Technically, you don’t need a private pilot certificate to take spin training—only a qualified flight instructor and an aircraft certified for spins. But if you never got the opportunity to spin while you were a student—and most don’t—you owe it to yourself to explore this corner of the envelope.
Checklist...
• Basic spin training generally consists of a few hours of ground school and a few hours in the airplane. More time will be required
if you want to experience loops, rolls, and other types of aerobatics. A stall/spin/upset recovery course will cover different types of stalls as well as spins, and may be a more detailed syllabus requiring more flights.
• Parachutes are not required for instruction in spin entry, spins, and spin recovery, so long as you are briefed and instructed by
a flight instructor for the purpose of that training, as indicated in Advisory Circular 61-67C.
• William K. Kerschner, the late author of The Student Pilot’s Flight Manual and widely acknowledged as an authority on spins, would perform 20-turn spins—“done only once and for flight instructor applicants upon request”—to show pilots that recovery was the same after 20 turns as it was after three.
