Originally Posted by
Piltdown Man
This thread is nothing to do with spin safety, it started due to general anxiety. ...most of the time you have "quickly do nothing" to deal with them. Not until that is learnt will you be happy in an aircraft.
PM
Good points. The aircraft "knows" how to fly. The big secret that we don't tell non pilots is that most of the time we are not doing anything, we don't need to because the aircraft is dealing with things.
You mention doing lots of home SIM stuff. This doesn't prepare you well for the physical sensations of flight. You will get used to them in time. You may benefit from a couple of flights where you are not trying to learn anything new, just enjoying how it feels, looks and smells (the brain is very good at association of smell with emotional state, presumably a prehistoric survival thing, so you may be programmed to be stressed by the hot plastic and fuel smells that seem unique to aircraft, so make sure the ventilation is good).
Specifically on spins - the highest stress on the aircraft is after the spin has stopped, during the recovery from the ensueing dive, so why not try a few dives to different speeds and practice gently easing out to level flight concentrating on the sensation of slightly increased g?