Spin recovery no longer taught

[studentpilotmcuk]

Hi all I was talking with my friends with my up and coming stalls and spins excersise when I learned that spinning the aircraft and spin recovery are no longer taught as it put people off flying.

I was wondering what everyone thought about student pilots not being taught spin recovery.

I have flown gliders for many years and I can remember my instructor always drumming into me that you use rudder to stop the spin and you use rudder to pick the wing up when the wing drops.

My opinion is that it is that is second nature to use aileron to pick the wing up, that is why you practice this again and again so that it becomes second nature to use rudder no aileron.

Therefore I feel it is crucial to learn how to recover from a spin so if it ever happens you dont add to the situation by using aileron.

what does everyone feel about this.

Kind regards safe flying

[booke23]

Hmmm.......it is an interesting debate.

I was shown a spin when i trained for my PPL, and to be honest it was so bloody frightening (to a low hour student) that I didn't learn anything from it!

I would suggest that the vast majority of PPL holders tend to fly certified aircraft with very docile stall behaviour. To unintentionally stall in such an aircraft you'd have to be asleep at the yoke.....the warnings are very obvious. Getting such an aircraft to spin...even when you want it to....takes some doing.

I do think if you intend to fly slightly more sporting/non certified aircraft then some spin recovery lessons might be a good idea.

It goes without saying, if you fly aeros you should be able to recover from any spin (erect or inverted) as a matter of instinct.

On balance I think the current practice of teaching stall/spin awareness/avoidance is probably a good course of action.

[C-dog]

Goodness, hasn't spinning been off the syllabus for 20-odd years now?

I got my PPL in the States before then and we were taught to recognise & correct the incipient spin. Actual spinning was long off the US syllabus. However on my return to the UK the first thing I did was to go up with an instructor for a couple of lessons in spin recovery.

However I agree with your thoughts on how unnatural it is to lift the wing with opposite rudder - it's the bane of my biennial check ride!

[flybymike]

Spin training has been out of the UK syllabus since 1984 and out of the FAA syllabus since 1949!

And just wait till the instructor forumites pick up on that old chestnut of "picking up a wing with rudder" This thread will run and run and run and......

["aux vaches"]

glider pilots (both ab initio and solo pilots undergoing continuation training) are all taught spin entry and recovery as routine. Gliders loose roughly 400 feet per turn and recovery is VERY prompt. The emphasis is on recognising situations which may lead to an accidental spin (under banked over ruddered final turn, failed winch launch, gusts in thermals) and learning the correct recovery action.

recovery from stall with wing drop is taught with NO REFERENCE to the use of rudder ie stick centrally forward, NO AILERON, regain flying speed return to the normal gliding attitude. Inexperienced pilots may stall with wing drop through poorly coordinated flying so expecting them to recover with highly coordinated flying (including the use of rudder) seems unrealistic. More experienced pilots may well choose to use toprudder to prevent further yaw and apparently prevent the dropped wing going further during recovery.

Glider pilots in thermals choose to fly with high bank angles, a high angle of attack and speeds close to the stall speed for that configuration (within 5 to 10 knots of the stall) This is because they want the highest climbing performance in thermals (excessive speeds mean bigger radius turns and poor or absent climb rates)

This is totally unlike powered flying where students are taught over in that part of the envelope lies stalling and autorotation SO DONT EVER GO THERE.

Aviation is littered with examples of simulation training causing far more problems than the real crisis ever did (practice asymmetric approaches in the canberra anyone?) So if spins are likely to happen and training to deal with it is low (not absent) risk - why not - especially as recovery from accidental spins is quite possible from fairly low heights (circuit height) in gliders. Powered flying = different story

"aux vaches"

[Sedbergh]

Picking up wing with rudder doesn't appear in BGA gliding training these days.

Recovery from incipient & full spins is still taught - and especially from the slow, under-banked, over-ruddered turn = "this is how you kill yourself trying to squeeze in the final turn when you're too low"

[A and C]

Fly with me and you will spin!

As an instructor I can't see how I can let someone fly an aircraft without teaching recovery from ALL the situations that are LIKELY to happen.

My attitude to spinning hardend when a stall spin awareness excecise turned into a full blown spin due to the gross mis-handling of a student who was "just doing" A revision trip prior to a skills test.

The guy's reaction to the spin was to let go of the controls and shout " you have control!". If I had not been in the aircraft the penalty for is lack of training would have been death.

