Thorp Air Command - T18.net

It's been cold outside Rich, fingered a little taxiing in the hanger wouldn't hurt although Somtimes it gives me a headache.........Dan

Lou,
Spins in a Thorp would be completely different than spins in an RV. If you have an IP that you can convince to fly in your plane and spin, well, frankly, I would find a new IP. It's not that Thorps are dangerous. Every airplane reacts, and recovers from spins differently. Some may not recover. When I was a new Fighter Weapons School Instructor in 1991, I had a mentor that could fly circles around ANYONE. He was the best fighter pilot I ever met. His name was Phoid Netardus. He died August 9th in an unspinable F-15E. My point is that this needs to be approached cautiously. You MuST have an out. That will be going over the side. It's ok to try. In fact, I will spin my new one. But it is being designed to have that option. I don't believe that spinning, itself, will cause an over stress of the airframe. But the recovery might, as Frase pointed out. Has you plane been spun?
Cubes

I was once told that you have to perform any aerobatic maneuvers during the first 40 hours of (fly off time) for those maneuvers to be allowed. otherwise the airworthiness limitations on experimental aircraft would prohibit aerobatic maneuvers. Anyone else heard of this? The 40 on my T-18 include all the normal aerobatics and spins. Chuck

Not true. You can perform the maneuvers if you want to redo your ops limits. The new ops limits standard letter that was revised in 2005 states specifically which maneuvers your airplane is allowed to do. In other words, say I wanted to have spins allowed in my bird. I would contact the FSDO. Tell them what I want to do. They would help me rewrite my ops limits after reviewing that I can, and the bird can safely perform the maneuvers. My take on it is this, you are signing off for the next buyer that this airplane is safe and can perform the maneuvers. If that is not what you intend, be careful.
Cubes

I

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My 2 cents, for what it is worth, is to do some spins in a Pitts. My bird spins more like a pitts than an RV or even a MII. One and a half turns relatively slow before tightening up quickly. Maybe its the short wings that make them similar. If the stick isn't held into the turn, it flattens out. Fraser's tale is worth remembering. Recovery upright is quick and straight forward, but you must move to nose level without delay to avoid the speed build up. A pitts has a bunch more drag and you can enjoy the view of the ground longer that in the slicker T-18. A good pitts instructor may be easier to find than an RV guy willing to let you learn in his baby.

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Denny
N78DW at W-29