Page 195 - Demo

191noted by the standards squadrons when they were preparing their candidates I flew several of the basic exercises on the bulldog with various Bulldog QFIs at Leeming. You had to have an A2 on type to examine at the civilian schools. In the end I was sent down to Leavsden with Ed Scott who was an examiner. I had to teach him medium level navigation and the deal was that if we got there I would be an A2. We got there and I examined 2 instructors on a Piper Tomahawk. I had no idea what it looked like as we walked out so followed the chap I was testing. I actually had looked up a few speeds and so forth but it was strange to be a captain of an aircraft I knew nothing about. The Tomahawk had a high T tail mounted at the end of a flimsy looking fuselage. It was cleared for spinning but I had been told not to look down the back during a spin. And so I asked the instructor firstly to teach me circuits and then climb up for some general handling and teach me spinning. The circuits were OK and I asked him how high he would go to teach spinning. I think he said %u201c3000ft but I guess that as you are experienced, you would be happy with 2000ft.%u201d I said because I am experienced, I would be happy with 5000ft. I think his first attempt at getting the aircraft to spin just resulted in a spiral dive but the second one was OK. I looked back down the fuselage and it scared me rigid. The whole thing was twisting violently, and I had to wonder how much it could take. The chap then asked if I could show him a stall turn but I refused as I was sure that the tailplane would come off if I did. I gave the second chap stalling as a simpler exercise. A little afterwards the Tomahawk%u2019s clearance for spinning was revoked when one crashed. The civilian instructors I saw confused a spiral dive with a spin but recovered very quickly to straight and level flight. I suspect that some poor chap got into a full spin and tried to recover as if from a spiral dive with disastrous consequences. Either that or the tail fell off. Any way our visit was successful, and we flew home. However, we realised we would be very tight on fuel for