October 14, 1982

How was your day?
Fine.

There are two sayings in aviation that were applicable that day.  “Any landing that you walk away from is a good one” & “You had a good day if you did not end up on the evening news.”  According to those definitions my day was “Fine” …BUT, not by much!

Years ago there was a series of books for kids called “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” That pretty much tells the “Why” of that flying incident.  We will come to that later but for now let’s look at the “What.”

There is a flight maneuver called a “spin” in which one wing continues to develop lift and the opposite wing loses all lift.  The result is the plane rolls over and starts spinning straight down nose first.  You don’t intentionally do this but Flight Instructors must demonstrate the spin and recovery to a student in case the student accidentally gets into a spin.

Here is how my Flight Instructor, Paul, described the incident.

When I (Paul) took the Flight Instructor position the chief pilot told me he would fly with me in Tomahawk 2413N because of the scary slow flight characteristics.  Well this never happened.  So when you (Royce) came to work there I told myself that we would do what the chief pilot promised me.  I was the one really in charge of this flight.  I was the one pushing for it and it almost killed us.
 
 We had no intention of getting into a spin.  Just wanted to see how it flies near the stall.  We are flying at 4,500 feet.  I think you are in the right seat, the instructor seat.  We are flying near the stall and instantly the left wing drops and we are in a full blown spin to the left.  There is no warning.  There is no buffet.  Just wing drop and spin. 
 
 You responded correctly.  You were using full right rudder, neutral aileron, and neutral elevator and the power was back as it should be.  I was relaxed enough to be able to sit back and say to myself, Royce is doing everything right and we should start coming out of this soon.  But the plane just kept on spinning to the left.
 
So even though I was not flying as we entered the spin, and I was not flying as you responded correctly to fix the problem, I was right with you.  After a couple of turns and seeing the Amish mule drawn manure spreader growing bigger and bigger in the wind screen.  You said something to the effect of you take it.
 
 This is what was in my mind.  "We will be dead in 12 seconds, so try anything."
 Since I was right with you and following your actions and responses, I too started with the exact same inputs.  And I got the same results.  We were about to make a dent in the Amish man’s field. 
 
With neutral aileron and elevator and full right rudder, I have already ridden around 3 or 4 turns with no improvement.  So I tried less pressure on that right rudder:  no, that only made it spin faster, Aileron:  no effect, elevator:  no effect.   OK all I have left is power.  So I shoved in full power.  Pow, it snapped out as fast as it had gone into the spin.  We were 700 feet AGL (Above Ground Level) and flying along as if nothing had happened.  One second we were about to meet our maker and the next we are straight and level heading back to Lancaster airport.

 You are right we didn't talk about it.  I didn't really know what had happened.  I was scared.  I am more scared looking back at it than being in it.

Now the “Why.”

The certification testing the FAA did on the Tomahawk was done on a preproduction model built at the Lock Haven, PA plant.  When that plant was destroyed, production was moved to Vero Beach, FL but not before significant engineering changes were made to the wing.

The new design included the removal of a number of ribs from the wing, reducing its rigidity, and it was NOT put through new stall and spin testing by the FAA, despite being certified for intentional spins.  After a number of accidents and (51 with 49 fatalities) and near misses involving spins, the NTSB recommended that the FAA reevaluate the aircraft’s performance in 1997.

The aircraft's engineers told the NTSB that the changes made to the design resulted in a wing that was soft and flexible, allowing its shape to become distorted and possibly causing unpredictable behavior in stalls and spins.  The design engineers said that the GAW-1 airfoil required a rigid structure because it was especially sensitive to airfoil shape and that use of a flexible surface with that airfoil would make the Tomahawk wing "a new and unknown commodity in stalls and spins."

A Piper test pilot told the NTSB that the stall recovery was “… totally unpredictable, one never knew in which direction they would roll-off, or to what degree, as a result of a stall.”  Another test pilot said that the aircraft was unpredictable in the stalls from one flight to another and from one airplane to another. A third test pilot said that he was “shocked” at the stall characteristics. When the test pilots say that an airplane has problems, it has problems. 

Because of its stall and spin characteristics, the PA-38 earned the nickname "Traumahawk" from many pilots and instructors.

So, “How was your day?”