Spin Recovery Training

[BackPacker]

That altitude could be better used nibbling at the stall and demonstrating several prompt recoveries when the wing drops.

I didn't have time to post earlier, but if I had, I would have posted something along these lines as well.

The OP wrote "...any recommendations as to where else I could go for this training or indeed suggestions of how to overcome my concern of stalling?"

I think it's a bad idea, from the outset, of trying to overcome a concern about stalling. Instead, I think it's best to keep a healthy dose of respect for the stall. Because that's what will keep you alive.

I'm an aerobatics pilot and stall and spin regularly. But I have never overcome, and will not try to overcome, my concern about stalling. I only stall or spin the aircraft as a deliberate act, when the aircraft is within all the Aerobatics Category limitations, and after having done the HASELL checks.

In any other flight regime, stalling is something to be avoided. There is no benefit to be gained from stalling an aircraft, and at low level it may be deadly. And spinning is even worse. So I'm alert to any signs of a stall, and correct promptly.

By all means do an introduction to aerobatics course. Learn what an aircraft is really capable of. It's great fun and will improve your skills to no end, regardless of whether you do it in a powered aircraft or in a glider. But keep in mind that in almost all flight regimes stalling is something to be avoided at all costs. It therefore makes a lot more sense to train incipient stall recognition and avoidance, than stall/spin recovery.

It's OK to lose a mortal fear of stalling and spinning. But do keep a healthy dose of concern.

[MacSki]

Thanks for everyone's comments and thoughts.

Frankly I don't really want to do spin training but I do want to get to the point when the mention of a stall doesnt makes me tense up and in some cases make my arms shake. I think the suggestion of spin training was to give me confidence that there was nothing to fear and instill more of an instinctive response for getting an aircraft out of a stall.

Looks like my options are going to an aero club or glider club. Must admit I have never been in a glider and Bicester club is not too far from me so I may look into that.

I did spend time with my instructor trying to overcome the stalling fear but I think I need a different approach to exercise the demons, not more of the same. I did do a recovery from a spin in my skills test and having been well briefed by the examiner and knowing what's at stake I performed it fine.

I would like to get to the point where when I'm doing a checkout or someone is showing me their aircraft and we do a stall I can genuinely feel how the aircraft is responding rather than internal panic & feeling of fear.

I'm know I'm not unusual and lots of good pilots have had to overcome this so great to have collective wisdom......just don't mention a need for parachutes to me !

[Pace]

I'm a relatively low hours PPL and found during my training the stall exercises difficult from a fear aspect. I did the recoveries required fine in my test but I still get very concerned when I'm flying with an experienced pilot/instructor who tells me they are going to show me how the aircraft reacts when it stalls. Since getting my PPL I've chatted with a few pilots of varying experience who all recommended doing some spin recovery training to try and overcome my fears/concerns and think I would benefit from this advanced training.

The problem with recovering at incipient are two fold.

On the fear front the biggest fear is a fear of the unknow recovering at incipient leaves a big dollop of unknown and this is where the poster of this thread IMO has a problem.
"What if I do not recover at incipient, mess up on my own or even worse enter a spin"
A good session with an aerobatic instructor in an aerobatic aircraft will allow the student to experience chucking it about and abusing the aircraft so he can see for himself what can happen and get used to it!

When pilots stall unintentionally it will happen at a time when their full concentration is taken elsewhere and hence the incipient bit will be totally lost! The First thing the pilot will know is he is in a full bloodied stall.
Hence while recovery at incipient is VITAL so is experiencing and being comfortable with full stalls and spins.

The last point to make is a identifying a spiral dive and a spin.
So many confuse the two and both require very different recovery methods where does incipient come in that equation?

I see a good comparison in driving a car! The student is taught to drive safely etc etc etc and told if you loose it the car may over steer or understeer but they are never shown or allowed to experience these things.
First time it happens for real the poor sod understeers straight into a brick wall.
On a skid pan they can understeer, oversteer and slide to their hearts content eventually becoming so confident they can play the steering at will to control both.
As an ex racing driver those skills learnt back then have saved me on a number of occasions in ordinary road driving since.

