Years ago, as a 17 year old student pilot on an RAF flying scholarship at Ipswich with Lonmet Aviation (that dates me a bit) I was allocated a 152 fresh out of major maintenance. I’d not flown it before and it was my last dual GH revision sortie prior to my final handling test, so it was a full profile, with the instructor there to hopefully sit on his hands and watch me trying my best.
As briefed, I did a standard stall entry from level flight. The aircraft markedly dropped its left wing, but it didn’t cause a major problem because I’d been taught how to deal with that.
We were also required to demonstrate and recover from a fully developed spin. I entered as per the previous stall and applied full left rudder at the buffet. The spin entry didn’t go like any other I’d seen. When it settled down, my instructor looked across at me and said “Have you noticed anything unusual”? “Yes”, said I, “We’re upside down”!
We were in an inverted spin and the prop then stopped.
My instructor asked what I was going to do to recover.....I replied that I’d better pull back rather than pushing forward on the yoke and he nodded! It recovered quite quickly as I remember and the engine restarted itself as we recovered from the descent.
I think the instructor was more shaken up by it than me, I knew no better I suppose. The aircraft was taken off line and it was found to have a difference in individual wing rigging when it had been put back together.