Spinning a Piper PA-38-112 Tomahawk

I love the Piper Tomahawk! I think it is a great trainer with lovely handling, a spacious cockpit and good performance. There is too much bad stuff said about the type, typically by people who have never flown one and who are simply repeating what they have heard others say (who have also not flown one!). And the main reasons people give to knock them, are things I think are positive! Like having to change fuel tanks (a useful discipline to learn early on!) and a ‘scary’ stall. An aeroplane that will really stall is again - a good thing as a trainer. But it is spinning them that people always come back to as the main danger. So – I made this video to show just how non-scary they are in a spin. They go into a spin really cleanly, exactly as and when commanded, settle in a proper spin really crisply and then will textbook recover when you tell it to. Nothing untoward or remotely to be feared. You will also hear people swear that they looked behind them in the spin and saw the tail flexing. First off – I defy anyone to look behind you in a spin! Things happen very fast and there are G-forces involved. It would take somone very used to spinning to have the presence of mind to look behind, not your typical GA student. And as you can see from this video – absolutely zero flex or bend in the tail. The whole airframe shakes from the buffet but all airframes do that and there is no independent movement between the tail and the rest of the airframe here in the Tommy. Only whole airframe shaking in the buffet. As for height loss – you can see in the video that there is minimal height loss while spinning. This is just over 1 turn in the spin and height loss is about 200/300ft. The worst height loss comes on the dive out in the recovery, partly due to the PA-38 coming out of the spin fairly nose down. In total the whole manoeuvre takes about 700ft. The spin recovers before full recovery rudder and way before full forward (elevator down) input. Conclusion – the PA-38 is impeccably behaved in the spin. It is not to be feared. But also not to be toyed with without proper instruction/training in spinning and spin recovery (this video is NOT instructional in any way!). And always ensure you will still have lots of height after recovery.