David Megginson wrote in message ...
"Steve House" writes:

Unless you're training for the PPL here in Canada, where spins and
recovery are part of the required syllabus at about lesson 11.

Transport Canada removed spin training from the syllabus in the late
1990's (I don't know the exact year). It was not part of my PPL
training in 2002.

As far as I understand (*not* confirmed from an official source),
there were two problems with spin training:

1. The stall/spin accident rate was slightly higher in Canada than the
U.S., despite the fact that all Canadian PPL holders had spin training
and most U.S. PPL holders did not.

2. There were occasional training fatalities during spin training,
including one where the rudder in a 152 jumped its stop and jammed
past full deflection.

Given #1, there was no justification for the deaths in #2 (even if
they were fairly rare).


All the best,


David

The 152 problem was due to maintenance neglect: worn rudder
hinges, bent bellcrank, and so on. An AD has forced replacement of all
rudder stops on 150s to prevent further occurences.
Stall/spin accidents most often occur near the ground, such as in
the circuit, as I understand it, and spin training isn't going to save
you there. There won't be enough altitude for recovery. Learning to
recognize the situations that lead to spins is another thing and
should be taught thoroughly. We teach spins and spin recoveries even
in PPL training, using different real-life scenarios (with lots of
altitude) and lots of wing-drop stall recoveries.
Some guys spin into the ground by being stupid: buzzing a friend
and pulling up sharply and entering an accelerated stall at low
altitude. They weren't paying attention in groundschool, I guess.

Dan