None of what I write here has anything to do with any accidents for
which the investigation is ongoing, analysis is incomplete, or reports
not yet published. My views have largely been made known before, at
times when no fatal accidents were in the news.

Another caveat - I am no longer a gliding instructor and my views have
no official place in the scheme of things.

First, there is now, rightly I believe, much more pre-solo emphasis on
awareness of the imminence of a stall or spin and recognition in time to
prevent it happening. I suspect even more training there would be a good
thing.

Second, I think there should be enough training in actual full spins and
recoveries that it becomes automatic to recognise it and correctly
recover. I do not think that happens generally at present.

Thirdly , I think that spin training and practice in recovery, in
suitable gliders, should continue post solo, for as long as the pilot
keeps flying, to keep the automatic recovery reflex in good nick. I am
convinced that for most, that does not happen today. The reason in part
for all three points so far, is that spinning into the ground solo, or
while pilot in command, has remained one of the top UK killers. I cannot
see how stopping spin training could reduce the incidence of such solo
accidents, and the small number while training which might be prevented
are surely likely to be more than offset by yet more inadvertent spins
if training were stopped altogether.

Fourth, note "suitable" in my third point - I would rather not have
early solo pilots doing solo spin practice in a Puchaz, for instance,
though I am willing to listen to arguments otherwise from those with
more experience.



The reason I believe that full spin training should be maintained AS
WELL AS, not instead of avoidance/recognition training, is that there
continue to be accidents originating at heights where recovery is
possible - if only the pilot would recognise it.

A typical gliding accident, though with an atypically happy ending, was
like this. The pilot's survival and hence first-hand account gives a
rare insight to one's thought processes when such an accident is
happening.

A solo glider pilot had a winch launch. Cable broke at about 4-600 feet.
Pilot heard bang and felt jerk of cable breaking, forgot all training,
and concluded tail falling off or similar. He lowered nose of glider
from climb attitude to attempt to maintain (or regain) normal attitude
and flying speed - only thing done right in the whole event.

He thought he had enough height to to an abbreviated circuit, and
initiated a turn, without checking speed was sufficient.

Observers say he did two full turns or more of a spin. He said he saw
the ground spinning which seemed to confirm to him that the glider was
out of control as tail had fallen off or whatever, so he pulled back on
the stick hoping to get the nose up. It didn't work, and he concluded he
was going to die.

He can't remember the next bit for certain, but thinks he let go of
everything and covered his face. Benign glider then recovered from spin
into steep dive. (The end result was a landing with some damage but no
major injury to the pilot.)

To me, a key element is that he saw the ground spinning but never
considered that the glider was in a spin. That can only be put down to
lack of familiarity if all the other steps in avoidance have been
missed. Yes, he also needed (imho) better cable break training, better
flight situation awareness, better recognition of onset of stall/spin,
but in the end when all those failed the one last thing to save him
might have been familiarity with a full spin and the correct reaction to
it. What actually saved him was the glider design. Not all would.

Chris N.