Student solo spinning sounds like asking for trouble to me. I see no requirement for it, and a spin is still not an entirely safe manoeuvre for the inexperienced, even if correctly taught. Again referring to UK military flying training, although the course involved the student practicing the spin many times, intentional spinnning was the only part of the VFR flying that was taught (or taught officially - there were some unauthorised aerobatic manoeuvres flown that I would not have dared solo!) but never practised solo.

Gday

I must admit haven't digested most of the posts but if I may suggest if you teach and won't teach spinning find another vocation as you are not doing your students justice only sending them out to find out the hard way DEAD

Cheers Q

Strewth, Qnim, I knew if I kept hanging about these hallowed halls, we would agree on sumint. :E
Cheers, Wiz. :ok:

what if the flying school you work for does not have any aircraft to spin in?
What am i supposed to do? Also when a student is flying a Pa28 or a C172 etc, what are the realistic chances that they could get the aircraft near the point it would be about to spin. A Pa28 does not spin easily - if at all but i could not say. The cessnas need to be forced into a spin and recover themselves if you just release the controls - surely if you wish to teach spinning then it must be done on an arcraft which has good spin characteristics eg something aerobatic (cap10 perhaps) otherwise imo it is a complete waste of time and does nothing more than build anxiety in the student and they will probably miss the whole point of the lesson becasue they are too terrified on what is going on.

Some years ago I experienced a C150 which was unrecoverable in the spin using Standard Spin Recovery technique. In the end I used in-spin aileron and recoverd at 1100 feet having been well over 4300 when I entered the spin. I was training an Instructor for aerobatics using his club's aircraft. The aircraft was subsequently grounded following my report to the CAA and it transpired that it was badly rigged and had been so for a loong time, despite being certified by the engineers as airworthy. A potential killer due to the fact that it is easy to be complacent about Cessnas as the myth states they recover so easily. One can easily be lulled into a false sense of security by assuming that the maintenance docs must be correct if you are flying an FTO's aircraft. I learnt a lot from this episode and would counsel against ever commencing a spin below 4000 feet, despite the fact that our H o T regularly does spins in C152s below 2400 during instrucotr tests - would not get me doing it though...

Which school is that, Lady? I ask because spinning at 2400' really is dangerous. This should be taken further, especially as it is the head of training.

Beaver - have you never taken a PA-28 into a proper steep turn, i.e. over 60 degrees? It is not difficult to spin if you overcook the turn, and if this aircraft is all that is available (it is at one of the clubs I fly for) then teach recovery from incipient. I have had a student send us incipient in an aircraft not cleared for intentional spins from over-enthusiastic response to wing drop at the stall. It is also easy to spin from a glide if you let the speed bleed off stretching the approach. In one study I read "Stall and spin" was found to be the final cause of over 30% of fatal accidents! Most were perfectly survivable power losses.

I know very students who are really scared of spinning, and most of those are a lot happier once they have actually done some. They often get the fear from those that have never been taught or not taught thoroughly. They often pick up fear from people who themselves are scared, or who talk about spins without the required reassurance.

Once did a spin in the glider whilst doing a test flight, with a Phantom pilot as ballast. Only looking to do an incipient, the type are very reluctant to spin, had only ever got a spiral dive before. However we were both lightweight and the cg was just right, I yelled 'yippee a spin'. the Phantom jockey just went quiet. He later said if they departed below 10,000' (I think that was the figure he said) their rules were to punch out, we were below 1000'!:E

I understand gliders are a little different! Well done for making an F4 pilot blanch. Always a good trick if you can manage it :E

Spinning certainly does teach an invaluable lesson about accuracy and confidence to a student, and boosts morale in the cockpit. Is it a good exercise? Absolutely.

Bucket, I'm surprised to see your comment. How long ago were you at 43rd? I heard a rumour that a few years ago they lost a PA28-180 in spinning training, hence the type is no longer certified for spinning in South Africa..

BucketEveryone in SA HAS to do it because it's a mandatory part of the syllabus - dual AND solo. I did it when I did my SA PPL and although the rumour was that lots of people just cruised around the GFA on their solo spinning detail, I did two, and I think succeeded in convincing myself that (a) the aircraft would recover if you did what you were trained to do and (b) I could recover from a spin. It's difficult to fit spinning into a UK PPL course because (a) you have to have the right aircraft and (b) you have to have the right student. On the latter, I reckon most instructors would choose to offer a demo of spin recovery to students who are at the more competent end of the ability scale. But it's actually the less able students who should be getting the training, not the whizz kids.

NS

I have always spun students at an appropriate point in their training, as a demonstration excercise only.

Whilst most modern aircraft are benign under normal circumstances, I feel that there is real educational value in teaching that if you abuse an aircraft it WILL bite, and steps should be taken to avoid the situation arising in the first place.

My favoured tool for the job (like WWW) is the pa38 which despite its unjustified reputation, demonstrates inadvertant spin entry perfectly, and predictably.

My one and only experience in a Tomahawk (training solo for incipent spin) resulted in an inverted spin at 4000 over the sea near Cairns in FNQ (Aus). I might mention it was totally unintended and resulted in the loss of about 1500ft, and I had the grand total of (about) 20 hours tt
at the time. The only thing that saved my bum was the words of my FI ( bless him) if in doubt let the wheel go take your feet off the pedals and see what happens ....what happened was a spiral dive which was fairly easy to correct. When I was inverted I didnt have a clue which way was up as I had a panaroma of blue above and below.

