If you do a proper barrel roll, you maintain 1G at all times andf don't harm the aircraft or disrupt it's systems. But if you screw up...there are several known cases of commuter pilots rolling (empty) turboprop airliners on ferry flights. The ones I am aware resulted in sever structural damage (and even worse career damage), but maybe that's because regional pilot skill was lacking. I bet Sully could have pulled it off!

I think that a large transport category might be recoverable from a developed spin using differential power...turbofans make a whole lot of thrust. But the airplane could very well tear itself apart before you got the chance to recover. As someone mentioned: centrifugal force.

The Lockheed Electra can definitely recover from a spin...once. After that it's off to the beer can factory (the navy demonstrated this in 2008).

I remember reading an article several years ago about a Baron getting into a spin and I believe the trick with the Baron was to basically slam the yoke from full nose up to full nose down repeatedly. I do not know what exactly that coerced the plane into doing, but the article was by a military test pilot who had some data to back it up. I may see if I can dig it out tomorrow.

We had one of our KC130T's on loan to Pax River do an inadvertent spin when the life raft deployed and lodged on the horizontal stabilizer. The crew on board learned several things. You can peg the airspeed indicator and bury the G meter during recovery and live to tell about it. The engineer who wasn't buckled in got to see all different aspects of the cockpit during the spin and recovery procedure. Thank goodness for T-34C spin recovery procedures. I was told they worked like a charm.

If it's not a spin...it's pretty close

YouTube - Harold Johnson's Ford Tri-motor aerobatic routine in color

For the sake of Saturday speculation, I do not think centrifugal force is the issue with a large airliner in a spin. It is the flight control surfaces that would buckle in the recovery, probably the outer wing. You are going to get a turn rate in an airplane of this size in the neighborhood of 15-30 RPM in a fully developed spin. Forces on the wing and tail in the recovery would be the main issue. I think it could be done even though the airplane would be toast- that much is certain because the positive g's on recovery is what breaks things. The spin itself is easy on an airframe.

I heard about a P-3 not too long ago that ended up in a 5 turn spin that recovered at tree top level.

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/mi...turn-spin.html

P-3 Orion Research Group

One further thought. You have to realize that spins are not one-mode, one- plane motions. Multiple modes may be involved. A complex, unknown equation is the mover in many fully-developed spins. This is why makes spin testing so difficult and scary in experimental aircraft, because you do not know what mode shape is in play. If the rudder cannot counteract the spin by itself, then you are in deep trouble because guessing the various planar rotation rates is impossible. You would know left or right spin and that's about it. Guessing a thrust-based recovery would be impossible for all practical purposes, and it would almost certainly aggravate the rotation.

I have no info on the subject, but here's a pretty cool video of a remotely piloted eagle doing a flat spin (back in the day).

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/mov...EM-0011-08.mov

It's several g's (3-4) towards the dash as you're spinning pretty quick, it was eye opening to me and I've only gotten into fully developed spins in a glider.

My guess would be that you could easily get a heavy to spin if you could override the digital flight controls - and you could probably recover as well.

Hmmm, pitch 15 NH, full boot of rudder and a little differential power to sweeten the mix and I bet you'd get all the stall + yaw you'd need.

I'm sure there would be extensive airframe damage.

That's what I was referring to above. I saw close-up pictures right after it happened...the wing spar or some large structural piece in the wing box was broken. The wings were held on with sheet metal and rivets. Those guys came about as close as you possibly can and still live to tell about it.

I think it was on "Wings of the Luftwaffe" that they were interviewing a Heinkel 111 pilot that flew (and lived to tell about them) numerous missions over London at night. He said that once they got caught in the spot light they were pretty much toast and the plane simply wasn't agile enough to get of it. That is, until they learned a method by abruptly cross controlling and throwing it into a spin.

It was originally "designed" as an airliner.