Message from discussion American Aviation!!

Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!uupsi!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!wanttaja
From: wantt...@ssc-vax.UUCP (Ronald J Wanttaja)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation
Subject: Re: American Aviation!!
Summary: Spin Training
Keywords: Are you crazy?
Message-ID: <3129@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 90 05:06:29 GMT
References: <1990Jan20.063905.13209@dvinci.usask.ca>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics, Seattle WA
Lines: 45
Posted: Mon Jan 22 06:06:29 1990

In article <1990Jan20.063905.13...@dvinci.usask.ca>, j...@skatter.uucp (Jim Bergstrom) writes:
> 
> 	After reading the previously posted articles of "Spins and Parachutes"
> I'm beginning to wonder what is happening south of the border.
>  
>  	This can't be true: no spin training??  Good God!  Spin training 
> ought to be one of the priorities of basic tringing!  Lordy!  There isn't
> a soul north of the border who hasn't spun an aircraft in Transport Canada's
> mandatory training program.

If my poor wee brain remembers right, the reason spin training was
eliminated in the US was because more people were being killed doing
intentional spins than they figured would be lost due to accidental spins.

It does make some sense.  I don't remember ever hearing of a single crash
due to an accidental, *recoverable* spin.  Pilots get killed in graveyard
spirals... but they aren't spins, and the root cause is not the airplane.
People are killed in stall/spin accidents, yes... but invariably the
accident occurs at a low altitude precluding recovery.  The usual accident
report says "... rotation had just started..." "Approximately one turn
before impacct", etc.

Now, the way to prevent low-altitude stall/spin accidents is to prevent the
stall in the first place.  And that is _exactly_ what the US training
philosphy is.  I don't care if you can break the spin within a half turn
and recover losing only 500 feet.  If you start the spin at 400 feet, you
are going to die.  So it's better to be able to recognize the stall entry
and prevent it, eh?

My personal views were posted in an article about two months ago... pilots
should be shown how their airplanes can *bite*, not just how to recover
from gentle turning stalls.  I think the FAA cancelled any benefit of the
"avoid stalls=prevent spins" philosphy when they decided that altitude was
controlled by pitch (uh, pardon me:  "When power is available and
continuous, power controls speed and pitch controlls altitude").  If a
pilot believes that pitch controls airspeed, the automatic reaction to a
low-speed situation is to shove the stick forward, which'll save more bacon
than shoving the throttle to the firewall.  We all learn how stall speed
increases with G loading, but we don't necessarily accept the corollary:
When the stick is shoved forward, stall speed decreases.

Ahhhhh, heck, I went all through this two months ago... sorry about that :-).

					 Ron Wanttaja
					 (ssc-vax!wanttaja)