It funny, but if you get into acro, you will go up and you will try to spin and snap roll the aircraft and put it into severe stall situations without any hesitation.
It depends on the aircraft, but what I'm saying is, if you do acro all the time or at least pretty often, then the thought of spinning a 172 or 18x or anything for that matter becomes a lot less concerning. I would never get comfortable doing spins in an aircraft not rated for them, but you do get more comfortable with the thought that you can recover quickly if it happens, because it's programmed into your muscles if you have been doing spins recently.
If I were King, all students and pilots would have to log .5 hour of acro, in an aerobatic aircraft every twelve months, and they would have to be at the controls with a qualified observer, and log enough spins and maneuvers until they either cry Uncle or puke, or until they can get it down how to recover quickly, precisely, and take command of the aircraft from all attitudes.
I think at some point spin experience will vanish entirely, and stalls will replace spins as this "lurking danger" that is feared and misunderstood by pilots who have no experience with them.
I strongly feel the problem then was the same as now - lack of truly qualified instructors and suitable airplanes. These days, receiving spin training from a qualified aerobatic/spin instructor is probably safer than doing basic PPL training in a 152.Why do you think spin recovery was taught in the first place? It was taught to show the student to keep their head out of their a$$ at low altitude, to keep their speed up while in a landing pattern, and to demonstrate that if they did not, they would not only not recover, but rather they would die. A spin in a proper trainer, done correctly , cannot possibly kill anyone and was instrumental in saving many many lives, including mine. " describing a spin" is a very weak substitute for doing several and being able to recover on you own. I fear that there are instructors who are afraid to do them. That is unacceptable.
Stick & Rudder helped me fiqure out how to flare now I will read the chapter on Spin recovery So what were you doing all this on your first Solo ? I never practice steep turns and stalls alone without my instructor , but than thats me ! Glad you made it !I was training for a private pilot's license in a Cessna 172, and had about 35 hours flight time and 175 take-offs and landings under my belt by the time I was cleared for my first unsupervised solo. During the solo, I made a series of poor decisions and mistakes and nearly ended causing what undoubtedly would have been a fatal crash. Lesson learned: please practice stall and spin recovery so that you don't panic if it happens to you.
My flight plan, which I had worked out ahead of time with my instructor, was simply to fly out to our usual training area and practice the ground reference and air maneuvers that we had been working, and then fly straight back. The trouble started when I went into practicing the air maneuvers, which I had become accustomed to practicing in a certain sequence: steep turns, slow flight, power-off stall, power-on stall. So that's what I did. I practiced steep turns, both to the left and right, and then into slow flight (with full flaps), and power-off stall. My intention was never to actually stall the plane, but rather to practice (as I had done with my instructor) approaching the threshold, recognizing the signs, and recovering.
It was right at the point between the threshold of a stall and the point of recovery when things started to go very wrong. I can recall applying full throttle, but I had not yet begun to raise the flaps, when I felt the left wing of the plane start to drop. I instinctively reacted by turning the yoke hard to the right. I had been taught to use the rudder here, but clearly had not yet internalized that. Upon doing so, the plane stopped flying and started a slow spin. At first I didn't realize what was happening. I knew something was wrong because the nose dropped and I was looking straight ahead at the ground, but I didn't understand the reasons.
Again acting on more instinct than proper training, I first tried to just pull the nose of the plane up by pulling back on the yoke. And it worked, the nose came up to the horizon and I remember feeling relieved, but only for a moment before the nose dropped again. I pulled back again and brought the nose up a second time, and it dropped right back down. I think I tried a third time before I realized what was happening.
At that instant, pure and total panic hit me like a ton of bricks. I had visions of the local paper reporting on the death of a student pilot, and I could only think to myself "how in the hell did I manage to get myself into this? I am going to crash and die on my first solo!" I had never practiced spin recovery before and this was not a topic that had been address with my instructor nor one that I recalled (at the time) from ground school.
