How to practice losing control....
Current power pilots and instructors, help me out here....I can give advice on the stall, the spin, recognition and recovery in a glider.
Not necessarily in power.
A few things have changed in gliding .... it is no longer approved to scare the **** out of your student by practicing spins and recoveries below 600 feet.
That was supposed to weed out the wimps! Even with the view gone green and spinning round, you had to FULL OPPOSITE RUDDER, CENTRALISE CONTROLS, EASE STICK FORWARD UNTIL RECOVERED FROM STALL/SPIN, AND then ease out of your death dive. Trouble was, not everybody did.
So same exercise, yep, but from 2,000 feet minimum. But I still think the student learns the most from HIMSELF putting the aircraft into the unusual attitude, able to recognise if it is a spiral dive or a spin, and taking the proper action. If the instructor puts it in a spin and says Now you fix it!
he doesn't have a chance to find out what it feels like. He may therefore not have experienced, with his hand - and feets - on the controls, when the dear old ship goes wobbly AND THE ELEVATOR DOES NOT WORK IN THE NORMAL SENSE.....
If you move the stick (or wheel) back, and the nose still goes down, THAT MEANS YOU ARE STALLED. To recover, move the stick (wheel) forward instead...sure enough, the elevator was not disconnected after all. It will still lower the nose. Which brings the aircraft out of the stall.
The spin is the interesting effect of one wing stalled, the other wing not stalled. Even if your aircraft is not approved for spinning, you should still practice stall recognition and recovery. Stick forward usually fixes it. Not always easy to do if you are already close to the ground. But a vital action all the same.
If you are an instructor, in power, what type do you use for teaching? what altitude? Do you let the student put it in the stall and recover, then in the spin and recover, or do you deprive him of that valuable experience?
And do you ever take up a light aircraft approved for spinning on your own, and throw it around just to remember what it feels like?