Heartfelt Thank You

I was approached by a former student at our club's closing banquet. He stated he was so happy to see me because he wanted to thank me in person for saving his life.

He explained: after receiving his license, he bought a Sinus motor glider, and went flying with a recreational pilot as his P2. They were calibrating the AoA instrument, with his friend the PF, by repeatedly stalling it. But it was so benign that the stall just mushed. His friend got aggressive with it, and stall it did, then dropped a wing into a spin. His friend literally threw up his hands, and my former student took control and applied the recovery technique I had taught him, recovering the aircraft.

We use a venerable 2-32 for spin training, and for the student approaching solo, it is a 'come to Jesus' moment; the laminar wing of the 2-32 seems binary, - it is flying or it is not, and the attitude is dramatic. But as the sign at Ridge Soaring gliderport reads, "In an emergency, you don't rise to the occasion; you sink to the level of your training". Read Malcolm Gladwell's excellent book BLINK to understand why.

My club is in Canada, where spin training is on the curriculum. There is I think only one FBO operating in Canada; the rest of the gliding is club based, and the instructors are unpaid volunteers. But this 'Thank You' was rich payment indeed, and worth sharing I think.