A rant about why we need mandatory spin training...

[jrh]

I've got to rant about something that happened to me this evening.

I was out with a student with 60+ hours who is almost ready for his private pilot checkride. In fact, I was giving him a mock checkride of running through all the maneuvers once or twice to see how he would do without "warming up" or knowing he could keep practicing. Just give everything a shot and keep going no matter what.

I've flown with him for the past 6 or 8 hours of his training. Before me he flew with two other instructors, then got too busy with college (mechanical engineering major) and dropped flying. That was last December. A few weeks ago he decided to finish off his license and started flying with me. He is very intelligent and is a decent stick and rudder pilot. I wasn't overly amazed at his control of the plane, but he was meeting PTS standards and seemed to know what was going on. I've been through all the maneuvers with him during other lessons and he had done fine with stalls and stall recoveries.

Ok, so I asked him to demo a power on stall. He set up, entered it, and just as the stall was about to break I saw the nose slide to the left. I think, "Hmm...here we go...I wonder if he'll catch it." Nope. We snapped down to the left and started spinning.

Before I had a chance to say anything, the guy completely freaked out/froze. He started screaming and just about crawled into my lap, literally. Unfortunately, he froze doing all the wrong things. He had full aft elevator/right aileron input, and because he tensed up so much and was leaning over towards me, he was standing on the left rudder.

I just kept firmly telling him, "POWER TO IDLE, POWER TO IDLE, RELEASE THE BACKPRESSURE!" On about the third turn he stopped screaming and by the fourth or fifth turn he released the controls enough to break the stall and stop the rotation.

Now, here's what really got me: He had no idea what had happened! I started talking to him about it, and he didn't know anything about what a spin was, what caused it, or how to prevent it. I wanted to smack his other two instructors.

On the ground after the flight, I asked him if he had ever talked to his other instructors about spin recovery. He said he vaguely remembered them saying something, but they never really stressed it, he couldn't remember the steps, and he'd never seen a spin entry before. I really wanted to smack his other instructors.

To me, spin recovery is basic pre-solo knowledge. I never covered it with him because I figured he would know it, just like emergency procedures or any other basic memory items. I can't believe this guy had been through 60+ hours, two instructors, and never covered it.

What would it look like if I sent this guy to his checkride and he'd freaked out in a spin with the examiner on board? How would that reflect on me as an instructor? Worse yet, what if he was alone, just practicing? Even if he had gotten out of the spin, he might have torn the wings off in a spiral dive. The bottom line was that he didn't know what the heck was going on. That's ridiculous.

I know the regs only require "spin awareness" which can be pretty minimal, but I think pre-solo students need to confidently be able to recover from a wing dropping, even if it's not a full spin, and at least see an incipient spin demonstrated by an instructor.

I no longer buy into that thinking of "avoid stalls, and you'll avoid spins." This isn't about the academics of "spin awareness." This is about not losing control of the aircraft. This is about knowing what's going on when it happens. Talking about it once or twice on the ground is one thing, but doing it in the air and staying calm is entirely different. I can't believe it...

[MikeD]

I've long advocated primary studs learning spin recovery as well as spin prevention. Still don't like the fact that the FAA removed it from the syllabus. It was in my syllabus when I went through Private in 1985.

[NJA_Capt]

[ QUOTE ]
It was in my syllabus when I went through Private in 1985.

[/ QUOTE ]
I got my PVT in 1986 and I don't remember it being required. Of course I did some anyway....then did them again for my CFI a few years later.

[MidlifeFlyer]

This is one of those religious disputes that I generally keep out of. And I don't take sides. Both sides have reasonable arguments and can point to terrific anecdotal information to support what they want as a result.

But, what the heck...

All that someone else might read into your story is that the student was never taught the stalls correctly. If you do them right, you don't get anywhere near a spin.

