Originally published at: Fear at 3,000 Feet
A student’s unrecognized fears put an instructor to the test.
I remember an incident many years ago when I was a student pilot in a Cessna 152 flying solo. I was practicing stalls that I had done previously with an instructor. It was a typical Virginia hot and humid summer day so density altitude may have been a factor. I must have unintentionally cross-controlled the rudder and ailerons in a simulated landing stall because the airplane stalled and whipped into a left spin. My reactions were instinctive and correct - full right rudder, yoke forward to break the stall, add power once rotation stopped. It scared me since I’d never encountered a spin before. Later when I did aerobatic and emergency maneuver training spins and recoveries became normal maneuvers not to be feared. For a pilot’s reactions to be instinctive practice is needed. I think we do our student pilots a disservice by not teaching them spins and recoveries.
I have posted on this before but a long time has passed. You can train to avoid spins all you want and “describe” the recovery techniques till you’re blue in the face, but until you’ve actually experienced a spin in the aircraft you have no idea what a real spin is like! I would state that if you don’t experience it on a real flight, you might not recognize what is happening and be able to apply your training (actually cognitively associate what is happening and respond appropriately).
Case in point. In the midst of my PPL training I was out flying solo practicing all of my stalls (power-on, power-off, turning, climbing, the whole enchilada). The very next day, one of my instructors went up with me to check my progress on all of these stall recovery maneuvers. In the midst of creating a power-on, climbing, turning stall the aircraft suddenly flipped over and entered a spin (Cessna 152). I did not recognize what it was. It appeared as though we were going straight down but I didn’t feel any strong forces - however, the earth was spinning round and round for some reason (but the aircraft just seemed to be sitting still). My instructor shouted “You’ve put us in a spin!”. He applied opposite rudder, etc. and recovered fairly quickly.
Now I know exactly what a spin looks and feels like and would have no issue in beginning recovery. The ironic thing is I had spent about an hour the previous day practicing the very thing that put us in that spin. If it had happened to me then, I would probably be dead now.
Therefore, I will simply say this - if PPL training doesn’t include actual spin experience you are not properly trained! If your training program doesn’t include it, please get it somewhere! (If that’s not possible I suppose that modern training materials will at least include video, which was not available in my training days).
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