Getting Emergency Maneuver Training...

Hello all,

I wonder if I could perhaps get advice and comments from anyone who has taken Rich Stowell's/CP Aviation's emergency maneuver training? I am toying with the idea of going out to California to spend a week doing this. Any comments about how it might compare to what training professional pilots might get? How well might training in a Citabria prepare me for my RV-7A?

Thanks in advance

John Babrick

I don't know anything about Rich's training. I can talk to Amelia Reid's training in San Jose, though and would recommend it without reservation. The guy you'd want for upset training is Len Von Clemm (sp?). He'll kick your butt but it'll be fun and you'll be totally confident when you're done.

I know it's not what you asked but it's information, anyhow

John,
I fly their Citabria every few weeks and have completed the first EMT module. I can say it is an eye opening course and I would recomend it. IMO Their planes and instructors are the best in the area and actually going through the different attitudes lends a perspective that can not be appriciated until you do it. That said, I can't imagine that the Citabria will prepare you for an RV. High wing, no flaps, and low power.
I plan to complete the course this spring but I will still search out RV7 transistion training.

Regards

Amelia Reid

John-

Yes, Amelia Reid is the other organization I am considering. It would have the plus of being at the airport I am most familiar with and the flying area I am most familiar with.

Jim-

I was not thinking of EMT as a replacement for transition training. I will get that as well later on.

Anyone in the LA area -

How is the weather near Santa Paula during February or March? My memories of San Jose were of lots of clouds and wind during those months...

Thanks all,

John Babrick

Weather

I'm in LA and fly out of Santa Monica and Torrance. During Feb and March the weather out here should be perfect for flying. The occasional rain storm will blow through, and then it will be cloudy for a couple of days. However, other than that the sun should be shining and the skies should be clear.

After checking out their website I think I may get the emergency training myself. Thanks for the heads up.

I'd recommend Amelia Reed as well. They focus on taildraggers and have only two trike-gear aircraft in their fleet. Not many places have multiple examples of Champs O-235 7ECA Citabrias, O-320 Citabrias and Super Decathalons, as well as having a pretty large cabinet of 'chutes available.

I did my spin / acro with Jim Grant, who I would recommend. I would suggest that you consider renters insurance or a rented airplane endorsement unless you are comfortable with landing the Citabria.

Santa Paula Weather

John,
Santa Paula gets most of it's rain the first two months of the year. If you want the spring I would suggest March. I would also suggest calling CP and speak with Judy about the schedule and weather.
They have several tail wheel planes and do acro training as well.

Regards

What is Emergency Maneuver Training? (really)

Emergency Maneuver Training (EM or EMT)?
What is that really?
Unusual Attitudes (UA)?
Aerobatics (Acro)?

I do think we can always benefit from advanced training. I think aerobatic training and getting comfortable flying in all attitudes is very valuable, but my PET PEEVE is a private pilot should already have a good grasp on "EMT".

The basic private pilot syllabus already has "Emergency Maneuver Training".

As a CFI we teach all students:

I was NOT comfortable with stalls when I was a student pilot, but I did them and recovered with min loss in altitude. After pvt ticket in pocket I did not do stalls even after getting three more ratings! When I did stalls I kept that ball centered with in a hair because I knew it was bad to have uncoordinated controls in flight near stall. That was good enough for me at the time. If I never went on to get advanced ratings (CFI- ATP) and learn aerobatics on my own, I might have stagnated there. There is NO aerobatic rating is there?

A few years experience, later with more time, after my instrument (which is flying gently), I was working on my SEL commercial. The single commercial is all VFR and about doing more extreme maneuvers near the planes limits and more by feel. I had a blast and felt more in-tune with the plane after that rating. Strangely I was not really challenged to do stalls or unusual attitude recoveries for that rating.

IT was not after getting the MEL rating (again flying gently) and working on my initial CFI did I get my first aerobatics, spin training, 3 left, 3 right. Spins are a basic aerobatic maneuver. We had chutes and the mighty acrobat (C-152) and a willing instructor demoed a loop and roll after we did spins.