Pace

[MacSki]

Thanks Pace, I like your analogy. I did indeed take icy/snow days steady in a car until I had done some advanced driver training and then felt so much more confidence in handling the situation I just reacted rather than feared and that is exactly where I want to get to with the stall.

I'm sure I will always have a healthy regard for the stall situation but I want to be free to react sensibly as I now do in a car rather than tense and try and control fear/panic and react.

[Armchairflyer]

Erm, what's wrong with taking it steady when driving on slippery roads?

Enjoy a dual spinning lesson, at least you'll make the experience that -- given enough altitude and an approved airplane -- it's actually a quite benign maneuver and nothing to be afraid of (at least that was my impression after having been in awe of the prospect of spinning an airplane myself prior to such a session with an aerobatics instructor).

Nonetheless I think that the actual safety gain is rather modest. A spin at altitude will hardly kill anyone, it's the low-level stall with a wingdrop where you instinctively feel that there is not enough air left beneath you to do what's right and point the nose down. It may be just me but I had a sufficiently hard time to do that when owing to a lack of concentration I let the airplane get into a slight mush on finals. Really had to give myself a mental slap on the hand to push the stick forward a bit and add some power instead of pulling back still further. And that was far from a panic-inducing situation then; not sure whether I would have been able to do the right thing if things had looked grimmer.

IMHO spin training is a good experience and helps you get rid of exaggerated fear. But in "everyday" flying it is indeed spin avoidance that gets you home alive.

[Pace]

Armchairflyer

I do not agree with the argument that stalls spins only happen near the ground so you will never recover! a pointless exercise.

There have been two PC12 crashes from loss of control at high altitude recently with obviously incorrect recovery. These both occurred at 24000 plus and involved stalls spins and spiral dives with eventual mid air over stressing and breakups.

There is nothing wrong with driving carefully or incipient training to avoid such situations in car or aircraft!
Sadly reality is different.

Pace

[Sillert,V.I.]

During my early training, I too was apprehensive about spinning & I was definitely uneasy as in those days it was a mandatory requirement. Shortly after starting my PPL course, the rules changed and I was somewhat relieved at not having to do the exercise.

However the bogeyman wouldn't go away and very soon after I got my licence I grabbed an instructor & headed off for a lesson in spin training and recovery. I briefed myself thoroughly beforehand and mentally rehearsed the recovery procedure until I'd convinced myself I'd be able to get it right first time.

I made sure the tomahawk I'd booked out was one of the ones with full harnesses & spent about 10 minutes extra on the walkround removing all the pens, paper & other rubbish from the cockpit. Waiting for the instructor, I rehearsed exactly what I'd do with the controls once the spin started. I felt very confident I'd be able to recover from a spin without help from the other seat.

We climbed up to about 5000ft in the training area and after a couple of clearing turns I realised this was the moment to put it all into practice. Chopping the power, I pulled up into the stall and just as the aircraft stopped flying, gave it a bootful of rudder.

I simply couldn't believe how quickly it entered the spin & in spite of all that preparation, instinctively tried picking up the dropping wing with aileron. The windscreen was suddenly full of rapidly rotating fields & I was pressed hard against the side of the cockpit. A few turns later my instructor took control & recovered the aircraft as I felt my overconfidence rapidly being put in its place by a generous helping of reality.

After climbing back up for a second go, I was better prepared for how the aircraft would react & managed some semblence of controlled recovery, though it didn't seem to be climbing as well as it usually did. It did, however, climb much better once my instructor told me to remove the full opposite rudder!

After another hour of spinning it in both directions, I'd got to the point where I could keep the height loss to 1500ft & felt comfortable with being able to do it for real if I somehow managed to spin it by mistake at altitude.

I've never inadvertently spun anything, but I have had the occasional close encounter and I do believe real experience of spin recovery is an essential part of pilot training. It demonstrates that the onset of loss of control can be violent and disorienting, but prompt and correct recovery action will put the cows back in their proper place. There needs to be some element of muscle memory in this; you're likely not going to be able to work it out calmly and rationally in the heat of the moment.

