Spin Training in 172 for CFI endorsement

Brad Z said:
I understand that aerobatic aircraft will better demonstrate fully developed stalls, but if you never plan on instructing in a Pitts, Extra, or Citabria, why do your spin training in them?
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It's not simply "spin training". It's instructor training. The point isn't to learn how to spin and recover, it's how to teach about spins and recoveries.

I think it is highly improbably that an instructor will ever only fly one type of aircraft and that all of their students they ever teach will ever only fly one type of aircraft.

An instructor should have experience and knowledge beyond the level to which they will be teaching. It's a pretty basic and often-used concept. That's why CFI's have to have commercial pilot certificates and instrument ratings to teach private pilots.

You might as well ask "is there any data showing that knowing how to do a lazy 8 or an ILS approach helps someone teach turns around a point?" I don't know, is there? Is data necessary to see that it's a good idea because more experience is better than less?
 
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Did mine in a Citabria. Never really felt comfortable spinning the 172 I did my CFI in, although we did about a 3/4 turn in one to demonstrate if a student got really uncoordinated in a power on stall.

I think I preferred the Citabria because it felt like it was made for it. The 172 barely looked airworthy, and though it was likely an unfounded fear, I didn’t want that old beat up thing having to handle spins for me.

Oh, and I was that guy who gets sick from spins. Always been unable to do rides that spin in circles. At least I didn’t throw up.
 
dmspilot said:
It's not "spin training". It's instructor training. The point isn't to learn how to spin and recover, it's how to teach about spins and recoveries.
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Of course it's spin training. Your average CFI candidate has never done spins prior to the endorsement flights. The FAA says it is in AC 61-67C in addition to stating it's to demonstrate instructional proficiency. It's both. Why say it's not?

301. SPIN TRAINING AND PARACHUTES.

a. Section 61.183(i) requires an applicant for a Flight Instructor Certificate airplane or glider rating to receive flight training in stall awareness, spin entry, spins, and spin recovery procedures. The applicant must also possess and demonstrate instructional proficiency in these areas to receive the certificate or rating.
 
Everyone even PPL students does spins in 172s or 152s where I train. I was never sure if that’s just the Canadian curriculum.

If it’s the first time you do it, that 172 will snap over surprisingly fast if you yank on the yoke like you really mean it near stall and kick that rudder. I am sure the other planes suggested will be more fun but for your first try I don’t know why a 172 is lacking?
 
RoscoeT said:
Why say it's not?
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Because it was a rhetorical mechanism meant to illustrate a point that you missed completely.

Additionally the AC incorrectly paraphrases 61.183(i).

Why quote an AC quoting a reg when you can just quote the reg?

Why exercise pedantry to disagree with what I wrote when the thesis of the post agreed with yours?
 
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dmspilot said:
Because it was a rhetorical mechanism meant to illustrate a point that you missed completely.

Additionally the AC incorrectly paraphrases 61.183(i).

Why quote an AC quoting a reg when you can just quote the reg?

Why exercise pedantry to disagree with what I wrote when the thesis of the post agreed with yours?
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No idea what you're trying to say here. You previously said the point isn't to learn how to spin and recover and that it's only about being able to teach the concepts. I do not agree with that. You can learn to regurgitate spin concepts to a student without ever seeing a spin from inside an airplane. When you learn things from inside the airplane that's called flight training...or spin training in this case. I don't understand your need to muddy the intent here.
 
RoscoeT said:
No idea what you're trying to say here. You previously said the point isn't to learn how to spin and recover and that it's only about being able to teach the concepts. I do not agree with that. You can learn to regurgitate spin concepts to a student without ever seeing a spin from inside an airplane. When you learn things from inside the airplane that's called flight training...or spin training in this case. I don't understand your need to muddy the intent here.
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I didn't say anything about "only being able to teach the concepts." You are putting words in my mouth.

Read the rest of the post after the first sentence, and recognize that it was in reply to the quoted post, and maybe you will get the point.

The question was: why practice spins in aircraft with different spin characteristics, such as aerobatic aircraft? And the answer was to be a better instructor. Sorry you got the exact opposite impression.
 
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SebIp said:
If it’s the first time you do it, that 172 will snap over surprisingly fast if you yank on the yoke like you really mean it near stall and kick that rudder. I am sure the other planes suggested will be more fun but for your first try I don’t know why a 172 is lacking?
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That's a whip stall. Not very realistic. The 172 just doesn't care much for spins; it was designed to be a relatively safe family airplane, not a trainer. The 150 was the trainer, back in the day when most of us weighed 150 or 170 pounds, and the 150 spins much more readily. Now we have students and instructors that are both taller and wider than in they were in 1956, and they weigh a lot more, so the 150 spends most of its time using up runway and grunting to altitude. Good taxi trainer, though.

