A Study of the Phenomenon of Spin in Airplanes^*

Abstract

THE spin is a mode of motion of which we know very little. The general public are inclined to look upon it as necessarily dangerous, but this we do know it is not. It is only in rare circumstances and under fortunately rare conditions that danger arises. Nevertheless there is ample warrant for its study and for that study to be treated as one of high importance. New conditions of airplane operation are continually arising; the very increase of speed itself would ensure an entry into regions never before penetrated. Hence it is ever necessary to seek for remedies even before serious difficulty has arisen. This anticipating action always seems to me to be absolutely essential, and I am comforted by support in this view from no less an authority than Francis Bacon, who, in his essay “On Innovations”, wrote: “Time is the greatest innovator; and if time in course alters things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end”?