Year Five Refresher Weekend

Low Level Spin Policy:

The BGA has alerted instructors to the need to review low spinning. The Instructors Manual will be reviewed. Before initiating a low spin you should carefully consider the charachteristics of the aircraft and the height needed to safely recover from a spin. There should be ample margin left to make a second spin recovery attempt should the first attempt fail and still make it back safely to the airfield.

I would ask instructors to consider the benefits to the pupil of providing low level spinning as apposed to a low level stall for the purposes of demonstrating ground rush and the difficulty of using the correct control inputs for recovery with minimum height loss. Remember that by definition a stalled or spinning aircraft has departed from controlled flight!

Approach Control and Spot Landings:

It was generally agreed that there was a tendancy for pilots to reduce the amount of airbrake as the approach continued towards the ground. This is technically a potential undershoot situation. We investigated to see if it was our normal practice and to determine if our demonstrations would lead pupils to use poor approach control techniques. I would ask instructors whilst they are flying solo or when making approaches whilst instructing to observe their own technique and either amend it if required, or seek advice from me or another senior instructor.

We also looked at spot landing techniques and decided that we would cover this aspect of flying within our annual Basic Instructor check flight programme.

North West Wind Approaches on the NE Run:

It was agreed for the purposes of standardisation that we should make approaches on left hand west run circuits straight into the field cross wind and that we should discourage the base leg being made along the hill and landing into wind. This was for two main reasons, firstly that there was a significant risk that final turns would be cramped and too low with a posibility of pilots getting too close to the power cables, and secondly because a variety of approaches at different angles into the airfield can provide too many opportunities for conflicting traffic. Again this standard should be used as approapriate and only as it is safe to do so. In strong winds a high final turn and landing in from the corner of the field may be more appropriate.

There are additional itmes that will be added to this page in due course