By lex, on December 23rd, 2007
Spinning a B-25.
Well, not me. But that guy. *
One of the difficult things about instructing is to know when to take over if the student is getting into a difficult or hazardous situation. If you take over too soon, he is likely to believe that he could have handled the situation and, of course, If you let it go too long it could be a disaster. In this case, I let it go a little too long, as I believed he would eventually see that he couldn’t control the plane and take some action. However, he apparently felt that he could still control it. When it got to the point when I became very uncomfortable, I reached up and pulled power back on the left engine and was going to push the nose down to pick up air speed.
About the time I pulled the throttle back on the left engine, the plane rolled over on its back, and I thought I could pull back on the stick and “split S” out of it. However, the plane did not react as I anticipated. The right rudder pedal came all the way back and I already had the elevator control in the rear position, hoping to split S. However, the plane went into a spin to the right and we were inverted for a time. I put both feet on the right rudder pedal and could not move it a bit. I pushed on the control wheel and could barely move it. I called to my student to do the same so we were both on the controls but could not move the rudder and could barely move the stick.
Sounds like fun.
* 08-17-2018 Links Gone; no replacements found – Ed.
