I must say the both Pace and Pistons present compelling arguments, and I can easily agree with many aspects of both! Well done! I suppose that my aged flying heritage is just different enough from the present world of training, that I should probably take a step back, and let the pros do their job. That said, I do not automatically think "pro" and flying instructor in the same thought. With some exceptions, I have found myself alarmed with what some instructors do not know about flying - worse, they don't know they don't!
2 C 152's had bent horizontal tail spars as a result of botched spin recoveries.
However, can we go back to the bent spar on the 152 please? Being a 150 owner, this is of particular interest to me.... Something actually
bent back there? There's not really much "spar" in the H stab, it's really mostly skins carrying the loads. Could it actually have been sloppy ground handling? That will bugger a Cessna H stab a lot faster than flying it poorly! To bend an H stab spar in flight, you'd have to pull considerably more than 4.4 G. That's a lot, and would have most PPL's shreaking, and fouling themselves. A few times we pulled 5+ in the Aerobat, just because we could, but soon sickened, and greyed ourselves out, so we quit it!
Honestly, are pilots acutally damaging 152 H stabs by poor flying? The Aerobat H stab has an extra spar, to carry the extra loads, and a beefed up fuselage mounting hardpoint. My 150M, and all 152's also have this beefed up fuselage, but I still inspect it thoroughly! I also have a G meter, and have never pulled as much as 3.5 G, nor passed red line in it. I have only once heard of a Cessna being bent in flight, and it was a 185 jump plane carelessly spiral dived through clouds by a scared pilot. It was the wings which bent, not the tail (though I know it is quite different from that of a 150).
Pistons, would you describe the 152 H stab damage in more detail, so I have some insight?