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[gzf at gbr.msd.ray.com (Jerry Feldman {75562})]

"Keller, Tim" wrote:
> 
> Not to be off topic, but what exactly is a "Graveyard spiral" (other than
> the nose pointed down and the engine full throttle at like 500 feet...)
First, a spiral is a descending turn. A graveyard sprial is one where the
turn keeps getting tighter and the rate of descent increases. When the pilot
loses visual reference (eg. is in a cloud) the senses in your body lie. You
make a slight turn, start losing a bit of altitude. Try to bring up the nose
to stop the descent. This causes the turn to get tighter and the altitude to
decrease. It does not take long for the aircraft to be in a very tight
descending turn, and the pilot really does not know it. A low time pilot
does not have sufficient training in unusual attitudes where an instrument
rated pilot is trained to recover from all sorts of strange attitudes. The
bottom line for every pilot, if you lose your visual horizon, don't look out
the window. look and and believe your instruments. Get the aircraft back to
straight and level, then look out the window. This is contrary to driving a
car where it is always important to look out. 

If you want to sense this, just stand up and close your eyes for a while.
After a while you will get vertigo. 
-- 
Jerry Feldman (HP On-Site Consultant) http://gbrweb.msd.ray.com/~gzf/
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