Sounds like the CFI taught the stall as a series of actions to mimic with no aerodynamic effects. The result was a student who didn't know how to fly the maneuver properly and, more important, didn't understand it at all and probably could not apply it to real flying. (I can't imagine teaching stalls, especially power-on stalls =without= talking about spins, whethe you teach them in the aircraft or not)

If faced with a =real= departure stall shortly after takeoff, what do you think the student would do? You have flown with him, but freak out, freeze, and kill himself has a decent probability.

What makes you think that this CFI would have taught spins any differently or that the result would be different in an inadvertent spin? Or that the spin training with that CFI and that student wouldn't have become the most recent statistic of the type the FAA used as its reason for removing spin training from the requirements.

[Chris_Ford]

[ QUOTE ]
If faced with a =real= departure stall shortly after takeoff, what do you think the student would do? You have flown with him, but freak out, freeze, and kill himself has a decent probability.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the wing drops at 500AGL, are you going to have a chance to recover? Just curious, I haven't really paid much attention to altitude when the wing drops (learned on a low wing so I didn't have to worry about it as much, which was a kick in the pants now that I'm teaching high wings)

[MidlifeFlyer]

[ QUOTE ]
If the wing drops at 500AGL, are you going to have a chance to recover?

[/ QUOTE ]. Sort of the point. The first reaction to a power on stall needs to be to increase the AoA =and= maintain coordination. The wing shouldn't drop to begin with.

If the wing does drop, how do you react to it (and how quickly)? Obviously, if you let it develop into a spin at 500 AGL, say good-bye. But if your mantra is "lower AoA - maintain coordination" and understand how, you can react to the initial drop with the correct inputs and the loss of altitude should be minimal.

You can measure it. You start the maneuver at known altitude and begin the climb at slightly above rotation speed. Then see where you recover. The student "fails" if you hut the "ground"

I've had one student put us into a spin with a power-on stall. I recovered in a quarter turn and recovered well within 500'.

The key, as with all emergencies, is knowing and understanding what to do and being able to react to it within the necessary time frame. The argument between the pro and anti spin training people comes down to whether in-flight spin training is a necessary component of that.

The pro-spin people say that it is. The no-spin people argue that the historical risk of the training show that it outweighs the benefits. Both sides have legitimate arguments.

[jrh]

Fair enough. I should look at the statistics to see how many accidents there were as a result of spin training. But I still feel that because a student spinning on a solo flight is a possibility, I want to teach spin recovery to pre-solo students. To me, "spin awareness" on the ground is like telling a student how to make good landings on their first flight, then not saying a word or touching the controls when they attempt their first landing. You can talk about something all day, but when it actually happens, different skills have to come into play.

I'm curious, how do you teach coordination during power on stalls? I've found that if I demo slow flight at full power and say, "Now I'm giving it too much right rudder, feel that...now I'm giving it too little right rudder...now too much again...feel how in the middle, it's 'just right' and we're going straight ahead?" the student can pick up on coordination reasonably quickly. Is there a better way?

Every person I've flown with so far drops the wing on power on stalls when they're first learning, but this method has worked better for me than telling them to stare at the ball, or keep the nose from moving. If the wing drops, I talk them through recovery and I've seen how they get much faster at recovery after a few tries. That covers what I want for spin awareness and recovery.

[flyingmaniac]

So this is what I have to look forward to when I become a CFI.

[MidlifeFlyer]

[ QUOTE ]

I'm curious, how do you teach coordination during power on stalls? I've found that if I demo slow flight at full power and say, "Now I'm giving it too much right rudder, feel that...now I'm giving it too little right rudder...now too much again...feel how in the middle, it's 'just right' and we're going straight ahead?" the student can pick up on coordination reasonably quickly. Is there a better way?

Every person I've flown with so far drops the wing on power on stalls when they're first learning, but this method has worked better for me than telling them to stare at the ball, or keep the nose from moving.

[/ QUOTE ]Out approaches are not that different.

