Proficient Pilot: Another spin on spins
Teaching recognition, recovery, and prevention
An over-the-top spin? I wracked my brain trying to comprehend what he wanted me to do. Nor had I ever heard of the under-the-bottom spin that he had also requested. I confessed to him that I had never heard of such spins—and celebrated my birthday with my first and last pink slip.
My instructor hadn’t taught me those types of spin entries because he hadn’t thought they’d be required. He gave me the necessary instruction, and a few days later I exchanged my pink slip for a white one.
n over-the-top spin, I learned, involves entering a stall during a full-power climbing turn and then applying full top (opposite) rudder. The airplane does a complete roll and winds up in a conventional upright spin. It’s actually fun.
Entering an under-the-bottom spin is less dramatic. It involves stalling while in a gliding turn and then adding full bottom rudder (rudder in the direction of turn). The nose falls slowly, and spin entry occurs with less vigor than when entering an over-the-top spin.
The inspector explained that the most commonly taught method of spinning involves entering a power-off, wings-level stall and then applying full rudder in the desired direction of spin. He added, however, that “this is seldom the manner in which a pilot experiences an inadvertent spin. A spin most likely to result in an accident occurs following a departure stall [an over-the-top spin] or while cross-controlling during a turn from base leg to final [an under-the-bottom spin].”
CFI applicants today are no longer required to perform spins during a practical test. They need only present a logbook endorsement testifying that they have received spin instruction. Strong anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that most instructors receive either minimal spin training or none at all, despite what’s in their logbooks.
Spin training is not required for any other certificate, and this has been a subject of some controversy ever since the spin requirement was deleted from the private pilot curriculum in 1949. Because an airplane cannot spin unless first stalled, it has been believed that shifting the emphasis from actual spinning to the prevention of and timely recovery from stalls would reduce the stall/spin accident rate.
This sea change in training appears to have been successful. During the four years preceding the change, stall/spin accidents accounted for almost half of all fatal accidents. They now account for only a fourth.
Proponents of spin training argue, however, that there are still an unacceptable and significant number of spin accidents annually, and that they have an 80-percent fatality rate—they are more lethal than midair collisions. But knowing how to recover from spins would not necessarily prevent these accidents. The vast majority of inadvertent spins begin at such low altitudes that there usually is insufficient room to recover.
Pilots fortunate enough to survive a spin accident often do not realize that their aircraft had begun to spin. If anything, they recall only a mushing yaw prior to impact. This is because they experienced only the entry or incipient phase of a spin, not the fully developed phase during which the airplane reaches a rapid rate of rotation with the nose pitched steeply downward.
My view is that pilots do not need to know how to recover from fully developed spins because such training would not provide assurance that they could recover from a spin that might occur in many modern singles, irrespective of how much altitude is available. This is because manufacturers are not required to flight test their aircraft beyond a one-turn spin. It is not known how difficult or impossible it might be to recover from a spin beyond that first turn.
Knowing how to recover from fully developed spins probably would not prevent many stall/spin accidents. It is more important, I believe, to recognize and be able to recover from the incipient stage of a spin. Pilots and especially instructors should have the reaction and skill needed to aggressively arrest an uncommanded, pro-spin yaw with a minimal loss of altitude. This is why I encourage pilots to seek out a qualified instructor and build confidence by learning how to enter and recover from incipient spins to prevent such entries from developing into the traumatic, full-blown spins associated with conventional spin training.
