CFI Spin Training- Share your experiences

It was a few years ago (2006) when I was in an American Flyers CFI Academy. Each student took a couple of hours out of one day and hit the practice area with a senior CFI/I. We flew a C-172 that was typed with *spins only*. 

We did 5 or 6 setups, the instructor demoed 2 and I set up the rest. Instinct took over at first and I broke the spin early but I got in 2 3-revolution spins. It was the typical C-172 spin, yank it back to a full stall and stomp on the rudder to get it to enter the full spin, keep in ruder pressure until you made the three turns, then recover. 

As to teaching spins, I would say that is a case by case deal. I am not worried about my comfort level in teaching them so much as the aircraft/student combinations. I had lots of fun with it.

If the FAA was serious about stall/spin accident prevention they would make it part of the Private Pilot PTS.  We just do not take stall training for enough to help make pilots better prepared for emergencies. Just finished reading an accident report where a 20 year pilot tries to stretch his glide to make it to an airport after an engine failure...another stall/spin fatal accident.

It used to be in the PTS, but was removed because the statistics said it was actually killing more people. People were getting taught spins by people who shouldn't have been teaching them. Couple that with the fact that a vast majority of spins occur at an altitude in which recovery is nearly (if not totally) impossible, it wasn't beneficial to teach spins. If you teach stall/spin awareness, you shouldn't have to worry about spins. If you don't stall, you won't spin.

Joel-  

    In a perfect world, you would be absolutely right.  Unfortunately, if you browse through the NTSB monthly summaries, you will see that stall-spin accidents account for an alarmingly large percentage of fatalities every month.  Assuming all of these pilots were trained according to the FAA standard of stall-spin avoidance, why are they still doing it?

   If you don't stall, you can't spin.  But people do stall, and many of them spin and die as a result.  We all probably have strong opinions about this (I certainly do!), my original intent in posting this thread was to try and get an idea of what actually passes for spin training for CFI candidates.  What was your experience?  If you did get adequate spin training for your CFI (not for the PPL), are you comfortable teaching primary students, and what do you actually do in flight?  

   I'm not advocating going back to requiring spins in the private syllabus, but I am interested in knowing the experience and training given to CFIs.  I do believe every pilot should get some real unusual-attitude recovery training, including spins, at some point early in their flying career.  I think a lot of stall-spin accidents occur because pilots do not recognize when they are getting close to the edge of the envelope, learning how to fly there (and back out again)  would seem logical to me.

   Let's have some input, guys and girls, this is a real problem!!

    Why are people still stalling? I'm not sure there is a catch all answer for that question. Its hard to tell from an NTSB report exactly what happened in every situation, not to mention its tough to tell exactly the terrain that the flight was over. People don't want to total airplanes when they think they can glide further than they actually can. I think its because they either 1) don't have insurance or 2) don't want to have to deal with getting everything fixed/replaced, when they feel like they can save the plane.

    In regards to my spin training. I've done it twice. First, I did it in a DA-20, because I was thinking about pursuing a sport instructor certificate. Did probably 5 spins, and that was that. Move on a year, and well, I decided just to get the regular CFI rating, so I did the spin training again in a 172SP. Probably did 4 spins again, nothing really out of the ordinary. Couple turns each way, and that was that.

   I haven't taught any primary students, but I know I wouldn't be comfortable teaching spins to them. Stalls, and perhaps incipient spins, but that's as far as I would go for a private/sport student. I might demonstrate a spin or two, but I wouldn't go out and teach a student how to enter a spin, for sure. But honestly, I'm not one that wants to do much primary instruction. I'd rather spend all day teaching instrument. Much more rewarding to me at the end of the day.

Hi Tony,

I'm doing my SPFI rating right now. I have an old school instructor and yes, he has required spins. However, I do spins anyway. I got my private at a place that wouldn't let us take our checkride unless we had done spins. Of course this was 25 years ago. I've spun C150/152's, C172's, Citabria's, My Tri-Pacer (yes my Tri-Pacer) and, my Taylorcraft. The T-cart spins really cool-kinda' slow-mo with that long wing. I've been required to enter them in all conditions and I can't remember how many I've done. Would I be comfortable teaching them? Sure. Although they're not required, I'll recommend doing spins to my students. My son is learning right now and I have required him to be trained/competent in spins before solo (my/our flight instructor agrees). I wouldn't be here now if I had not been trained. I would not have recognized the conditions of an impending stall spin during a poorly excecuted base to final turn by a fellow pilot I was riding with. To top it off, we were flying an Aztec and my instructor was in the back seat! I knew what to do because of him. The PIC was nearly frozen with fear and pale after the incident. I was watching it all happen and there it was...the pre-stall "buck" and the start of the right wing dropping. I had to force the throttles forward out of the pilots frozen grip and overcome her force on the rudder pedals and yoke. I still hear my instructors expletive from that day whenever I turn final. Spin training, YES! I'll bet the next of kin of all spin accident victims would agree.

Not to get into the discussion about whether spins should be part of the Private Pilot PTS or not, but rather to answer the original question...

I did not do "spin training" specifically as part of my CFI prep.  I had done aerobatic training and had owned a Pitts Special before ever deciding to work on my instructor certificate, so the training I had was taken from a different viewpoint with a different goal in mind.  However, I never got the logbook endorsement specifically related to spins for an instructor certificate, so when I was working on the CFI I needed to demonstrate spins so I could get the endorsement.  Here's where the fun began!

I was taking my CFI prep training at Daytona Beach (a good excuse for a winter "vacation" while still accomplishing something).  The only thing the flight school had that was spinnable was a very tired Cessna 150.  So here we went, me (and I'm no small guy) and the instructor I was working with (not huge but not small either) in the 150 on a day that was about 85 degrees and about 80% humidity.  True, we started out basically at sea level, but still, the 150 was not at all interested in climbing with any great alacrity.

By the time we were high enough to do the first spin we were already, hot, tired, and quite frankly, bored.  So we did the first spin.  It was a normal spin but of course quite fun (as spins are) so we decided we'd do another one.  Some more climbing and we were ready for the next spin.  Another fun time and again the decision that it was not enough, so one more was in order.  More climbing!  (At least the 150 was getting a bit lighter as we burned off fuel in the climbs.)  We finally were high enough again to do one more, and we did an extra turn just for the heck of it.  We then decided that we didn't have enough fuel to do one more so we headed back.

The moral of story is that.... Well, there really isn't any moral.  Just the lesson that density altitude can have an effect even at sea level! 

Cheers!

Joe

Tony,

All I do is Tailwheel checkouts and Spin training. My spin training syllabus includes 2 training sessions as I have not found anyone to be competent to teach spins after just doing a couple.

I ease into spins by first demonstrating how an inadvertant spin can happen and recovering immediately before the spin develops. Then we progress from entry/recover, 180 degree turn in incipient spin/recover, 1 full turn/recover and finally 2 full turns/recover.

I find that easing into the training makes an enormous difference in comfort level and maintaining ground reference orientation. By the time we do the 2 turn spin most everyone can do it without becoming disoriented.

When I sign the endorsement I am confident that my client will be able to teach spins.

The attached picture is after 2 turns and recovery started.

Ron

My CFI spin training was done in central FL with an old bush pilot in a C-172A.  Left and right and stoping the spin on a particular heading.  I don't recall the number of spins or the total time, but I think it was about an hour, maybe two.  This was also a couple of years after having some basic acro/upset recovery training.