It was after getting several CFI ratings and even my ATP and type ratings (flying gently) did I finally get some true aerobatic training. It opened my world.

Later while after working on my first RV, I went up with a retired Airline pilot who was a former USAF pilot. I had been in a RV with Van the man and did a roll, but this time we did all kinds of acro, especially "EMT". We did stalls level, stalls in turns, stalls top of loop inverted, stalls vertical nose up/nose down. We stalled in ever attitude you could imagine. The key, relax the back pressure. RV's (at least the RV-4's) have great feel / feed back in a stall and still have aileron control.

Learn what your RV feels like in a stall. You don't have to spin, but the first time you get into an accelerate stall should not be 500 feet above the ground half upside down.


The "Emergency Maneuver Training" came out after a few airline accidents. One tragic case was the USAir B737 in PA, that was flying along and went in for about 10,000 feet. (Wake turbulence and possible improper use of rudder or possible mechanical rudder reversal). The other was a United B737 that went in turning base in Colorado (thought to be rouge wind shear).

The FAA and NTSB thought airline pilots who usually only do 30 degree banks, max and a few degrees nose down, where overwhelmed when the plane was in a truly unusual (for what ever the reason). Many airline pilots use to come from military training, where "unusual attitudes" and even spins in jets was standard training. Intentional spins in transport jets are not done and probably not recoverable, and the only cases I know of resulted in a crash.

The skill and ability to maneuver the plane in any attitude (unusual attitude) and its an excellent idea to get training. Many private pilots thru ATP's are very rusty or may never had a good foundation in "EM" or "UA" to start with.


EMT is for every one
Airline pilots are not trained to do unusual attitudes in large jets. We get lots of engine failures and emergencies, but no recoveries from inverted or 140 degree banks. When the B737 rudder issue reversal came along, we practice flying with full rudder to show the plane could be controlled if speed is fast enough (approx 220 kts). You can fly with ailerons even with full rudder, but get too slow you will roll over.

Well EMT training may have had tragic consequence with the American Airline A300 that crashed in Long Island after the rudder came off. The FO was taught to use rudder in unusual recovery (aggressively). Unfortunately a small amount of wake turbulence may have caused this pilot to PUSH on the rudder way to hard, and than tragically reverse the rudder input fully several times. The radical over controlling inputs cause the rudder to come off. The A300 apparently does not have a "rudder ratio" controller, which limits the rudder movement (to protect the structure) at higher speed. The point is the rudder on a big jet is there for single engine, max power go around. Rudder inputs on a jet are with very light pressures and very little movement, except when steering on the ground on takeoff or landing. (Rudder peddles on large jets have limited nose wheel steering control, full nose wheel steering control is with the "Tiller" on the Captains side.)

However many airline pilots UNDER use the rudder in both normal flying and recovery from unusual attitude. However no rudder is better than wrong rudder inputs. If I was flying and my jet got rolled 140 degrees to the the left and the nose sliced down through the horizon I would use both aileron and rudder to counter the roll and YAW. I would NOT PULL on the yoke, yet at least. The rudder is powerful even on a RV and proper use comes from doing aerobatics. I doubt you can hurt the Vert Stab on a the RV unless you are Vne, but when you do slow rolls, hesitation rolls, wing overs and recover from spins you learn what a nice thing the rudder is, besides for slipping and landing and taking off w/ a cross wind.

Airline flying and larger jets are different, but it does illustrate that planes are planes and whether you call it Emergency Maneuvers (EM) or Unusual Attitudes (UA) the is a common thread.

With a RV you need a program tailored to you. The recommendations above I'm sure are excellent. I think any comfort doing stalls, spins, rolls and loops of all kinds is value added. Even if you don't like aerobatics as a hobby, if you ever get caught on final and get rolled 140 degrees to the inverted you will have a better chance of rolling it upright with minimum loss of altitude.