It is all well and good teaching avoidance but when it all goes wrong without spin recovery trainning you are dead..................... I dont think that I can send pilots out into the big bad world without the means to protect themself's from the unexpected.

[IO540]

In normal GA operations, the only place one should ever spin UNintentionally is on a base to final turn, and then you are about 1000ft too low for a recovery, so you will die anyway.

That's what the FAA found from its accident stats, and this is one of the factors which led to it certifying the Cirrus (no officially demonstrated spin recovery capability) and its BRS chute. A chute would save a number of lives whereas spin recovery would not have saved any, well about 0.3% of fatals if I recall.

The only other way to spin a normal aircraft is if climbing to somewhere above its certified operating ceiling (when Vs reaches your TAS) at which point it will stall, and you could spin. But unless you are doing this stupid pointless dangerous exercise above a mountain of just the right height, you will have plenty of height and, on a Cirrus, you pull the chute...

So I think spin recovery teaching isn't worth doing. I did have it BTW, loads of it, as a result of having a rather freewheeling instructor who used to do it with trial lessons, occassionally returning with white-faced passengers

[Whirlybird]

From what I've heard, spin recovery training was taken off the syllabus as more people were dying from the training going wrong than were ever likely to from getting into an inadvertant spin. That makes a lot of sense. However, I decided a few years after I got my PPL(A) that I wanted to do it, for safety reasons, just in case.....

I hated it. I was scared stiff, then I got airsick and we had to abandon it. Second session, I got to like it...then I got airsick again! But I'm very glad I did it. However, I think doing that with new PPLs would be counter-productive, scare the **** out of all but the most gungho of them, and they probably wouldn't learn a lot. What would be the point?

But having said that, I'd very strongly recommend that everyone book a session with an instructor (or two, if you've got a weak stomach like me) and do it after you get your PPL. You ought to know what it feels like and what to do, it's a good co-ordination exercise, and it could save your life.

[IO540]

I think that more lives would be saved by teaching people to always have the plane trimmed to the desired speed.

It was only some time after getting my PPL that I discovered what the trim actually does... it sets the speed at which the plane wants to fly in the absence of any pitch input from the pilot. Discovering this amazing little nugget of Masonic-level knowledge drastically reduces pilot workload in all phases of flight (except a spiral dive, perhaps) and incidentally prevents the most dangerous and perhaps the most common PPL student error: allowing the speed to decay to a dangerous level on final and just before.

But no, the standard teaching appears to be that the trim wheel is used to take out the yoke pressure. That's true also of course but isn't the point.

[stiknruda]

Coordinated turns

if the aeroplane is always flown in a balanced manner (ie the slip ball is always in the middle) then the aircraft can not spin. Even if the speed decays and the aeroplane stalls it will not spin unless the aircraft is out of balance. Mishandling the rudder will cause the aircraft to spin.

Stik

[Aussie Andy]

I agree with all the reasons why they no longer teach spinning on the PPL(A) course - and the "spin avoidance" messages ("don't use aileron when close to the stall; beware of risk of stall/spin on approach" etc) came through loud and clear. I also am careful to think carefully when doing steep-turns (typically in respone to pax requests for photos etc) bearing in mind the real risk of a high-speed stall in the turn.

Yet I also think that there is benefit to PPLs with a few hours / years up their sleaves post-training (even those of us that essentially only fly docile types such as PA28, C172 etc) to experience spins and learn to recover: I just think its one of those things that extends you as a pilot and adds to the bag of skills and experience. I agree with Whirly that it would probably have put me off had I dont it early in the PPL, or even just after PPL, and there were many instructors I knew who refused to teach it. I too had become afraid of even having it demonstrated, until recently when I was persuaded by a friendly local instructor that it really was high-time I did this... see http://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=19869 for a brief write-up and discussion "in the other place"...

Andy

[CamelPilot]

There you have it! But what if?

I personally think it is crass that spin recovery is no longer taught. IMHO it should for without it you will could have grave difficulty it getting the sequence recovery right.

Some aeroplanes won't spin. I have tried a few but those that do, like the Chipmunk, have had more than their share of fatals. The Chippies for example require that you must have FULL forward stick for recovery, whereas in other types just central control column will suffice after applying opposite rudder, then centering the rudder then pulling out of the dive.

Some aircraft spin slowly, some spin fast and some take more than one turn to recover. A fast spin can be disorientating to anyone - it certainly will be to a novice who has never experienced one.

