No spin training in the US?

As an American CFI specializing in both primary flight instruction and at
the other end of the spectrum; advanced aerobatic instruction all through my
career in aviation, naturally this issue is well known to me. I've dealt
with it with pilots, instructor seminars, with American aviation
manufacturers and with the FAA here in the states.
After doing all this, my opinion is simply one of many diversified opinions
on this subject.
The short answer is the most popular. As stated, it simply assumes that if
you can avoid the stall; and/or recover from the stall, you can avoid the
spin. Carried a step further, it assumes also that if you possess knowledge
of spins coupled with training in spin awareness, you are safe in the air
environment.
On the other side of this coin, you have a bad incident and accident record
in the United States when dealing with the instructor/student/spin scenario.
These factors couple to produce what we have now for dealing with the
stall/spin accident scenario.
The problem with all this is that it attempts to handle the problem, but in
reality is nothing more than a compromise in training that addresses
specific concerns;
1. It attempts to satisfy the training need while avoiding the area of
highest danger in the training environment; the instructor/student/spin
scenario.
2. It just happens to be extremely appealing to the aircraft manufacturers
lobby in the United States, who have a vested sales interest in projecting
pilot training in a comfortable and favorable condition.

In my opinion, based on my exposure to this environment at all levels, I
believe the present condition concerning spin training in the United States
falls short of what it could have been.
In other words, there can be no doubt considering the accident stats, that
accidents have been avoided by not requiring spin training for certification
as a pilot, but in my opinion, the average proficiency level and overall
confidence level in the pilot community would be higher if spin training was
a requirement. It's that omnipresent tradeoff that always seems to rear it's
ugly head when safety and training comfort levels conflict. Combine this
with some accident data resulting from the instructor/student/spin equation,
and add to that a strong manufacturing lobby seeking comfort levels for
pilot training to make the training as attractive as possible to a
prospective sales marketing base, and you have what we have now in the
United States concerning spin training.
As an aside;
I recommend highly that EVERY student pilot engaged in flight training in
the United States, take it on themselves personally, to seek out a competent
instructor and a suitable aircraft and take some active spin training. Not
only will this training make you a better all around pilot, but it will as
well fill what I consider the most important gap left out of the United
States attitude on spin training; that being a FAMILIARITY through actual
experience with the spin environment. Taking the surprise and potential
panic out of the unusual attitude equation and replacing that with a
familiarity gained through actual hands on experience in the unusual
attitude environment greatly increases the odds of survival for a pilot
suddenly injected into that environment. It shortens the reaction time and
tends to rote the reaction in the correct direction.
Summation on this issue in my opinion is that there is no substitute for
hands on experience in the unusual attitude environment and I can truthfully
say that in my over 50 years of dealing with these issues I have never met a
single pilot.....not ONE single pilot, who wasn't a better BASIC pilot after
having taken unusual attitude and spin training. This to me says it all. You
can be safe............or you can be safer!!! Think about it!!
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot; CFI; Retired
dhenriquestrashatearthlinktrashdotnet
(take out the trash :-)






"Mark Morissette" wrote in message
...
What's eveyrones opinion regarding the lack of spin traning for
students in the US? I see that there was a thread about this from an
instructor viewpoint a while back, but not necessarilly from the
student viewpoint.

Personally, there was only two lessons that I didn't look forward to -
Spin training, and spiral dives.

Spiral dives turned out to be nothing at all.. 15 minutes, 4 or 5
spirals, quick and safe recoveries, and that was over. Nothing to it,
I was worried about something which amounted to easy training.

Spins however, as comfortable of a student as I am, got me a little
excited. However, we went out, did them, and that was it.

Looking back on things, I'm *very* glad that they are still part of
the curiculum here in Canada. It's easy to "read" about something
in the POH and try to cram all that into your cranium should the
situation ever occur, but...

Can anyone here honestly say that everything they've ever read, versus
practiced in the air, equals the same training-wise?

For example, if you never had spin training, and suddenly found
yourself in a spin, would you be confident that everything you "read"
about them will get you out of it? Yes, you can read what's
necessary, but can you automatically recall all of that in the air,
when your first inintentional "lesson" on spins could possibly be at
1000AGL in the circuilt?

I've consistently found that lessons practiced quickly become second
nature, whereas things I've read take much more time to fully grasp
untill it comes into real-life practice...and there is no substitution
for the real thing - anyone who has spent time flying MS Flight
Simulator before flying the real thing can certainly attest to this.

Yes, the spins were not fun.. I wasn't one of the students who were
so paranoid of them that I was cancelling flights to avoid the
inevitable, and then ended up in the fetal position on the floor of
the plane during them - I just wasn't "excited" about them like
everything else. grin

Yep, there was a whole lot more "Ground" in the windscreen all of a
sudden then I ever want to see again. But I'm glad I did it.

During the actual training, my proficiency with initiating, and (more
importantly) recovering from the spins gained rapidly. By the 4th or
5th spin, I was able to recover consistently and quickly, without much
"thinking" about what to do, and more "automatically" just doing it.

More importantly, I was in the 100's of feel of alt lost, instead of
the 1000's in the first spins. If an unintentional spin ever
happened in the circuit, I'm much more likely to be able to recover
before hitting terra-firma now, then I would have been initially.

I can't honestly say that if spin training was not part of the
curriculum here still, that I wouldn't ask for it regardless..fun or
otherwise.. But reading here in the newsgroups, it seems as if most
schools in the US no longer train them, even if they are still
technically allowed, but not required?

Opinions?

Mark Morissette
Courtice, Ontario, Canada (Flying out of CYOO)
http://oshawapilot.blogspot.com