At 11:05 03 February 2016, Don Johnstone wrote:
The difference between a spiral dive and a spin may be bleedin
obvious to a few but for most of us it is a situation which requires
the processing of information which is completely unfamiliar.

The instruction standard I teach by mandates spiral dive and spin recovery
prior to first solo. Common sense dictates that if you can't distinguish
between the two in your day-to-day glider (and their very different
recoveries), you shouldn't fly solo IMHO. Granted, the differences are a
lot more subtle in an advanced (open class) glider (and time to react a lot
shorter), but it still suprises me how often students confuse the two and
put in the wrong control inputs.