I cannot hold with finding out how to recover when you have not be taught. Before the first man ever to have discovered the correct recovery, Captain Parkes (I believe) at either Netheravon or Upavon, generally crashed.

[Aussie Andy]

I personally think it is crass that spin recovery is no longer taught

But they are, e.g. when people do aeros in types like the chippie - the debate has been whether they should be taught at PPL level.

Andy

[IO540]

Well I think that if you fly a Chipmunk then you need to know about spins, but that's where the context of the discussion comes in

You also need to know about spins if you fly an Extra 300, a Pitts Special, etc.

[Mike Cross]

I was taught spin recovery on gliders and as part of my PPL. The killer is the wing drop off the final turn (you won't live long enough for it to develope into a spin).

While most aircraft will recover from a spin with correct technique it doesn't mean that it's a good idea to deliberately do it. I've been in a deliberately induced spin in a Beagle Pup 150 that went very flat and from which it was not possible for the instructor and I to extricate ourselves using the published recovery technique. The RAF have had similar issues with prolonged spinning.

I've also spun a Tomahawk and the creaking and groaning from the back end was extremely unsettling.

By all means do it in a suitable aircraft, particularly if you are going to indulge in aerobatics, but don't think you can enthusiastically throw the average tourer or training aircraft into a spin with impunity. They're generally so docile that the violence you might use on the controls to get them to spin could result in overstressing.

Mike

[flybymike]

Mike, I'm curious. What was the published spin recovery technique in the Beagle pup 150? and what unpublished technique did you have to use?

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

There seems to be a misconception here that only low speed will cause a stall and perhaps a spin. It's actually exceeding the max permissable angle of attack (AoA) that stalls the wing - I've stalled at 130knts IAS (pulling through the fourth quater of a loop in the Yak 52 - it flicked, a horizontal spin) and plenty of times seen near-zero airspeed on the dial and not stalled (floating over the top of a loop in the Chippy, for instance).

Low speed can be an indication of too high an AoA, but you can have low speeds at low AoA, and high speeds at high AoA. Once the wing exceeds that critical angle (and for any given wing, the angle is always the same regardless of speed, loading etc), it stalls. If the stall is assymetric, you'll spin.

Those on here who've said demo of a spin and recovery teach little or nothing are probably correct. Best chance of avoiding the stall/spin is to think 'AoA' when you fly - something perhaps beyond the syllabus of the PPL. Best way to learn it is to learn aeros. The aeros pilot thinks AoA all the time, including during that base-to-final turn. It doesn't guarantee it'll never happen mainly because light aeroplanes don't have AoA indicators - they seem to be the preserve of fast jets and Concorde. There's quite q few instruments on the Chippy panel I'd gladly swap for an AoA indicator.

SSD

[greeners]

Originally Posted by Mike Cross

I've been in a deliberately induced spin in a Beagle Pup 150 that went very flat and from which it was not possible for the instructor and I to extricate ourselves using the published recovery technique. The RAF have had similar issues with prolonged spinning.

The RAF 'issues' with the Bulldog involved high rotational spins where the standard Bulldog spin recovery did not work and pilots jumped out at Min Abandon Height. Trials at Boscombe showed that not holding the stick in the fully aft position could induce this type of spin, and the recommended recovery is to (re)apply full pro-spin control input and then carry out the standard Bulldog spin recovery. RAF Bulldog QFIs had to practice this on a regular basis; we do too.
Alan Cassidy subsequently wrote a somewhat controversial article suggesting that the huge Bulldog canopy blocks large parts of the tail in the spin, masking the elevator and rudder and reducing their effectiveness. He proposed 'blowing' the tail with power, making the controls more effective.

[wombat13]

Originally Posted by IO540

In normal GA operations, the only place one should ever spin UNintentionally is on a base to final turn, and then you are about 1000ft too low for a recovery, so you will die anyway.

This is close to all that needs to be said on spinning. All that I would add is that you are not in the mindset for spinning when it happens, thus you are not in the mindset of recovery. Second, you will almost certainly have flap deployed and exceeding vne, never mind vfe, is a real (read distinct) possibility at the back end of the recovery.

So even if you pull a rabbit out of the hat and recover when spinning on turning final, you will rip a flap off.

Good luck with the post spin recovery recovery - if you get my meaning.

The Wombat

PS - I am proud to admit my spinning session in a Grob 115 scared the sh1t out of me and made me sick.