That basic unusual attitude training you got many years ago may be very rusty. WHEN YOU DO YOU FLT REVIEWS, tell the CFI you want to do stalls (pwr on/off/accl/un-coord) and unusual attitudes. You might find some CFI's may not be comfortable with stalls them self?

Sadly most pilots are caught by surprised and frozen in shock (swimming in glue) by this situation, say Wake turbulence rolls you upside down 500 feet above the ground. If you get in a weird attitude at +3,000 feet anyone can recover, probably by just letting go of the controls, but the trick is doing it low to the ground. *BTW I NEVER DO ACRO BELOW 3,000 FEET EVER*

You may get in this wake turb circumstance low to the ground and not be able to recover, but your chance is way better if you know how to roll with or against the wake turbulence. Of course the FAA's position is wake turbulence avoidance. A good plan. I FEAR WAKE TURBULANCE.

THE BASIC OF NOSE DOWN UNUSUAL ATTITUDE in a RV is pull the power back, roll level and than pull. It was thought (no one really knows for sure) in at least one of the B737 cases the pilot pulled in a bank while still in a bank and instead of pitching up just put it into the "grave yard spiral". YOU HAVE TO UNLOAD THE WING TO RECOVER.

gmcjetpilot said:

Emergency Maneuver Training? What is that really?
Unusual attitudes?
Aerobatics?

Click to expand...

I am referring to Rich Stowell's book of that title. His website is at http://www.richstowell.com/

gmcjetpilot said:

I do think we can always benefit from advanced training. I think aerobatic training and getting comfortable flying in all attitudes is very valuable, but my PET PEEVE is a private pilot should already have a good grasp on "EMT".

Click to expand...

I had about 80 hours of dual to get through the PPL. Even with 80 hours of dual, I did not get enough of anything really. Yes I passed my test properly on the first try (and even executed some particularily fine landings) but I am sure I would be struggling to actually recover from a spin if it were to happen in real life right now. My comment is that even with more than the usual amount of dual instruction I did not get adequate EMT. And so here I am going to go get some.

gmcjetpilot said:

Even if you don't like aerobatics as a hobby, if you ever get caught on final and get rolled 140 degrees to the inverted you will have a better chance of rolling it upright with minimum loss of altitude.

Click to expand...

Agreed. The exact reason I want this training is that I want to know how to recover from wake turbulence upsets and wind shear encounters. I am not really interested in doing aerobatics other than to be able to recover from an unusual attitude. One of the reasons I chose the RV was because it is strong enough to do aerobatics - I view that as a safety margin that I hope not to ever have to test much in my expected use of it as a cross country machine.

gmcjetpilot said:

That basic unusual attitude training you got many years ago may be very rusty. WHEN YOU DO YOU FLT REVIEWS, tell the CFI you want to do stalls (pwr on/off/accl/un-coord) and unusual attitudes. You might find some CFI's may not be comfortable with stalls them self?

Click to expand...

Both of my CFIs were highly experienced (one a master CFI and ATP) and both declined to teach or demonstrate spins when I asked. Or sign me off on a night solo. Or give me additional night dual instruction. But that's another story...

Thanks much for the comments.

John Babrick

Emergency Maneuvers/Upset recovery training

As an alternative, Greg Koontz offers an excellent training course in upset recovery.

Last year, one of our EAA chapter members bought a Super Decathlon. He had some aerobatic training with Greg prior to the Decathlon purchase. Through his contacts with Greg, the EAA Chapter scheduled one meeting devoted to upset recovery training. Greg presented his ground school on upset recovery to the entire chapter at our meeting location. Those members who wanted the flight training paid Greg at his normal rate.

Greg's website is http://www.gkairshows.com/default.htm.

Upset recovery/emergency maneuvers training should be a part of every pilots currency training program. The military, the airlines and part 135 operators are forced to undergo training designed to maintain competency. Those of us who fly for fun need to develop our own safety program that includes those maneuvers that we do not see in our normal flying profile. We owe it to our loved ones and our passengers.

