CFI spin training?

WOW, thanks for all the responses! The reason I asked this question in the first place was because I have not been in a spin yet and I am nervous. I am not by any means a "wuss" pilot. I have never even came close to getting sick in the air after 260hrs and doing all the required maneuvers. It is just the fear of the unknown compounded with my fanatic-like research into statistics of aircraft accidents. Kinda like paralysis by analysis I guess. I agree with all of you that this is a integral part of my training and will make me a safer instructor/pilot. I just need to stop thinking so much, shut my mouth and get in the 172 and spin the damn thing. Thanks again everyone!

-Ryan
 
seagull said:
Well, I guess we can assume that those pilots trained PRIOR to suspending spin training
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Not necessarily. The FAA's removal of mandatory spin training for all pilots (almost 70 years ago according to the Stowell article) has not stopped CFIs from offering it and students from asking for it. Just read any thread here on the subject. So there are plenty of pilots out there today who have had spin training.
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
Not necessarily. The FAA's removal of mandatory spin training for all pilots (almost 70 years ago according to the Stowell article) has not stopped CFIs from offering it and students from asking for it. Just read any thread here on the subject. So there are plenty of pilots out there today who have had spin training.
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:yeahthat: One of my students has been bugging me about it since his first hour and we finally have it scheduled for today. In fact, ALL my students have asked for spins.
 
staplegun said:
The FAA attempted to address this issue during their 1976 General Aviation Pilot Stall Awareness Training Study, Report No. FAA-RD-77-26. The bottom line: pilots who received better stall/spin awareness training--without hands-on spin training--were 1/3 less likely to progress into a spin after encountering an inadvertent stall. On the other hand, pilots who received better stall/spin awareness training AND exposure to intentional spins prevented spin departure following an inadvertent stall every single time.
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They're not really studying the same phenomena, since this study apparently assumes that the pilot has already stalled. The overall stall/spin stats, to the extent that they're accurate, indicate the rate of a stall/spin accident from the entire pilot population, not just the stalled population. ;) My view is that training is better spent preventing the stall.

Still, useful information. I'd like to grab a copy of that report.
 
SpiraMirabilis said:
I gave an anecdote that served as my experiences for one. Staplegun was nice enough to give some nice statistics as well. But you haven't really gotten into why spins should not be taught aside from this:
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Anecdotes are not a good guide to determing policy on a large scale, because it's a very biased sampling of the data. A friend of mine swore off Japanese cars, because he had a lemon from Mazda. Statistically, his decision was silly, although vaguely understandable.

My view is based on the fact that spin/training has not show any effectiveness for preventing stall/spin accidents, according to the data. The data that Staplegun quoted appears limited to the tendency to spin after a stall, but doesn't address the probability of stalling, so it really doesn't provide enough information to know if it's a net benefit or not.

Still, it should be pretty clear that the sooner you can catch a problem the easier it is to fix it. The spin starts in the stall, and the stall starts in a failure to maintain proper airspeeds. I advocate focusing on the airspeed control, so that it never gets to the stall, much less the spin.

Stall/spin training focuses on catching the horse after it's escaped, whereas I want to keep the gate closed. ;)
 
tgrayson said:
It costs $75 dollars and is some 200+ pages. Do you want to go halvsies?
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Let me think about that one.

BTW, in 1991, the FAA's interpretation of the data was this:

