I do very clearly remember my first lessons in stall / spin recovery, an image indelibly in my consciousness...
Having done a heap with RC models and spent the week prior studying the basic aerodynamics of it all...I understood it...I was still apprehensive about going out to actually do it....my ex (Airline DC-9 / 727 Check captain, instructor) with God knows how many hours experience was the same, that just nailed home how much this was not to be trifled with.....
That image indelibly branded into my consciousness?? We were flying an AustFlight Drifter A582,
JetPhotos.Net Aviation Photos-Aircraft Search: Austflight Drifter A-582
Now seeing the Earth rotate, whilst slung against the shoulder straps looking over the top of the plexi-glass windscreen, realising if it weren't for the shoulder straps you may well be free falling looking back up at the aircraft spinning from a different perspective was very much attention grabbing..........without flaps we used to fly these things into marginal strips slide slipping.....crossed controls.....
.I know I know......(Of course we'd add 5-10kt as a safety margin the Pitot was on one side so healthy disrespect of the ASI was de rigueur , it all became an inate sense of 'feel'....or...'touch'...still some of the best damn fun I've ever had with my clothes on
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Twas a lovely stick and rudder aircraft that A582, taught you all about adverse yaw and other such intricacies and set you up in tail dragger aircraft straight off....years later I amused myself with a glider course...instructor was ever so impressed with how I could 'dance the pedals' once on the ground.....tail dragger experience you see.....certain aircraft demand that those 'foot rests' be 'engaged'..............
Stall the wing and initiate an auto-rotation (Spin) is a neat little trick....but not one to **** up........Plan it, mentally prepare it, go over it again, ensure the CofG is not Aft, and ENJOY! Personally my greatest enjoyment is not entering auto-rotation, but the clean and precise exit from it........
