Originally Posted by
wonkazoo
The real problem here in the US anyway is that there is no statutory requirement that a prospective pilot ever experience a spin before becoming licensed. This is one reason (I believe) that stall spin accidents in the pattern and elsewhere are still far too common. For the majority of those accidents the pilot keeps the stick buried to the rear, primarily out of fear and inexperience I'm guessing. If the PIC had simply released the back pressure up to the point of autorotation or even in most cases after it they would not have fatally crashed their perfectly good airplane. Everything I have written here is intended primarily for that audience- the one who doesn't know what adverse yaw even looks like, much less a developing spin. For that audience, and perhaps that audience only, keeping the stick back is simply not the right advice and nearly all GA aircraft will fail to recover or will take unduly long to recover if the back pressure on the stick is not released immediately after applying opposite rudder.
Perhaps I was wrong when I offered that spins are not the great unknown- they aren't, but how your aircraft will react when in one or entering one is highly variable, hence this discussion.
Warm regards-
dce
I'm a dinosaur from the time when perhaps most aircraft and certainly all trainers, would spin and spin recovery techniques were a mandatory requirement of the
ab initio syllabus. As a consequence, I have never had a problem with controlling any aircraft cleared for such manoeuvres. Actually, not quite true. I once came very close to disaster when a Chipmunk went almost flat in an erect spin - I was lucky to recover but lost over 2,000ft in the process. Never went more than two turns after that.
Wonkazoo is correct - the absence of spin appreciation from statutory licensing requirements is a serious omission. Frankly, I don't subscribe to the theory that modern light aircraft don't spin and therefore teaching recovery is not necessary. That might have a spurious validity in a straight and level stall (if the a/c can be made to stall) but most incidences seem to occur in the circuit, suggesting a spin initiated by an unintended wing drop or something similar. The rudder has become a secondary level of control and little understood by those brought up on flat-engined, nosewheel aircraft.
In a parallel thread related to IMC ratings, I have suggested that all PPL candidates should receive ca.10 hours basic IMC experience to give them a degree of competence when caught out by weather. Similarly, I think it would improve general safety and prove a useful piloting experience (I'm not advocating an advanced "skill") if spin recovery was reintroduced to the standard examination. Of course, where they find suitable aircraft is different problem . . .