==============================
NPRM No. 89-14 included three proposals regarding stall/spin training for pilots and stall/spin training and testing for flight instructors of airplanes and gliders. The spin, a controlled or uncontrolled maneuver or performance in which the glider or airplane descends in a helical path while flying at an angle of attack greater than the angle of maximum lift, was a required training maneuver for pilot certification until 1949. It was deleted from the pilot certification requirements based on the high number of fatal stall and spin accidents, most of which occurred during training. The FAA has since placed greater emphasis on spin avoidance, particularly on training in the avoidance of unintentional stalls or unwanted unusual attitudes. This shift in training requirements resulted in a significant decrease in the number of stall/spin accidents since 1949. NTSB statistics indicate that stall/spin accidents fell from 48 percent of fatal general aviation accidents during the period 1945-48, to 22 percent during 1967-69, and to 12 or 13 percent in the 1970's. The stall/spin proposals in NPRM No. 89-14 constitute an effort to further reduce the already declining incidence of spin-related accidents in general aviation. The amendments contained in this rule will broaden stall and spin awareness training by emphasizing avoidance of unintentional stalls in addition to what is currently the more common procedure of practicing recovery from intentional stalls.

****


Stall awareness training is effective. After the United States dropped the spin training requirement in June 1949 in favor of increased stall training, stall/spin accidents dropped dramatically. Although other factors such as improved stall warning devices undoubtedly contributed to this decrease, several studies indicate that the revised training approach was a main factor in reducing stall/spin accidents. In the 4 year period from 1945 to 1948, stall/spin accidents accounted for 48 percent of all fatal accidents. This proportion dropped to 27 percent from 1965 to 1968. The NTSB conducted a study of the period from 1967 to 1969, and found that stall/spin accidents caused 22 percent of all "fatal occurrences." That study, the Special Study General Aviation Stall/Spin Accidents, 1967 - 1969 (National Transportation Safety Board AAS-72-8, September 13, 1972), examined the 1,261 stall/spin accidents recorded for the period and noted that, while they accounted for only 8 percent of the total number of accidents, they caused 23 percent of the fatalities or serious injuries.
==============================

Doesn't sound quite like the null effect you referred to earlier from Rich's site.

This is from the the 1991 FAR revision that added some of the ground training emphasis and the reqirement for spin training for CFIs. 56 FR 11308 (3/15/1991)

Funny, I was searching FAA-RD-77-26 to see if it might be available as a pdf download and found the text of the rule revision discussion on my own web site! I didn't even remember putting it there. http://www.midlifeflight.us/stuff/spins.htm
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
This shift in training requirements resulted in a significant decrease in the number of stall/spin accidents since 1949.
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To be fair, this really doesn't support my point of view. This only says that the mechanism by which spin training was implemented was ineffective; it doesn't say that spin training in principle doesn't work.
 
tgrayson said:
To be fair, this really doesn't support my point of view. This only says that the mechanism by which spin training was implemented was ineffective; it doesn't say that spin training in principle doesn't work.
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I don't think the FAA ever said that spin training was bad or ineffective. The most I get out of the whole discussion is, that, taken as a whole, the FAA felt that the historical risks of required spin instruction outweighed the benefits and that spin "awareness" training was an effective, lower-risk alternative.

Given some of the posts I've seen here and elsewhere about some of the quality issues in flight instruction...
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
I don't think the FAA ever said that spin training was bad or ineffective.
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No, but there have been effectively two different threads of discussion on the topic:

1) Should spin training be part of the private training, and
2) Does spin training produce safer pilots (at least for the ones that survive training!)

#1 is answered by the overall stats, which suggests "No". But #2 would have to be addressed by viewing statistics for the product of *high quality* spin training. That would be difficult to answer because you'd have to allow for "self selection", meaning that it's likely that safer pilots might seek out such training. Or have sought out other training which might correlate more strongly with their safety.

So I think the answer to #2 is "Nobody knows" and nobody is likely to know in the near future.
 
tgrayson said:
It costs $75 dollars and is some 200+ pages. Do you want to go halvsies?
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Well, that's excluding the time it would take to digest it all and make something useful out of it! The money isn't too bad, the time factor is. Still, you and I doing it would be a nice way to ensure a low amount of bias in the final product!

Have you gotten through the Airborne Radar book yet? ;)
 
tgrayson said:
No, but there have been effectively two different threads of discussion on the topic:

1) Should spin training be part of the private training, and
2) Does spin training produce safer pilots (at least for the ones that survive training!)

