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Old June 4th 13, 10:36 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Bill D
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Posts: 746
Default Spin training for US pilots?

On Tuesday, June 4, 2013 1:59:01 PM UTC-6, jfitch wrote:
On Tuesday, June 4, 2013 9:58:23 AM UTC-7, wrote:





Yes, spins are permitted except in Landing Flap and appear in the Aircraft Flight Manual for the ASW-27, as do Loops, Lazy Eights, Chandelles and Stall Turns. I practice spins, spin entries and recovery pretty much every season and perform the other maneuvers regularly. I am at a loss to understand the idea presented earlier that spin practice adds as as much risk as benefit - a quick look at the NTSB accident summaries undercuts this idea. I know of no one who has been in a fatal spin training accident, while on the other hand...




Hmmm, wonder why in the 27 but not the 26. What about the 29 and 31, anybody know?



I, too, find the idea that spin training is as dangerous as accidental (untrained!) spins unbelievable. Is there any shred of data to back that supposition?


The official view (not mine) is accidental spins are rare but mandating spin training would subject everyone to them making the overall risk comparable. There have been spin training accidents in the UK though not recently in the US as far as I know.

http://rdd.me/a5prkekd

I can't find a reference but I recall several papers showing those countries who mandated spin training actually had more spin accidents.

In recent years, there have been few cases of fully developed spins continuing through thousands of feet of altitude all the way to impact. This is what people imagine but it's very rare.

A far more common "spin accident" sees the aircraft completing less than one turn before impact. These are probably an incipient spin immediately transitioning to a spiral dive. In this case, the classic spin recovery technique taught at altitude is of little use and may even be dangerous. Far more useful is recognizing an impending spin departure and correcting it before it gets out of hand.