Originally Posted by
Squawk7700
I wonder how useful the spin training actually is in reality. As in, how many fresh CPL’s head out into the world and actually benefit from it through their career from the trusty 152 to an Airbus? If you’ve got fare paying pax on-board and you’re entering a spin, you’ve got some serious issues ! Most likely to stall on landing and perhaps when you’re pushing it to make it above some cloud when VFR and if it happens then, you’re in a world of pain most likely!
I personally think having spin training is not so you will heroically recover from an inadvertant spin and save the day, rather I generally think there are two strong benefits:
1. it gives pilots a more attuned instinct to detecting when the aircraft is entering that part of the envelope and correctly avoiding it getting any further
and
2. it builds confidence in their ability to safely control an aircraft. Overconfidence is not a good trait in a pilot but neither is inappropriate timidity and fear.
I have on multiple occasions come across pilot's who hold some deep suspicions about aircraft and their ability to handle things if something untoward happened. An inadvertent stall/spin is the most common fear and to avoid that threat they sometimes fly the aircraft in ways that potentially reduce safety.
I have seen this more than once with people always landing very long or regularly need to go around or who dive the aircraft on their base/final turn destabilising their approach, all because they believe the aircraft is in danger of stalling when turning onto final and manouvering on approach when in fact they do not require that speed and well inside a safe envelope.
I am not qualified to comment on the benefits it would give to air transport pilots (not my game) but in the GA realm, I think stall/spins can account for a number of accidents where people are manouvering on approaches and departures in tricky circumstances (low cloud, engine difficulties, strong winds, steep turns in climb outs, showing off on low passes etc). Having an instinctive feel for when you are putting the aircraft close to a stall/spin seems to me to add some buffer against tragedy. Once you have entered a spin at typical heights these things occur at, you cannot recover in time, the point is to know what happens, to recognise when it is getting too close (without reducing your performance by 'over-diagnosing' it).
My 2c