Second the vote for Greg Koontz. Good instructor. Your Chapter makes a deal to host him at your field for a day or a weekend. Our Chapter called it "Upside Down Day". Each participant picked his area of interest (general acro, upset recovery, spins, etc), pre-scheduled (with deposit), and had fun.

Rudder travel limiting

George,

Just a quick correction on the A300 - it does have a rudder travel limiter. The problem is that certification standards only require that the structure be able to withstand a SINGLE application of the control. In the accident aircraft, the rudder was used to produce a large sideslip angle, and then deflected in the other direction while still in the yawed condition. The cumulative effect of rudder deflection and sideslip on the vertical stabilizer was too much for the structure.

Pat

I learned to fly in SoCal (Santa Barbara) at a part 141 school that provided me with great instruction in regulations, communication and navigation. But almost nothing in the essentials. At the time my neighbor worked for CP Aviation at Santa Paula Airport as an aerobatic instructor, working with Rich Stowell. For Christmas of '96 my lovely wife bought me 5 hours of instruction with our neighbor. He used Rich's syllabus but added more aerobatics. We flew a Citabria and a Super Decathlon. Best instruction I've ever had, by far. I went from being terrified of spins to being merely uncomfortable with them, among other things. Learning to fly without exploring and understanding attitudes other than level or gently banked is like learning to drive without ever learning how to react to a skid (oops! I guess that's most people).

Besides that, flying in & out of Santa Paula Airport is great practice- the pattern altitude is 600' AGL and very tight. My neighbor topped the instruction off with 30 minutes of stick time in his Pitts S-2B. That was fantastic. Unfortunately it ruined me for flying little Cessnas, and became the start of the journey that is leading me to build an RV-7.

Why EMT

I forget where I heard it but there is a hint of truth to the saying that as a private pilot you are taught to fly at 1G.
In addition (If memory servers) you no longer have to do a spin to complete your PPL.
While no one should ever 'complete' their training, I received my PPL four years back with an instructor/plane that allowed us to do spins. Even after that training it was amazing how blank your mind can go when your looking 'up' at the ground. At 3000ft this is not a problem but in the pattern it is something else.
My attempts at spin recovery were always correct during training but the additional course makes the recovery more automatic thus saving a lot of altitude! As a low time pilot I also did not feel comfortable practicing spin recovery on my own. A EMT course gave me the additional security to safely explore my limitations.

What is EMT? In my case insurance.

Spin training killed many people

jdeas said:

I forget where I heard it but there is a hint of truth to the saying that as a private pilot you are taught to fly at 1G.
In addition (If memory servers) you no longer have to do a spin to complete your PPL. What is EMT? In my case insurance.

Click to expand...

Accelerated stalls? You can't turn at 1G? No you are not trained to fly at 1G.

Look history has been written on spin training, stall awareness / stall avoidance. The KEY is you can't spin of you don't stall. Right? That is a fact and true. If you are aware of stalls and know stall avoidance and stall recovery, actually getting a plane INTO a fully developed spin and recovering is moot. Actually the spin recovery is like stall recovery.

Having spun a few planes, many are HARD to spin. YOU HAVE TO HOLD PRO SPIN CONTROLS TO KEEP A SPIN GOING!

Like stall recovery, we don't teach pilots to use the ailerons until you get the wing flying since it might aggravate the stall with adverse yaw and actually stall the wing more. However a skilled pilot who is practice can use a little aileron to keep a wing from dropping.

NOW ALL BETS ARE OFF ON A RV. Having trained to not use aileron until stall is broken, (break stall, level wings, recover) when I got into the RV, I found that ROLL was fully controllable into a full STALL!!!!!!!!! WOW! That is why the RV is great. (Of course the beautiful frise ailerons are magic with almost no adverse yaw.)

If you accidentally stall a RV and spin iy accidentally, you really are doing something wrong and need remedial training. You DON'T have to spin to avoid spin.

WITH THAT SAID, Spin training is clearly useful and informative. However historically speaking when it was required. many many many people died from the training. May be we can improve and increase simulator use in training GA pilots. We do stuff in Sims at the airline you really don't want to really have to do (engine fire, single engine, hand-flown ILS to mins with control issues to a miss). It's kind of fun in the sim, but in the plane it would be pucker factor time.

Stalls, Spins, and requirements.

OK, I'm fairly new at this whole CFI game but here is my opinion. The CFI doing the training of the student should make the determination whether a student needs more work in stalls/spins and other emergency procedures. I don't normally require students to do spins, but I've had a couple students that I required to do spins, mostly because they were afraid of them. Every time a stall would break with a wing drop, they would almost freak out. One lesson of doing spins fixed that. These lessons would start out with PaRE (Pray and Release Everything) spin recoveries. This demonstrates that the airplane will recover from a spin on itself, AND how much altitude you will lose if you do that. Then on to PARE (Power Ailerons Rudder Elevator) recoveries on incipient phase, which demonstrates how fast a spin can be identified and recovered from. No problems with stall breaks now.

The PPC is a license to learn as they say. Get it, fly around a bit, then get your instrument, THEN the upset training, at that point you'll be able to appreciate it that much more.

gmcjetpilot said:

WITH THAT SAID, Spin training is clearly useful and informative. However historically speaking when it was required. many many many people died from the training.

Click to expand...

Hi All,

The notion that "many, many, many people died" during spin training, and that's why it was deleted back in 1949 for all but flight instructor applicants, is a long-standing aviation myth that has no basis in fact.

In the course of researching my book on Stall/Spin Awareness, I've read multiple hundreds of spin-related documents. Nowhere could I find evidence supporting this myth. In fact, CAR Amendment 20-3 (which formally rescinded the mandatory spin training) states the following:

"the deletion of the spin training requirement and the placing of greater emphasis upon the prevention of and recovery from stalls will result in greater air safety in two ways: (a) it will emphasize recognition of and recovery from
stalls, which on the basis of available accident statistics, has proved to be the most dangerous maneuver to pilots; and (b) elimination of the required spin maneuver will act as an incentive for manufacturers to build, and operators of schools to use, spin-resistant or spin-proof aircraft. [emphasis added]"

So-called deaths due to spin accidents aren't mention at all here. The stall was and still is the prevalent problem in aviation accidents. As for the rest of the wording in the amendment: the hope that manufacturers would provide more spin-resistant/spin-proof airplanes obviously didn't pan out.

I also conducted a survey of 20 aerobatic schools across the U.S. in the mid-1990's that had been in business 5-20 years, had good reputations, taught to a course outline, etc.

These schools collectively had given an estimated 130,000 hours of flight instruction in spins and aerobatics, performing an estimated quarter of a million spins with students.

Guess how many spin accidents occurred during any phase of any instructional flight where the objective was spin or aerobatic training at these schools? ZERO!

Spin training is indeed safe when provided by quality schools with instructors who know what they are doing.

Rich Stowell
www.richstowell.com

I'm glad someone finally did the research to debunk this.

Rich: do you know of any GA that won't recover from a fully established spin with conventional spin recovery inputs (i.e. power to idle, neutral aileron, stomp on the rudder, stick forward)? I've read a lot about "nasty" spin characteristics of various aircraft but I've yet to read "unrecoverable from a spin" but then again I haven't looked that hard.

The original Globe Swift comes to my mind. Spin recovery of the Swift is anything but "normal".

My suggestion is to go take the training. I took a similar course in Santa Paula in '78/'79 in an 8KCAB. My instructor was Sammy Mason at Ken and Betty Johnson's, Pitts Stop. Sammy was the smoothest pilot I've ever flown with and he gave me a lot of confidence.
He wrote a book "Stalls, Spins and Safety" which I highly recommend. Also
just walking around the airport was an education in its self. Everything from
P-51's and Tiger Moths to homebuilts and antiques. Quite an airport, excellent instruction and friendly folks. I'll never forget them.
Howie

Grumman

John,
I have a student who owns an old Grumman American two seater and it has a BIG placard against spins. Seems that the fuel is slung toward the wingtips in that tubular spar/fuel tank during spins. With all that weight now at the tips, the added inertia (it is claimed) will make it difficult, if not impossible to recover from a spin.

Regards,

jcoloccia said:

Rich: do you know of any GA that won't recover from a fully established spin with conventional spin recovery inputs (i.e. power to idle, neutral aileron, stomp on the rudder, stick forward)? I've read a lot about "nasty" spin characteristics of various aircraft but I've yet to read "unrecoverable from a spin" but then again I haven't looked that hard.

Click to expand...

Hi John,

Yes! In fact, pilots should assume that every airplane placarded against intentional spins may become unrecoverable if spinning proceeds beyond the one-turn margin of error tested during certification.

The NASA spin test program of the 1970-80's used four represented GA airlplanes. During the course of the program, which inlcuded nearly 10,000 spin turns using all kinds of entry conditions and all kinds of spin recovery methods, test pilots had to deploy the spin recovery parachute 29 different times to recover from spins that would not respond to recovery inputs, including the NASA standard spin recovery actions.

It's the stability vs. maneuverability conundrum -- the more performance we want on the high speed end (hint, hint: fast airplanes like the RVs), the less the stability/controllability on the high angle of attack end.

Spins can be very fickle. In the case of the NASA spin program, they found that the difference between having a steep, recoverable spin mode in the airplane versus a flat, unrecoverable spin mode literally boiled down to the shape of the wing root fairing in the Grumman AA-1 Yankee!

The wing root fairing in this case turned out to be the tipping point between recovery and no recovery.

This is exaclty the reason why you cannot predict how one RV might behave in a spin by comparing it to the behavior of another RV that supposedly has been spun and recovered. No two homebuilts are exactly the same, and the cumulutative effect of seemingly minor variations in building, or little "customizations" made by each builder, render any comparisons invalid.

Regards,

Rich Stowell
www.richstowell.com

Emergency Maneuver Training

Hi Rich,

I just want to say I really enjoyed your book Emergency Maneuver Training. Great stuff. I hope to take some of your training in person some day.

I have no personal experience with Rich's training, but I have only heard fantastic things. I would really like to take his course... one of these days I'll get around to it.

Once you are done with Rich, you could always head up the road a bit to lovely King City and grab a few hours with the guys at the Tutima Aerobatic school (AKA Sean Tucker's). Flying the Pitts or Extra will give you a different perspective Ken, Ben and Bill are all great people/pilots/instructors.

RV7Factory said:

I have no personal experience with Rich's training, but I have only heard fantastic things. I would really like to take his course... one of these days I'll get around to it.

Click to expand...

Hi Brad, Mickey, et al.

Thanks for the kind words. As it turns out, I just spent the last three days flying with a pilot from Oxnard who purchased an RV-7 (210+ hp, no inverted fuel or oil) a year ago.

We've done six sessions so far -- aileron rolls, 4-point rolls, loops, immelmanns, 1/2 cubans, steep wingovers (and wingovers with 1/2 rolls at the top for a course reversal), and combinations of two and three of these maneuvers.

We also did a complete stall series, unusual attitude roll recoveries, and a simple spin build up to one full turn in each direction (1/4 of a turn at a time, two of us on board with about 13 gallons of fuel, equally distributed between the two inboard fuel tanks).

Lots of fun, good flying airplane. We did some loops at 24 squared and a level flight speed of 145-150 knots IAS. Then we did some loops at slower speeds -- all the way down to loops entered from partial power and level flight at 120 knots (we added more power as the loop began). It was interesting and educational for the pilot to encounter stall buffet near inverted at the top of the loops we did at 120 knots.

All good fun!

Rich Stowell
www.richstowell.com