Frightened of Spinning
I am not sure why spinning was dropped from the PPL syllabus. Possible reasons:
You need an aircraft cleared for spinning to do it and not all clubs have such an airframe.
The number of training hours is preciously short (even shorter for an NPPL), so someone possibly decided that the time was better spent on other disciplines.
There is good evidence that more aircraft have been lost in mishandled practice spin recoveries than real mishandlings i.e, it is actually quite difficult to get into an unintentional spin.
That said, ANY aircraft can be made to spin. If you have any desires to go beyond flying straight and level for 30 mins and then turning round and flying home, then a bit of post - PPL spin training is good for the confidence. It is also great fun once you discover that there is no huge mystery to spinning.
For fear of being accused of advertising, UH teach spinning in 2 x 30 min trips. Firstly there is a lesson in theory - delivered in plainspeak! I am thick and when I first learnt spinning, the mechanics were easy enough, but I no real understanding of what was actually going on. I have written the UH spinning brief for simpletons - mainly so I can understand it!
The first sortie looks at stalling characteristics, the incipient spin and then the full blown version. The Extra 300 is the perfect platform to learn this skill as the controls are very crisp and powerful.
After a debrief and another theory session, advanced spinning is taught on the second trip. This includes gross mishandling of the controls and the throttle during the spin to see what happens and to prove the theory learnt in the classroom. We finish off with the inverted spin, by which time everyone in the aircraft is an expert!
If this frightens you, it should not. The spinning exercises are taught using a building block process - we don't move on until the individual skill has been mastered. Thereafter, new factors are introduced one at a time, and you will find your confidence grows much more quickly than you may have imagined.
Hope this rather long winded comment will illicit further remarks from the floor.
Safe flying
Andy Cubin