1. Although many non-aerobatic are rated for spinning, I prefer to spin only in aerobatic aircraft.

2. Don't skimp on the altitude - as high as practical is always comforting.

3. It is not a manoeuvre to be taught for one lesson only - any student undergoing training needs to be comfortable and competent in all phases of the spin. Keep doing it until you (the instructor) are completely happy with Blogg's skill.

4. Having instructed in a quasi-military environment (BAe, Aus) I prefer the Military Attitude to spinning - Pick reference points, set a well defined standard (e.g. recover after 'x' turns on a particular reference point), pre and post spin checks and etc.

Fark!

In our FTO we always demonstrate spins to our studens before first solo flight according to JAA flight syllabus for PPL.
If meteorological conditions and the student is all right I do spins mission after stalls mission although for JARs spins are before stalls.
We usually use for that demontration a C152 aerobat.

Ciao!!!

Rosanna

When I did my PPL, going back a few years now, spinning was demonstrated to me on more than a few occasions. I think that spinning should be continue to be taught just in the case of the student pilot ever committing a gross mishandling error - eg - the old fashioned, leaving it late to turn onto finals, with 20' flap and airspeed below 65, so that the pilot would immediately know what action to be taken should the airplane exhibit any sign of entering one. It should be seen as being an important part of training - just in case that situation I described above does ever come up in real life, when the student is flying solo.

Personally, I'm not too keen on spinning, but it is important that people know what one is, know the warning signs of it, and know what to do when that wing starts dropping, and failing that, know exactly what to do if confronted with a full blown spin.

I figure that spin training is important. Not only is it heart warming to be able to recover from an unintentional spin, but spin training definitely gives a student confidence in him/herself and the aircraft.

Most of my spinning experience has been in the C172 / C150 whilst instructing, although I have spun a number of different types. A spin in a C172 can be a very docile manouver if conducted properly, and recovery is usually virtually instantaneous. I have no qualms whatsoever about spinning a C172, and the manouver probably puts less stress on the airframe than a spiral dive demonstration.

For some reason I frequently had students apply full power in the dive following recovery from the spin - probably a response to stall training. I also found a tendency for students to overdo the forward elevator application, occasionally leading to a bunt in the recovery.

I find that the spin demonstration that most instructors do is unrealistic and gives the student the impression that a spin is extremely difficult to get into and requires large and aggressive controls movements. Typically the power will be off, the nose will be raised above the horizon and at the stall full rudder will be applied to induce a spin. In a C172 you need to be quite heavy handed to induce a spin in this way.

If you try the same excercise with 20 degrees of flap and power on, the plane will flick into spin a lot more readily. I am not advocating that you go and spin with the flaps down, since the aircraft is not certified for this, but I used to demostrate the wing drop in this configuration and then catch it before a spin developed. Typically this is exactly the configuration where the low time pilot will get himself into trouble. A scenario would be a go-around from an approach with landing flap, pilot forgets to retract flap, applies power, raises nose to climb attitude, speed bleeds off, possibly crossed controls, wing drop followed by spin.

One exercise I used to practice with my students was controlling the wing drop at the stall with rudder. Lower flap, apply power, raise the nose until the aircraft is at the stall and hold the aircraft at the stall using rudder to control any wing drop tendency - like riding a bucking bronco. If the wingdrop cannot be controlled immediately lower the nose and close power to prevent incipent spin from developing.

In my gliding instructing days I used to "talk" a student into a spin, a typical scenario being a low skidding turn onto final approach. The instructor sets out the scenario to the student that he is returning from a cross country and low on the turn onto final approach. You tell the student to start the turn (at a safe altitude), coax him into raising the nose since he is getting to low, and finally tell him to kick in some rudder since he is overshooting the runway. Suprised a couple of students that way! Most gliders spin readily.

The only aircraft that frightened me in a spin was a C150 Aerobat with a 150 hp engine upfront. The first time I spun it, the aircraft took a good couple of turns to recover, and then only after the control collumn was fully forward. I spun the aircraft on many occasion thereafter and never got it to duplicate the behaviour on the first spin, despite my best efforts.

Rosanna

Part of the problem is that spinning is no longer a required part of the JAA syllabus. Spin awareness is, and I take this to mean at the least a thorough briefing and a demonstration of "incipient" (for me usually from an over-cooked steep turn, as the PA28s will do this nicely). Unfortunately one of my employers has no aircraft cleared to spin.

;)

I quite agree with the advocates of spinning. If unspun, once spun you can really become unspun. The PA 38 is, in my opinion, a filthy piece of kit, but, if you pick up a wing at the stall with aileron, especially with full flap selected - the barn door hinge mechanism- the results can be invigorating to say the least. The trouble with teaching spinning in this aircraft ie: ex FAGC, JHB, on a hot highveldt day ie: pressure alt 5,500 ft, temp +35/38c - how do you climb high enougn to recover either safely or within the dictates laid down by the SA ANR ? I used to spin the beast with students but for demonstration purposes only but it cost them a lot of money in the time it took to get up there. Do remember to close the ashtray before demonstrating otherwise you'll get all covered in the volcanic.:p

I've got a fresh instructor's spinning endorsement, bring it on! It's great fun, just got to talk my students into wanting to spin!

What's the problem??
 

If spinning is done in an aircraft that is certified for it, and it's done the way it should be done (no funny entry's and all that "jazz" some instructors do to impress/scare there students) then there is no problem. You dont want your lic # or name coupled with somebody that died or had an accident because the got in a spin and didnt know how to recover!!

Just be safe!!!:ok: