land if the engine coughs.We used the Piggly Wiggly or the K-mart after midnight as those lots were usually empty.Or the airport with all the runways lit up before midnight.
It made for some interesting circuits and some confusing radio calls .
Spinning may be your last defence in a small aircraft that can be spun at night in IMC if you lose all your instruments, electrics and all lights as you will hit the ground at a slower speed if you than if you enter the spiral dive because of the lack of instruments and light .By spinning it down through cloud you may have enough time to recover and land straight ahead.

By spinning it down through cloud you may have enough time to recover and land straight ahead.

Interesting comment about the spinning descent. One of the old guys around here said that after an experiment to see how high he could get his J-3 to go. To lose alttitude faster without shock cooling he spun it down from like 10,000 ft. to 5,000 ft. Does this sound reasonable or is my chain being yanked? I think after that many rotations the cockpit would get messy. (I'll never ride the Cobra at an amusement park again)

To lose alttitude faster without shock cooling he spun it down from like 10,000 ft. to 5,000 ft. Does this sound reasonable

Well, to me it does, but ....

from http://www.waynehandley.com/

In April of 1999, flying a G-202, Wayne broke his own world record for inverted flat spins by taking the world record up to 78 turns

Also, get this:

Wayne established a world record for all propeller driven airplanes by going from brake release to 3,000 meters in one minute and nine seconds

That's pretty close to an average of 10,000 fpm to 10,000 feet. Not much for the "hot sticks" around here, but ...

Wayne established a new time-to-climb record to 6,000 meters in the Oracle Turbo Raven with a time of three minutes and six seconds

That's an average of over 6,000 fpm to about 20,000 feet.

Not bad for a little aerobatic airplane

Spinning may be your last defence in a small aircraft that can be spun at night in IMC if you lose all your instruments, electrics and all lights as you will hit the ground at a slower speed if you than if you enter the spiral dive because of the lack of instruments and light .By spinning it down through cloud you may have enough time to recover and land straight ahead.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the idea of spinning through cloud, at night, with no electrics or anythings, seems kinda stupid.... planes don't land nose first, the wheels are on the bottom for a reason. so sure, cool idea, i'll never do it, let me know how it works out. talk like this could be dangerous.

Hitting the ground between 1,500 and 2,000 feet a minute doesn't sound like fun, which is probably what you'd hit at doing a spin right to contact. But hey, the Cirrus parachute lets the plane "touch softly" at 1200 to 1500...so its definitely survivable.

The idea of spinning through clouds at night is an emergency situation in an airplane that can spin well.It is your last hope as most aircraft without attitude reference to instruments will end up in a spiral dive and quickly exceed the design load factors and break-up in flight. An aircraft in a fully developed spin can descend quite slowly and even if it hits the ground the G forces involved are less than those forces associated with ground contact from a spiral dive. Increasing the chance of survival.

Not for normal NVFR approaches.

The old mail pilots used to spin the stearmans through cloud before instrument approaches were developed .Not many of those guys left now.

Last I checked Spinning through cloud is still in the FIG

What is an FIG? Doesn't sound like any of the Canadian publications I know... Also, I don't care what you say, the whole idea of spinning through cloud to save your life is retarded.

AntiNakedMan wrote:What is an FIG?

It's the Flight Instructor's Guide.

AntiNakedMan wrote:What is an FIG? Doesn't sound like any of the Canadian publications I know... Also, I don't care what you say, the whole idea of spinning through cloud to save your life is retarded.

FIG
Flight Instructor Guide; TP 975E

And I beg to differ, but my guess is your comment was a fishing expedition so Ill just smile and nod...



But you guys are totally right, Spinning in the dark is awesome! hehehe especially If you can get your hands on a Katana!!! but to respect the law of Primacy, please NO ONE on here try it until you have been WORKING for a while, I wouldn’t say there is any cut and dry hr req but I sure as hell wouldn’t want any of my students trying a stunt like that until they have a good 400 hrs and an IR.
So please PPL & CPL students out there don’t get any bright ideas things can get disorientating VERY fast; do it with your instructor; and if he/she thinks its ok THEN think about doing some, I would be agitated if someone on here managed to kill themselves trying to impress their date.

I would be agitated if someone on here managed to kill themselves trying to impress their date.

Rest assured it wasn't the next thing I wanted to try. (If spinning in a cloud is an emergency manouveur...I'll wait until I have one)