One thing I keep completely away from is the ball. If they stare at it, I cover it. After all, we're simulating a stall on departure and I =hope= the pilot is looking out the and not at the instruments!

But I do ask them to watch the nose movement. I think that one of the problems with "feeling" coordination rather than seeing it that in most trainers we're pretty much sitting on the CG - a lot of pilots really don't feel it until it it's =really= out of whack. I try to teach paying attention to nose movement (that does not mean fixating on the nose) as an aid to coordination from the very first lesson and do a demonstration like the one you describe - doing coordinated and uncoordinated simple turns and climbs.

[FlyOrDie]

If the airplane is capable of something the pilot should be fully capable of recovering. In multi training you never hear...

"Oh just never get slow and you'll never have to worry about Vmc"
The reason you never hear that is because loss of control kills people all the time in multi engine AC. So you train to be able to recover if you're ever begin to lose control.

So why is it that in primary training you hear as a reason for not doing spin training...
"If you never stall you'll never spin"
That is a correct statement but pilots do stall airplanes on purpose all the time. Since most aircraft are capable of spinning pilots should be fully capable of recovering using PROPER techniques.

As far as the debate about mandatory spin training goes I fully support the idea that all pilots should have PRACTICAL spin training not just talking about it.

My dad was old school so I recieved "spin awareness" training that actually involved spinning. It made me a better and safer pilot because...
1. Spins are not something to be AFRAID of.
2. It takes a lot of effort to force a 150 to spin.
3. You understand the airplane better aerodynamically after exploring that part of its envelope.

[Ralgha]

[ QUOTE ]
If the airplane is capable of something the pilot should be fully capable of recovering.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah? A multi-engine airplane is capable of spinning, yet no one goes out and intentionally spins them. Don't say a twin can't recover either, because they can, just not easily, and maybe not with the standard inputs.

Any airplane can roll, but we don't go out and practice that, despite the fact that wake turbulence can easily roll an airplane.

Face it, there are many things airplanes can do that pilots aren't trained to recover from. It's not practical, and by learning and practicing proper avoidance procedures, they won't ever have to recover from them.

Besides, even with the Vmc demo in training, how many multi engine pilots do you see actually recover from an unintentional Vmc encounter? Your better off just flying the damn airplane and not getting in the situation in the first place.

[MikeD]

I'm pro-spin training, as I alluded to before, but then again, IMHO, all pilots should go through a good few hours of aerobatic training in an appropriate aircraft in order to really be able to explore the "full envelope" of flight. IMO, that makes a little better of a pilot in terms of understanding flight abilities and aircraft limitations, and builds confidence.

[kellwolf]

Here's the problem I see with giving spin training to EVERYONE that goes through PPL training. Some guys are just plain stupid. They'll see spinning as the greatest kick since riding the Hulk at Islands of Adventure. So, the first time they fly an airplane, they'll spin it to see how cool it does. Then they buy a Mooney or a Bonanza.....

If I think the student has a good head on his shoulders, I might actually show them a spin in a 172. For me, the spin avoidance of the recovery method (I probably use the same acronym most people use) should be enough to get you out of a spin situation. That being said, I do NOT think it's something that should be glossed over in primary training like a lot of people do. The aerodynamics need to be taught properly (like MidLife said) so the student knows what's happening instead of thinking the plane has just gone insane.

[MikeD]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's the problem I see with giving spin training to EVERYONE that goes through PPL training. Some guys are just plain stupid. They'll see spinning as the greatest kick since riding the Hulk at Islands of Adventure. So, the first time they fly an airplane, they'll spin it to see how cool it does. Then they buy a Mooney or a Bonanza.....



[/ QUOTE ]

But that's not our problem. Our job is to train them. If we feel they shouldn't be there, then we shouldn't take them on as a student, IMO. I'm not going to not teach someone one thing because I don't think they can handle it; they either can handle it, or they shouldn't be in the program in the first place.