As Pace said, there's been a spate of fatal accidents involving loss of control at altitude, and it's at least possible that the lack of spin training in the current syllabus might have been a factor.

[maxred]

AF447 a larger case in point..

[BackPacker]

On the other hand a fresh PPL is not very likely to find himself at the helm of an Airbus or PC12, in coffin-corner type situations, anytime soon.

When was the last time your average spamcan had a stall during normal cruise flight?

As far as I know, most unintentional stalls with light aircraft happen during the base to final turn, or on final itself. And in that situation all the spin training in the world will not help anymore. What will save the day is incipient stall recognition and recovery.

[Armchairflyer]

Not sure whether high-altitude LOC scenarios really make a convincing point for (VFR) spin training in light aerobatic aircraft (although they do arguably make a point for correctly diagnosing and recovering from an inflight upset, including the distinction between spin and spiral dive mentioned by Pace). Like BackPacker (if I understand him correctly) I doubt that spinning in from high altitude is a significant risk in a SEP airplane.

And concerning the "sad reality" I firmly believe that whether on the ground or in the air, planning ahead and having good situational awareness go a lot further for stacking the deck in your favor than relying on handling skills when the s... has already hit the fan.

[ShyTorque]

As an civilian (to PPL level) then latterly military trained pilot I often wonder why there is so much concern about full stall/spin practice and recovery training. It certainly never used to be so much a controversial subject when everyone was required to do it as part of the PPL syllabus.

Almost forty years ago, as a 17 year old student, I even briefly experienced an inverted spin in a Cessna 150 during my pre FHT ride (it was inadvertent, the engine did stop and I did work out how to recover from it, and it thankfully came out very quickly). But spinning was a subject of interest, rather than "taboo", which is how it now appears to be with some.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Nimrod615

Still waiting for your reply, or are you one of those sad internet creatures who throw out non specific insults and then run away....

[Pace]

including the distinction between spin and spiral dive mentioned by Pace

This is why I feel stalling, spinning, spiral dives should be packaged as one.
One can lead to the other and back again.
This was apparent from the radar traces of the very tragic high altitude crash of the PC12 flown by a ppl.
The aircraft appeared to stall a number of times as well as spinning and then broke up in a spiral dive.
Backpacker there have been equally a number of loss of control incidents at fairly high altitude in Cirrus aircraft where luckily the chute saved the occupants.
I am not for one minute decrying recovery at incipient as this is the most important factor of all but I am realist enough to know that situations occur where the pilot does not recover from incipient because they are distracted enter a storm or whatever.

As I read it from the original poster of the thread he is scared of stalling as he does not have the confidence in being able to recover if that stall was mishandled and developed further a case of fear of the unknown. The only way to remove that fear is to make the unknown known.

Pace

[Sillert,V.I.]

Originally Posted by Pace

This is why I feel stalling, spinning, spiral dives should be packaged as one.
One can lead to the other and back again.

Absolutely.

One big difference between training and reality is knowing how the aircraft got into an unusual attitude in the first place. It's easy to recognise you're in a left hand spin if you just put airplane there, but in real life things might not be so obvious.

And since all but one of my close calls have happened whilst hand flying in cloud, IMO training when it's CAVOK isn't enough of a preparation.

[Pace]

Didn't get the first couple right, more spiral dives than spins but we survived and learned.

This is the important bit instictively knowing one from the other and being able to smoothly recover.
The Spiral dive has more potential to damage the aircraft than a spin.
The argument was made that spins were more likely to occur in the circuit at low level and hence if you got into one you would not get out hence no point in teaching them.
Firstly this is false! It maybe true of the student low time ppl who probably does not fly over 2000 feet but not true as pilots become more adventurous.
As stated shown by the increase of loss of control and breakups caused by incorrect recovery techniques.
I personally am not an aerobatic lover but appreciate the instruction I recieved from old school instructors and examiners in piston singles and twins

Pace

[Armchairflyer]

The argument was made that spins were more likely to occur in the circuit at low level and hence if you got into one you would not get out hence no point in teaching them.
Firstly this is false! It maybe true of the student low time ppl who probably does not fly over 2000 feet but not true as pilots become more adventurous.

