who has spun a 172?

[MidlifeFlyer]

Here's the thing. When you routinely do spins, you can recover from a one-turn spin in 300 ft. in a 152. When you are really proficient in stalls, you can usually recover with no loss of altitude, and you can stop a spin in less than 300 feet.

I know you can. BTDT. But so what? That 300' is based on an intentional spin - you know the spin is coming and are prepared for it.

But the classic base-to-final cross-controlled spin involves a combination of bad decisions, bad piloting and distractions. Nice to know you can recover in 300' after spinning down 700' before you even react. Too bad the ground gets there first. Wow! You didn't do a simple wind correction crab on downwind but you'll have no problem recovering from a spin. I doubt it.

Heck, the classic takeoff killer is a spin resulting from a departure engine failure where the pilot doesn't put the nose down quickly enough - a situations theoretically recoverable by a pre-solo student pilot just following a normal syllabus - except for the "oh crap" factor.

There are plenty of good arguments for spin training - such it being a far better teacher of awareness than stalls + ground school, but the ability to recover from the killer spin is not one of them.

 

[tgrayson]

There's not really any way we can drain fuel, so the intended back seater gets sent home.

That's why I keep SuperSiphon in the back of my car:

http://www.pu-products.com/puproductsllc_031.htm

 

[tgrayson]

There are plenty of good arguments for spin training - such it being a far better teacher of awareness than stalls + ground school, but the ability to recover from the killer spin is not one of them.

Agreed. Spend the time on airspeed control, coordination, smooth control usage, and emergency procedures. In other words, prevent the situations which lead to spins.

 

[seagull]

Aside from my general belief that aerobatic training should be required anyway, the spin training that is, to me, critical, is not a full entry, but the recognition of the feeling the airplane has when it first "grabs" it, and learning how to react quickly. Teaching this does not require exceeding 30 degrees of bank, but it does require doing it enough times to get the feel of it.

Beyond that, I think the reasons for doing more spin training is that it is a great confidence maneuver and, as stated before, awareness. I found that doing the spin training led to students who were not afraid of doing stalls anymore, as they knew they could recover from the "worse thing that could happen".

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

I wonder about the legality of that. I have been told it's hard on the gyros, but doesn't kill them! It better NOT cause them to fail, when you think about it!

What would be illegal about it? Obviously, we weren't flying IFR.

On a side note, I teach spins to some students so they learn to use the rudder effectively, and to teach them how important it is. Repeating it over and over doesn't seem to make it stick in their mind, and I wait until they get to learning power on stalls (where it is really easy to spin) before I demonstrate it.

 

[Goonie]

Too bad. Send them to a CFI who doesn't want to scare them unnecessarily.

unnecessarily?

If they are scared of doing a manuever that the aircraft is fully capable of doing then they dont need to be pilots anyways.

Sorry, flying is dangerous, serious, and scary sometimes. We keep preaching to them about those "scary" spins, shouldnt they know how to recover from them before they are minted so they know what to do when the real thing occurs?

We have a DPE that does rides for us on occasion that has more skins on the wall then anybody on this website, that will teach PPL applicants how to recover from spins if thier instructor hasnt yet.

I agree with smitty, put it in 61.87.

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

so they know what to do when the real thing occurs?.

That "when" is a pretty big assumption, isn't it? You're assuming that at some point everyone will end up in an unintentional spin.

How many unintentional spins have you done - you know, where you did such a bad job "doing a maneuver that the aircraft is fully capable of doing" that you ended up in a spin you didn't want?

 

[Goonie]

That "when" is a pretty big assumption, isn't it? You're assuming that at some point everyone will end up in an unintentional spin.

How many unintentional spins have you done - you know, where you did such a bad job "doing a maneuver that the aircraft is fully capable of doing" that you ended up in a spin you didn't want?

Well, what if it did happen? What if your student your student decides to go buy himself a V35 or an airplane far less stable than a 172? What if they have thier family? I think taking a .8 flight to go do a little spin training is pretty good piece of mind.

Dont tell me it doesnt happen!!

I'm sure we could find pages of NTSB reports to read on the subject.

No disrespect at all, but that is the stupidest excuse for not teaching spins!

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

How many unintentional spins have you done - you know, where you did such a bad job "doing a maneuver that the aircraft is fully capable of doing" that you ended up in a spin you didn't want?

How many of us have stalled an airplane unintentionally? I doubt the number is very high, and I think the majority of pilots are safe. Why teach stalls to full buffet then?

I haven't been instructing very long, but I have seen some students do make some stupid decisions out of the blue. You don't know what they are going to do when you release them from your control.