[MikeD]

[ QUOTE ]

Face it, there are many things airplanes can do that pilots aren't trained to recover from. It's not practical, and by learning and practicing proper avoidance procedures, they won't ever have to recover from them.



[/ QUOTE ]

Not always true, and never say never my friend.....at least not in aviation. You're talking normal ops. Following this training, I try to teach guys abnormal ops, because in aviation, there's much that's not in our control. And if you're ever put into that situation not of your own doing, you'll likely be SOL if you don't know what to do and/or haven't been exposed to it. I'm not teaching spins so a guy can go out and do them all the time (unless he has an aircraft rated for them), but more so he knows what to do if....

[Ralgha]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Face it, there are many things airplanes can do that pilots aren't trained to recover from. It's not practical, and by learning and practicing proper avoidance procedures, they won't ever have to recover from them.



[/ QUOTE ]

Not always true, and never say never my friend.....at least not in aviation. You're talking normal ops. Following this training, I try to teach guys abnormal ops, because in aviation, there's much that's not in our control. And if you're ever put into that situation not of your own doing, you'll likely be SOL if you don't know what to do and/or haven't been exposed to it. I'm not teaching spins so a guy can go out and do them all the time (unless he has an aircraft rated for them), but more so he knows what to do if....

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes I shouldn't have said never. But my main point still stands, you can't train to recover from everything that an airplane is capable of doing.

[jrh]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's the problem I see with giving spin training to EVERYONE that goes through PPL training. Some guys are just plain stupid.

[/ QUOTE ]

Should these guys even be flying then? How do you know they aren't going to go buzz their friends house when they're solo?

I'm not disagreeing with you. I know what you're saying. However, I think a lot of risks can be reduced by the way in which a student is taught. While I'm careful to not unnecessarily scare a student, I try to teach in such a way that they see how flying is fun, but it's not a video game either. You absolutely have to be confident, capable, and responsible at all times. There are limits, and they have to know those limits. Doing the little things like ensuring there is plenty of altitude before performing stalls, always making clearing turns, preparing for an engine failure on takeoff before they begin the takeoff roll, etc., makes them realize that what we're doing is serious. I believe this approach makes both a safer and more confident pilot, because they know that it's possible to get hurt, but they also know how to handle the plane safely.

If a student doesn't demonstrate reasonable judgement and a healthy respect for flying, I'm not going to let them solo, and that goes for more than just spins.

[MikeD]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes I shouldn't have said never. But my main point still stands, you can't train to recover from everything that an airplane is capable of doing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see your point, and agree that we can't train for every possible contingency someone might find themself in in their time. But IMHO, a spin is one of the more "common" ones someone might see, since there's more opportunity in normal ops to come across the makings of one, via your own doing or not.

[Ralgha]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yes I shouldn't have said never. But my main point still stands, you can't train to recover from everything that an airplane is capable of doing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see your point, and agree that we can't train for every possible contingency someone might find themself in in their time. But IMHO, a spin is one of the more "common" ones someone might see, since there's more opportunity in normal ops to come across the makings of one, via your own doing or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I agree there too, I at least demoed spins for all of my students.

Mainly I was making that point to respond to this quote:
[ QUOTE ]
If the airplane is capable of something the pilot should be fully capable of recovering.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which was made as a reason to train for spins.

[MidlifeFlyer]

I'm neither pro nor anti spin training. I'm on the fence.

To me the bottom line is this. The maneuvers we learn are of two types: (1) things we do in normal flight and (2) things that either teach us things about aircraft performance or how the airplane will react in extreme conditions.

The start of category 1 is easy. Fundamental flight maneuvers. As we go along I in this category, we also have ground reference maneuvers (things you do in the pattern), slow flight (necessary for landing), etc. Stuff we need to know for normal flight. As we move closer to category (2), though we start balancing things. We start balancing the benefit of teaching it with the risk of teaching it.