Define "adventurous". Fooling around in a (non-aerobatic) airplane at altitude without proper instruction (and maybe carrying passengers waiting to be impressed or so) is not what you mean, I suppose

[Fuji Abound]

As an civilian (to PPL level) then latterly military trained pilot I often wonder why there is so much concern about full stall/spin practice and recovery training. It certainly never used to be so much a controversial subject when everyone was required to do it as part of the PPL syllabus.

A few accidents much as with single engine training in multis resulted in the authorities concluding the risk reward equation was better served if it was removed from the syllabus.

Probably some instructors were not up to the task or not up to the task in the aircraft made available to them. It is one of those skills that 80% of the time will go to plan, but from an instructional view includes the potential for the student to put the aircraft into a spin in an unusual way. It is also not unknown for the student to freeze on the controls requiring the instructor to take appropriate action, not always so easy in a tandem aircraft.

Personally I understand the fear. The fear stems because you have no real idea what will happen until you spin (for real), and even then it is one of those things for most that is still disconcerting. I think it takes most pilots two or three sessions to feel half comfortable with spinning. The way in which an aircraft spins also varies significantly between aircraft.

I am in two minds whether or not it should be in the PPL syllabus. Part of the reason is I am not sure simply demonstrating a spin achieves a great deal - as I said earlier short of a few lessons I think a couple of demonstrated spins could make some pilots more, not less nervous, and I doubt is enough to significantly improve their chances of recovering should they inadvertently enter a spin a year or two later having done no spinning between times.

However I am in no doubt that it is very worth while having some more comprehensive spin training at some point post PPL.

[groovy_nut]

The best place to contact would be the British Aerobatic Academy, not so far from Oxfordshire (they're based at Little Gransden, Cambs) and specialise in 'lifesaver' training in spins and unusual attitudes, as well as all manner of aerobatics of course! Oh, and the Extra 200 they use for their main training is a lovely aeroplane to fly and not overly expensive!

Parachute not mandatory!

Aerobatic flying training | British Aerobatic Academy

[MacSki]

I think my fear stems from a couple of angles. Firstly it took me a while to settle into flying and not be fearful of every time the aircraft moved in a way I hadn't asked it to, turbulence etc, took me a long time to figure if the instructor wasn't worried why should I be. Stalling came quite early in my training and started with a briefing which was more focused/serious than I'd seen before and a bit frightening about the consequences and link to accidents. It was then about 3 days of me turning up to the airfield but not being able to fly due to weather before we had conditions to do stalling. Being told to take out loose objects from the aircraft added to my fear which had built over those 3 days of not flying and waiting.

Also I have worked in a safety sensitive industry for many years and I think knowing that the aircraft is being put into an "unsafe" position triggers all the reactions that have been taught in me about safety processes etc. and not getting there in the first place. I fully got the fact that for overall safety these exercises had to be done but I still couldn't stop myself reacting badly, shaking legs and arms.

I think we did the exercises on 5 occasions over my training to get me to the point of being comfortable for the test but I'd really like to get to a point where I don't fear it every time it is mentioned as I do think it is creating the wrong reaction in me.

My take on the conversations is that some advance training in general would be useful, whether that is actual spinning or just more stalling, low speed flight etc to be decided. I'm very sure I'm best doing all of this away from my home airfield with a different instructor and will now look to set that up.

Thanks for everyone's help/views, always interesting reading the different opinions/thoughts.

[maxred]

I am glad you have taken something from all the informative posts on the subject. From your post above, it appears that it may not just have been stall/spin that gave you anxiety. Again, there are quite a few guys I have met, who actually do not like flying that much, and get quite anxious when they fly. Personally I can't quite get my head around that mindset, but it does exist. A level of fear/respect/apprehension, is healthy, and in my view required, otherwise you may not live too long.

I also think your move to another airfield to complete more advanced flying is positive and the correct choice. Best of luck and let all on here know how you fare.