#1 is answered by the overall stats, which suggests "No". But #2 would have to be addressed by viewing statistics for the product of *high quality* spin training. That would be difficult to answer because you'd have to allow for "self selection", meaning that it's likely that safer pilots might seek out such training. Or have sought out other training which might correlate more strongly with their safety.

So I think the answer to #2 is "Nobody knows" and nobody is likely to know in the near future.
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I agree with your #1, with the caveat that the way in which spin training was conducted prior to the rule change, coupled with the change of aircraft design, in both handling qualities and warning devices, really skewed those numbers, making that comparison invalid, IMO.

As for #2, to be sure, it hasn't been done. It might be possible, though. What if we could look at all the recent stall/spin accidents (last 20 years or so) and somehow determine the percentage of the pilots involved who have had spin training? Then, we could also conduct a survey and determine what percentage of the total pilots trained in that period had spin training.

The results from that would give us some indication.
 
seagull said:
As for #2, to be sure, it hasn't been done. It might be possible, though. What if we could look at all the recent stall/spin accidents (last 20 years or so) and somehow determine the percentage of the pilots involved who have had spin training? Then, we could also conduct a survey and determine what percentage of the total pilots trained in that period had spin training.

The results from that would give us some indication.
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What about looking at military primary training? I know it's a little apples/oranges but as far as I know both the Navy and Air Force do spins very early in the primary training syllabus. The spins are done by all students and the instructors have no "special" spin training; it's just treated as part of learning to fly.

As far as I know there hasn't been a history of crashes in conjunction with this.

I was a T-34C instructor for the Navy and I think (it's been awhile, 1987!) we introduced approach turn stalls on about Fam-4 and spins a hop or two after that...

I never thought it was a big deal, just part of showing the student what he could do with the airplane and building confidence that it wouldn't just fall out of the sky...


Kevin
 
tgrayson said:
Anecdotes are not a good guide to determing policy on a large scale, because it's a very biased sampling of the data. A friend of mine swore off Japanese cars, because he had a lemon from Mazda. Statistically, his decision was silly, although vaguely understandable.

My view is based on the fact that spin/training has not show any effectiveness for preventing stall/spin accidents, according to the data. The data that Staplegun quoted appears limited to the tendency to spin after a stall, but doesn't address the probability of stalling, so it really doesn't provide enough information to know if it's a net benefit or not.

Still, it should be pretty clear that the sooner you can catch a problem the easier it is to fix it. The spin starts in the stall, and the stall starts in a failure to maintain proper airspeeds. I advocate focusing on the airspeed control, so that it never gets to the stall, much less the spin.

Stall/spin training focuses on catching the horse after it's escaped, whereas I want to keep the gate closed. ;)
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No one is proposing teaching spins and nothing else. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
 
staplegun said:
What about looking at military primary training? I know it's a little apples/oranges but as far as I know both the Navy and Air Force do spins very early in the primary training syllabus. The spins are done by all students and the instructors have no "special" spin training; it's just treated as part of learning to fly.

As far as I know there hasn't been a history of crashes in conjunction with this.

I was a T-34C instructor for the Navy and I think (it's been awhile, 1987!) we introduced approach turn stalls on about Fam-4 and spins a hop or two after that...

I never thought it was a big deal, just part of showing the student what he could do with the airplane and building confidence that it wouldn't just fall out of the sky...


Kevin
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Interesting point, and goes back to one of my soap-box items of the lack of quality control in GA. The military programs work because there are very strict standards as to how and where you will do it, and the standards for what you learn is higher, and there is a continuous effort to ensure that new cadets are learning the "latest and greatest" and not being handed down incorrect knowledge (witness the inane GA Newton vs. Bernoulli "debate", for an example).

This is actually an argument against GA spin training, as the quality control is just non-existent, and FAA is certainly not up to the task!
 
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