who has spun a 172?

[jtrain609]

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!

True dat. What I usually did was explained to them why to not try to step on the rudder during their base to final turn and when they did during landing practice, we'd stop doing landings and go out and do spins.

I showed them very clearly what they were trying to do to us. It did three things:

-Made them realize spins are nothing to be afraid of if you're at altitude
-Made them realize they were SCREWED if they spun it in on base to final
-Made them see what caused said spin and they'd make the connection of stepping on the rudder pedal to try to increase your rate of turn during your base to final turn isn't a good idea, and the resulting spin is why.

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

But the logic "It will probably never happen, so why bother teaching it?" I don't agree with.

Neither do I. If you read back over the posts, I only said that in response to folks who said that it is needed because it's =gonna= happen.

"It's not gonna happen" is not =alone= a reason to exclude a maneuver. But, "it's valuable training" =alone= isn't a reason for =requiring= it either. Both are part of a large calculation of cost and benefit.

In his post, jrh mentioned the same history of the spin training requirement changes that I recall reading about - a large number of fatal training accidents during spin training and a FAA or CAA decision that the benefits of spin training were outweighed by the risk.

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

The value of the maneuver is not the only variable. Those who like the lazy 8 argue that, while it is not likely to be encountered in the "real world," it shows a level of aircraft mastery and situational awareness in an important way. But show the FAA a high fatal accident rate during lazy-8 training that it feels is disproportionate to the benefit, and watch it disappear as a requirement.

And I don't disagree with any CFI who wants his student to learn spin recovery. The ones who want to teach it tend to also be the ones who know =how= to teach it safely. I do, however, as my very first post on the subject shows, object to forcing a student into it.

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".

I'm too old, and can't afford the cut in pay to be a timebuilder

 

[seagull]

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.

Well, I think the fact that you didn't have it until you had your CFI training lends itself to you not being an advocate of it before that. Let's all face it, we all tend to think that others should have the same training as we did, based on the premise of "well, it worked for me, right?".

So, that aside, I think your first paragraph is something that you know (if you've read other posts of mine) that I agree strongly with. There is a real quality control problem in GA, and, to a lesser extent elsewhere in aviation, but in GA, the FAA inspectors who do the training and write the rules are as clueless as most of the CFIs (witness how poor some of the FAA books are). Real case of the blind leading the blind. Until this issue is fixed, we really have no business reinstituting something that requires the utmost in quality control, i.e., spin training.

 

[surreal1221]

It makes me mad when I get a CFI student who has never done spins!

I MAKE all my private students learn how to recover from them. I also dont care if thier scared. I will give them time to get over thier fear, but I wont sign them off till they do.

I before E huh?

THEIR . . . but more importantly. . . it is they're scared.

Just had to. Sorry.

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

Well, I think the fact that you didn't have it until you had your CFI training lends itself to you not being an advocate of it before that. Let's all face it, we all tend to think that others should have the same training as we did, based on the premise of "well, it worked for me, right?".

You could be right about an "it worked for me" bias, but I don't think so on this issue. At least I hope not. It's a CFI's job to explore new teaching techniques. and here are quite a few things, from techniques to maneuvers, that I incorporate into my teaching that I was not exposed to at all during my training. Cross-controlled stalls, slow flight, steep turns and stalls as part of night student pilot training, no-instrument landings before student solo are only a few of the things that are standard for me as an instructor that I was not exposed to as a student. And I keep adding more as I learn of them. At least I try to.

 

[Av8n4life]

if youre scared of spins, you have no business in an airplane. sure its not something i would right off the bat to scare someone, but i think its smart to gradually build up to a fully developed spin with a primary student. i think that proper training will aleviat most of the fear involved.

My $0.02 on that...

I don't think that being "scared" of spins is necessarily a reason to stay out of the cockpit! I do believe that you shouldn't be deathly afraid of them, but a natural aversion to them isn't really a bad thing IMHO.

I believe the issue is more of developing in the student a healthy respect for spins...and in turn, helping them with coordination and growing proficient practicing stalls.

The approach I take to private students is this: I teach them power-off stalls and recoveries, then we migrate to power-on stalls. I try to keep them "out of the woods" with verbal coaching and an occasional "tap tap tap" on the rudder pedals as the stall is approached, reminding them to maintain coordinated flight. Then, I'll place special emphasis on teaching them what happens if coordination is NOT maintained and I'll cross-control stall a few times with a delayed recovery, teaching them how to recover from those situations. I am not out to "scare" the student, but I do want them to gain familiarity of the sights, sounds, etc of an incipient spin so that if it happens to them, they won't be stunned. If the student shows further interest in spins, then we'll do them, no problem. If the student says "that's enough" and I'm satisfied that the point's been taken, we won't go further with it.

But that's just me.