Hi Steve

Your item 2 is essential.
The rest is optional.
I only hope that NW Pilot gets that before he tries it alone.

Tony
C-GICE

In article .com,
"Steve.T" wrote:

I have a few suggestions. These are to be done in parallel:

1) Before you go and do a spin in your airplane, make sure that you
have obtained the latest updates to the POH (or equivalent) for your
airplane (by serial number). Review all STCs that have been installed
to see what they have done relative to spins in your aircraft.

Next, read, re-read, and read again what it says to do should you get
into a spin. Now make sure that all the placards are in place in your
aircraft concerning spins.

2) Find a CFI that is familiar with your a/c type that knows how to do
a spin and will teach you recovery. Go there and learn to do it right.

---------
Having someone teach you how to do it in a plane, as opposed to talking
you through it makes a world of difference. However, my dad talked me
through how he did spin recovery in a J3. My first CFI refused to teach
spin recovery, because no one should aggravate a stall into a spin.

I said #1 because I have inadvertantly agravated a stall into a spin on
two occassions. The first one was with that CFI (the one who refused to
teach spin recovery) in the plane, during the summer in Texas in the
'70s (my dad's voice came firm and clear from the back seat on what to
do to recover, because that CFI just sat there rather pale). The second
one was after I had started flight training again and was about 10 days
from the check ride - I was doing t/o stalls and slow speed stalls on
my own trying to improve my recovery to the point that I lost no more
than 20' (I actually got real good at this and started recovering with
no loss of altitude -- with just me in the plane).

Remember, if you want to recover from a stall during base to final,
KEEP THE PLANE COORDINATED. If you want to discover what happens if you
don't, at altitude (I'd recommend 3000 AGL), get real slow, nose high
and make an uncoordinated turn just as you stall and you too can flip
over on your back and spin (that was basically what happened to me just
before I took the check ride). After you recover look at how much
altitude you lost before pull out. You are probably 100+' in the
ground. Try it again with the plane coordinated (ball centered) and use
the rudder to pick up the wing AFTER you push the yoke forward -- see
how much altitude you lost on that one.

BTW - I never had problems with motion sickness until that inadvertant
spin in East Texas while I was in college. Now steep turn practice will
make me rather queasy. The first time you do a spin that you didn't
intend to do will stay with you for a long time.

Later,
Steve.T
PP ASEL/Instrument




--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE