Here’s another post from someone who was still a student pilot when this happened. I don’t know how he kept calm enough to make it through this, but he did a great job! For the record, the Joe he references in his story is not me.
Article written by Dave Reinhart
Just before I took my PP flight check, the 150 I’d been flying was grounded for an overhaul. I told my instructor that I wanted to fly the one I’d be flying for the test before hand so I could get a feeling for it’s idiosyncrasies. His reaction was “Heck, they all fly the same”. Having flown at least five C-150s at that point, I politely disagreed with him and scheduled the airplane for a solo flight.
After arriving in the practice area, I did a power-off stall. I noticed the left wing dropped a bit, but nothing much. I then set up to do a power-on stall: slowed it down, pitched it up a bit, and poured on the coal. Nose up, starting to feel the buffet and then…
WHAM it broke, the left wing dropped and in a blink of an eye it had spun out and I was headed down.
It’s important to note that I had *never* spun an airplane. Not only that, I had never been in an airplane while it was spinning, ever. But there I was, looking at the desert floor below me getting closer by the moment and going around in circles.
To say I was petrified would be putting it mildly. I knew that if I didn’t do something quickly I was going to die. Say what you will about FLYING magazine, but that day it saved my life.
Before Dick Collins became the senior CFI at FLYING, the guy who wrote most about flight instruction was a fellow named Bob Blodget. I had just read an article by him about spin recovery and as I was watching the ground getting closer, his little checklist literally appeared before my eyes. While not in the exact PARE order taught these days, the way I remembered it was:
1. Relieve the back pressure. I suddenly realized that I was still holding the yoke up against my chest. I let go and the airplane instantly came out of the spin.
The wind noise started to build and I looked over at the ASI. It was already in the yellow arc and building fast. I started to pull back on the yoke, and as I did so I felt the airplane start to load up. I knew that if I kept pulling the wings would come off. I again released the back pressure, saying to myself “What am I forgetting?” when it came to me:
2. Reduce the power. Power! I was still at full throttle. I reached out and yanked the throttle so hard that I’m still amazed to this day that it didn’t come out of the panel. The airplane gave a sigh of relief, started slowing down, and I pitched up to level flight.
After getting it level, I flew around for 15-20 minutes just to get my composure back. After that I headed back to the airport and landed high, wide and awful but we were both back in one piece.
A friend of mine who worked at the FSS on the field lived on the airport. I went over to his place and begged a beer off him, being well below legal age at the time, I recounted my tale and he was properly concerned and sympathetic. When I next saw my CFI, I told him what had happened. His response? “Yeah, that plane does tend to drop a wing in a stall”. Nice to know that, Joe,
And thanks to you, Bob. You saved my life.