Of course spinning should be included in PPL training!
Oh, you want a reason? Well, it's fun! What more reason do you need? I was also fortunate enough to have an instructor who agreed with me. You could often see a little sparkle in my instructors eyes whenever you talked about flying. When I mentioned that I wanted spin-training, though, his eyes lit up.
I know you can't spin Warriors, but I didn't realise you could spin Cherokees - and the club had two of them at the time. I told my instructor I was going to go somewhere else to get some spin training. He practically begged me not to, that he'd take me spinning in a Cherokee.
We'd had a long period of poor weather, with ceiling around 1500' every weekend. That was fine by me, because I was doing circuit training at the time, and the ceiling was more than high enough to fly circuits. Then, one weekend, the weather was absolutely perfect, but I'd forgotten all about spinning. I turned up at the airfield, and noticed that I'd been put into a different aircraft to the one I'd booked the previous week. Hmm - strange. Then my instructor walked in, with a huge grin on his face - "FFF, d'you fancy spinning today?" Of course I do! Now it made sense - the aircraft they'd put me in was a Cherokee!
Instructor demonstrated the first spin - it was pretty scary. Then he had me do one. I had a vague idea what to expect now, but bottled it and didn't pull the yoke back far enough. It did something almost like a spin, but not quite. The next one was fine, except that I pulled out of it before it really got started. Then the instructor had me hold it in the spin for a couple of turns (actually counted turns, and was amazed that what seemed like about 10 or 12 was only two!) before recovery. Now it started to become fun! By the end of the session, I was really enjoying myself, and wanted a bigger engine so that I could spend less time climbing and more time spinning!
I think that, despite reading all the theory, if I ever found myself in an inadvertent spin (very unlikely in PA28s, I know - those things barely stall!) without the training, I'd have frozen.
I've read the arguments about more accidents in spin training than real inadvertant spin accidents, but I'm not convinced. I'm ready to be corrected by someone with some real acro experience, but as far as I can see, if you're in a properly-loaded aircraft which is cleared for spinning, the only way you can have an accident is by not having enough height at the start of the excercise. And any instructor who spins without enough height to recover from the student's botched recovery (or tries to spin an improperly loaded aircraft, or tries to spin something which isn't designed to spin) should not be a pilot, let alone an instructor.
The only reason I can see for making spin training non-compulsary is that it was scaring prospective pilots off. Well, sorry, but that doesn't wash with me. Ok, so I really enjoyed spinning, but I can see that other people don't. But scary things can happen in an aircraft. Maybe not even your fault. If you can't keep your cool with an instructor next to you doing spin recoveries, how are you going to keep your cool with no instructor, no training, and probably less height than you'd like, when it really matters? You might not enjoy, but if you can't handle it, maybe you should stick to a bicycle, for your own safety?
Just my 2p from a low-time PPL.
FFF
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