I agree that base to final at 400 feet AGL with full flaps isn't going to leave any room to recover from a spin, but it sure does help if they accidentally get into one in the practice area doing power-on stalls.

 

[mikecweb]

How many of us have stalled an airplane unintentionally? I doubt the number is very high, and I think the majority of pilots are safe. Why teach stalls to full buffet then?
.

Probably be high if stalls weren't taught.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

Probably be high if stalls weren't taught.

Which is exactly my point. You could also limit the student to never get slower than 50 knots (172 and obviously a higher airspeed when turning steep) and this would teach them to keep a lower AoA and prevent stalling. Handcuffing them and not allowing them to recognize the whole them limits them some what, on an educational level.

MidlifeFlyer was implying that most people won't get into an intentional spin.

 

[jrh]

I think there are two completely different questions that have somehow gotten mixed together in this debate...

1) Does spin training make safer pilots?

2) Should spin training always be required, even if the student is deathly afraid of spins?

To address question #1: Yes, I believe spin training absolutely makes better pilots. It gives them a more complete picture of the plane's operating envelope, it lets them learn recovery techniques in a hands-on way, it builds confidence, etc. Will spin training help somebody recover from a spin initiated within 500 feet of the ground? Highly unlikely. But spin training will make safer pilots in general. I think we're pretty much all in agreement over this one.

To address question #2: Of course not! In my opinion, it's absolutely ridiculous to make a student do something you know they're scared of...ESPECIALLY with the logic that "they have to learn it in case it happens to them someday." I don't even want to start on the fallacies of that statement. Any training conducted in this way is counter-productive. The student won't learn much and their fears might actually get worse. They probably won't trust their instructor as much and won't enjoy flying as much.

What I will say is, I have no problem with an instructor who requires spin training of his students, but does not perform the training until helping the student fully overcome their initial fears. Maybe that means ground school over spins. Maybe that means watching videos of spins. Maybe that means talking to other pilots who say spins are no big deal. Whatever it takes. As long as the instructor's attitude focuses on building confidence, rather than, "We're doing spins whether you want to or not, so hop in!" I'm ok with it.

And what if the student never becomes ok with the idea of spins? Then it's up to the instructor to decide if they're so adament about doing spins that they're willing to turn away a student because of it. If they send the student to a different instructor to complete training, I guess that's their business, even if it makes no sense to me. However, forcing a student to do something they're truly scared of should never be an option.


As a side note to this whole discussion, I think it's interesting how everything that has been said here could also be said for learning full aerobatics. I was never a big believer in spin training until I did spins, and I was never a big fan of aerobatic training until I did some. Now I'm a huge advocate of both. But I'd never make somebody who is scared undertake either.

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

MidlifeFlyer was implying that most people won't get into an intentional spin.

No, I was saying that most people won't get into an unintentional spin at a recoverable altitude.

Necessity? We've been without mandatory spin training for student pilots for a long time and haven't noticed a bunch of reports of an increase in stall/spin accidents - and the group that would like to see spins back in mandatory training is large and vocal enough that if it was there, we'd be seeing them.

I don't disagree that an unintentional spin from a practice stall could happen if the pilot wasn't taught proper stall recognition and recovery. And, going the extra step from stall to spin recovery in order to increase overall pilot awareness and proficiency =is= a good argument in favor of spin training.

 

[nosehair]

I know you can. BTDT. But so what? That 300' is based on an intentional spin - you know the spin is coming and are prepared for it.

No,no, I don't mean I can do it, I mean it is routinely doable by any pilot who is trained to a point where the control movements are automatic and the mind is not frozen due to fear. That only comes from repetition of a maneuver.

But the classic base-to-final cross-controlled spin involves a combination of bad decisions, bad piloting and distractions. Nice to know you can recover in 300' after spinning down 700' before you even react. .

True. And I may be totally wrong in this, but it is my belief that a pilot trained to automatically respond with proper control movements will be less likely to make the kind of subconcious spin-entry control movements while he is otherwise distracted by the many other factors which would otherwise get him to that point.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

 

[seagull]

No,no, I don't mean I can do it, I mean it is routinely doable by any pilot who is trained to a point where the control movements are automatic and the mind is not frozen due to fear. That only comes from repetition of a maneuver.