Luckily, I had just finished reading a great old book called Stick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche. I remembered the reading about the basics of spin recovery and began to apply what I remembered. First thing in my mind was apply opposite rudder to stop the spin; I wasn't sure which rudder was opposite, and I can recall feeling like I did not have time to ponder and figure it out, so I just guessed and stepped on one of them. When spin got faster, I knew I had guessed wrong. So I let up on that rudder and applied the correct opposite rudder, which did quickly stop the spin. Then release back pressure on the yoke, as I had still been trying to hold the nose up this whole time. Then I realized the plane was at full throttle and full flaps, so I reduced throttle and raised the flaps incrementally as the plane started flying again.
Now I was drenched in sweat, like I had just stepped out of the shower, but the plane was flying again. I'm not certain how long it took or how much altitude I lost, but I started at around 3,500 and my perception was certainly that I had narrowly avoided a fatal accident. I went straight back to the airport and have been terrified to get back in the cockpit since. The feeling of that wing dropping out from under me will forever be associated with an intense visceral terror that I felt during those moments.
I would like to see the "Data" showing that pilots lost their lives in spin training in the 40s ....( or any other time for that matter) the airplanes used thru the 50s were very docile aircraft, ie: champ , cub, t craft, Luscombe, etc. and of course the Stearman which was -is also a very docile aircraft although underpowered. Doing stall- spin training was simply something you were taught, no big deal and in civilian training one didn't even wear a chute. ( it was required you bring it out on a pre determined point.)Who knows. The only data we have is from the 40's when spin training was mandatory and there were supposedly more fatalities associated with spin training than pilots accidentally spinning and dying on their own. Not sure if data exists that shows the rate of spin deaths between spin trained pilots and non-spin trained pilots...once they survived the spin training process.
You'd be surprised how little altitude light GA airplanes can recover a spin entry. You do not have to let the spin develop. Spin training and experience produces muscle memory that ingrains an immediate response to spin entry that pilots would not otherwise have. If you sit there and let a spin develop at 500' turning final, then you're likely dead. If you immediately recover what would otherwise be a spin entry for someone who had no clue what they were seeing, then you very well may live. Spin training also gives you skills that you will then likely never NEED to utilize. Those with spin skill and experience by and large are not the ones accidentally stall/spinning on base to final because their spin awareness is much more acute.
Many argue that it all goes back to stall prevention awareness. I don't fully buy it. A spin is just a possible progression of a stall. Saying you can have full spin prevention awareness by stall avoidance training is like saying that you can have full stall prevention awareness having never done a stall. Does anyone feel a pilot who has NEVER experienced an actual stall (and what it takes to get there) is more likely to avoid a stall than a pilot who HAS experienced one? I think that's baloney.
You could possibly say the same thing about aerobatic training. Does this training make it more likely that there will be someone out there who gets involved with aerobatics and happens to kill themselves, when absent this training they would have never done aerobatics and died? Maybe. But I think this type of training will provide skills that prevent more accidents than the elevated risk associated with responsibly getting involved with this activity. I disagree with the premise that additional training will end up with more dead pilots overall. For those who DO agree with this premise, then it's a slippery slope argument for ANY additional training and skills that pilots obtain. If you take the slippery slope in the reverse direction, you may as well not teach anyone to fly in the first place, because as long as there are pilots flying, there will be fatalities associated with flying.
I think there are many more accidents associated with undertrained, underskilled, and underexperienced pilots getting into situations they cannot handle than there are well-trained, skilled, and experienced pilots stupidly getting into situations they cannot handle.
As I understand it, it wasn't so much about instructors with insufficient spin experience killing themselves and students, it was more about students practicing spins on their own and messing up the recovery. Back when spins were required virtually all trainers were spinnable with adequate recovery performance and I'd be surprised if most of the CFIs of those days weren't pretty well versed in getting in and out of a spin in the planes they regularly flew.
Seriously. So we went and did an insipient spin which included a) not being able to spin the damn thing for the longest time -- they are STABLE, b) dropping the left wing, seeing cotton fields with center pivots for a sec, then c) pulling out of the dive at ~1.5 to 2g. 