Emergencies is a good example of this. We teach emergency engine-out procedures. Big benefit to the pilot if he has an engine out. Very low risk in the teaching (unless the CFI is an idiot). Same for inadvertent flight into IMC. A risky situation if it really happens taught in a very safe way. But we =don't= teach what many consider the most serious emergencies of all - in flight fires - by setting fire to the cockpit in flight. No matter how great the benefit might be to the pilot in learning it, (except perhaps in a very good sim) we can't safely teach it in flight. So we leave it for the ground.

With spin training, the risk/benefit analysis is more difficult. Clearly there is a benefit. It teaches a lot about aircraft performance and, for many who have had it, adds an element of reality-based confidence to their flying. But to many, including the FAA, the benefit does not justify the historical risks associated with teaching it. As I understand, the instructional spin accident rate was the reason it was removed from the requirements.

Was the FAA right? Beats me. If in fact there were a bunch of fatalities associated with teaching something that was not all that likely to happen, it was probably the right decision. If not, it was probably wrong. Perhaps there has been a spike in stall/spin accidents (=incliding= unrecoverable stall/spin accidents near the ground) since the requirement was removed? That would be some pretty good evidence on the pro-spin side.



Personally, while spin training definitely added something to my teaching, I really don't think it has added that much to my piloting.

[MikeD]

[ QUOTE ]
With spin training, the risk/benefit analysis is more difficult. Clearly there is a benefit. It teaches a lot about aircraft performance and, for many who have had it, adds an element of reality-based confidence to their flying. But to many, including the FAA, the benefit does not justify the historical risks associated with teaching it. As I understand, the instructional spin accident rate was the reason it was removed from the requirements.

Was the FAA right? Beats me. If in fact there were a bunch of fatalities associated with teaching something that was not all that likely to happen, it was probably the right decision. If not, it was probably wrong. Perhaps there has been a spike in stall/spin accidents (=incliding= unrecoverable stall/spin accidents near the ground) since the requirement was removed? That would be some pretty good evidence on the pro-spin side.



[/ QUOTE ]

Good analysis, and agree with the fact that there are fair arguments on both sides. I guess the major reason I tend to lean on the pro side (while acknowleging that there is merit to hearing the anti side), is that where the FAA leans towards the risk associated with teaching it, vice what benefit was coming out of it; I feel that their decision avoids the real problem.....that is, why is the teaching of it so risky? Is it simply the maneuver itself? CFIs not proficient in knowing it enough to teach it? Being performed in aircraft not rated for it? Something else?

I don't know the answer to the above, since I don't know what factor(s) the FAA based their decision on, which would be very interesting to know. But from the basic pro/anti argument itself, I feel the FAA might be attempting to cure the headache by cutting off the head, so to speak. That is, taking the easy out of "not required anymore" instead of addressing what the real problems may be. Again, I don't know if this is really what happened, since I don't know the factors the decision was truly based off of, hence why I say might.

It would be interesting research, though.

[MidlifeFlyer]

[ QUOTE ]
It would be interesting research, though.

[/ QUOTE ]There is an interesting bit of reading out there. The current version of the rule (spin training for CFI; awareness training for pilots) dates back to 1991. Before then, for a time even CFIs did not require spin training.

For those who don't know, when a federal agency writes a new regulation it goes through a notice and comment period. The publication of the final rule is normally accompanied by a discussion that (1) describes the comments received about the rule when it was proposed and (2) and explanation of the ultimate rule change. It takes a bit of wading through but it's a pretty good guide to the FAA's thinking. On eof the findings was that

==============================
Stall awareness training is effective. After the United States dropped the spin training requirement in June 1949 in favor of increased stall training, stall/spin accidents dropped dramatically.
==============================

Even with the spin-for-pilot parts excerpted, the discussion it's still pretty long. And for many, it's like watching sausage being made. If you or anyone else is interested in what the FAA says it was thinking at the time, I posted the discussion of spin training for pilots here:

http://www.midlifeflight.us/stuff/spins.htm

And it would be interesting to get a data update.