True. And I may be totally wrong in this, but it is my belief that a pilot trained to automatically respond with proper control movements will be less likely to make the kind of subconcious spin-entry control movements while he is otherwise distracted by the many other factors which would otherwise get him to that point.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I agree with the above. It has to be trained such that it's an automatic response. Also, as I said to tgrayson over dinner last night, I think that the reason the accident rates did not go up after stopping the training is more due to the lack of how to train and the initial poor training of the instructors, rather than pilots out there getting into them. In other words, the training accident rate was high. Too many instructors were doing them too low and without understanding them themselves. I think spin training should be mandatory, but, along with that, the instructors would need to be taught the aerodynamics and how to teach them first.

As it is now, we have 80% of the CFIs out there that don't understand basic aerodynamics, let alone being able to actually explain what happens in a spin!

 

[tgrayson]

But spin training will make safer pilots in general. I think we're pretty much all in agreement over this one.

No, I don't agree with that, since I've seen no evidence to support that point of view. All I've seen are arguments. Arguments are a good starting point for gathering evidence, but they aren't a substitute for it. Many things sound reasonable, but, in the end, are untrue.

 

[nosehair]

All I've seen are arguments. Arguments are a good starting point for gathering evidence, but they aren't a substitute for it.

What kind of evedence would you be interested in?

I don't have documented evedence, but I do have thousands of experiences instructing and seeing new pilots and old pilots and all kind of good and bad pilots in between, and all of them that are not very good at flying are also not good at stalling. They do not have good control of the airplane. Making the base-to-final turn, as well as most any other maneuver, is exacting for them. Everything is a major effort. They are so involved in trying to coordinate the control inputs to the airplane, that there is little room left for other tasks.

That's why they finally overload and make a mistake. It isn't just the spin itself. Or the stall itself. Or the radio call itself. Or the inadvertant IMC itself. It is (usually) never one thing itself. It is usually several things stacking up against you that finally does you in. So why not reduce the odds by eliminating as many of the things that can bite you?

Pilots who are skilled in automatic control inputs, stalls, spins, steep turns whatever, are flying the airplane with their automatic nervous system and the brain is focused on other tasks. This leads to a logical conclusion that all aircraft control training is good.

Do you agree to that?

 

[tgrayson]

What kind of evedence would you be interested in?

Statistics. Random groups of pilots, some given training and some not, and then looking at the fatality rate years later.

I don't have documented evidence

If it's not documented, it's not evidence.

This leads to a logical conclusion that all aircraft control training is good.
Do you agree to that?

No. If you want to be good at X, you practice X. Practicing Y doesn't help in becoming good at X, unless Y is a subset of the skills of X. This is the principle of specificity. If you want to improve the base to final maneuver, that's what you need to practice.

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

IIn other words, the training accident rate was high. Too many instructors were doing them too low and without understanding them themselves. I think spin training should be mandatory, but, along with that, the instructors would need to be taught the aerodynamics and how to teach them first.

As it is now, we have 80% of the CFIs out there that don't understand basic aerodynamics, let alone being able to actually explain what happens in a spin!

I think that's absolutely right. But the bottom line is that for better or worse, we have CFIs who are not as good as they should be and, unless we revamp the entire system (there are those who suggest that CFIs not be able to log PIC when providing instruction as a way to get rid of pure timebuilders) it's gonna stay that way. That's a heck of a lot of regulatory and political headache for something that may not even be a problem.

Don't get me wrong - I'm very glad I had spin training for my CFI. It definitely has made be a better instructor if for no other reason that it allows me a level of comfort when I let the right student go further to the edge (sometimes over ) during stall training. But in terms of my spin training having made me a better =pilot=, nope, not even a little.

 

[Goonie]

I think that's absolutely right. But the bottom line is that for better or worse, we have CFIs who are not as good as they should be and, unless we revamp the entire system (there are those who suggest that CFIs not be able to log PIC when providing instruction as a way to get rid of pure timebuilders) it's gonna stay that way. That's a heck of a lot of regulatory and political headache for something that may not even be a problem.

Don't get me wrong - I'm very glad I had spin training for my CFI. It definitely has made be a better instructor if for no other reason that it allows me a level of comfort when I let the right student go further to the edge (sometimes over ) during stall training. But in terms of my spin training having made me a better =pilot=, nope, not even a little.

That I agree with....

But the logic "It will probably never happen, so why bother teaching it?" I dont agree with.

Commercial students will prbably never do a lazy eight in a RJ, so why bother teaching it?

Why dont we just teach straight and level and landings?

MLF....

I have read a lot of your post through the years and respect you a lot. I know you genuinlly care about the level of learning your students recieve. I know you are not a "CFI timebuilder".

We had a student at our school that was deathly afraid of spins. I told him when we were in the practice area on his EOC that I would show him proper recovery from spins. It took him a while to agree, but he had a great time and relized he had nothing to be afraid of!