You need a few lesson in a Citabria. I taught in Cessnas and Citabrias. Cessna for the primary training to PPL, then the Citabria for taildragger training. Student learns to use his feet a lot more in the Citabria. It won't fly itself. Sure won't land or taxi itself. Once the students got the taildragger stuff done, they went back to the 172s for the IFR training, and complained that the 172 was Boring. Boooooring.
 
dmspilot said:
Additionally the AC incorrectly paraphrases 61.183(i).
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I tend to stay out of spin training arguments because they tend to get too religious for my taste, but you have me curious. What is incorrect about the AC's paraphrase?
 
Dan Thomas said:
That's a whip stall. Not very realistic. The 172 just doesn't care much for spins; it was designed to be a relatively safe family airplane, not a trainer. The 150 was the trainer, back in the day when most of us weighed 150 or 170 pounds, and the 150 spins much more readily. Now we have students and instructors that are both taller and wider than in they were in 1956, and they weigh a lot more, so the 150 spends most of its time using up runway and grunting to altitude. Good taxi trainer, though.

You need a few lesson in a Citabria. I taught in Cessnas and Citabrias. Cessna for the primary training to PPL, then the Citabria for taildragger training. Student learns to use his feet a lot more in the Citabria. It won't fly itself. Sure won't land or taxi itself. Once the students got the taildragger stuff done, they went back to the 172s for the IFR training, and complained that the 172 was Boring. Boooooring.
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I found the 150 spin like it was in slow motion and overall felt like I had to hold the inputs for a long time before I get it to go. Don’t know why. Might because that was a recurrent training and things don’t seems to happen as fast.
 
Dan Thomas said:
That's a whip stall. Not very realistic. The 172 just doesn't care much for spins; it was designed to be a relatively safe family airplane, not a trainer. The 150 was the trainer, back in the day when most of us weighed 150 or 170 pounds, and the 150 spins much more readily. Now we have students and instructors that are both taller and wider than in they were in 1956, and they weigh a lot more, so the 150 spends most of its time using up runway and grunting to altitude. Good taxi trainer, though.

You need a few lesson in a Citabria. I taught in Cessnas and Citabrias. Cessna for the primary training to PPL, then the Citabria for taildragger training. Student learns to use his feet a lot more in the Citabria. It won't fly itself. Sure won't land or taxi itself. Once the students got the taildragger stuff done, they went back to the 172s for the IFR training, and complained that the 172 was Boring. Boooooring.
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I have a 172M, so I don't want to find my own plane boring...well anymore boring than I find most flights anyway. I like boring. It means nothing bad happened...You know like inadvertent spins! lol
 
SebIp said:
I found the 150 spin like it was in slow motion and overall felt like I had to hold the inputs for a long time before I get it to go. Don’t know why. Might because that was a recurrent training and things don’t seems to happen as fast.
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I've gotten both slow and fast spins out of the 150 without a whole lot of predictability as to which one you were gonna get...even when doing multiple spins back to back. Same loading and technique each time.

I found teaching spins more challenging than actually doing them. A lot of times the student isn't able to recognize when the spin has turned into a steep spiral. Probably my fault for not briefing the difference between the two more thoroughly...but with the small number of students that actually want to do them I haven't had a ton of practice teaching them.
 
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brcase said:
As I recall the Flight Manual for the P-51D says something like. Spin Recovery may take up to 10,000 feet.
(4 zeros)
Brian
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They had a fuselage tank behind the cockpit that created a very aft CG condition.

IIRC, the burned the fuselage tank first, so if they had to combat maneuver, they would not being doing so with an aft CG.
 
Dan Thomas said:
That's a whip stall. Not very realistic. The 172 just doesn't care much for spins; it was designed to be a relatively safe family airplane, not a trainer. The 150 was the trainer, back in the day when most of us weighed 150 or 170 pounds, and the 150 spins much more readily. Now we have students and instructors that are both taller and wider than in they were in 1956, and they weigh a lot more, so the 150 spends most of its time using up runway and grunting to altitude. Good taxi trainer, though.

You need a few lesson in a Citabria. I taught in Cessnas and Citabrias. Cessna for the primary training to PPL, then the Citabria for taildragger training. Student learns to use his feet a lot more in the Citabria. It won't fly itself. Sure won't land or taxi itself. Once the students got the taildragger stuff done, they went back to the 172s for the IFR training, and complained that the 172 was Boring. Boooooring.
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Oh, I think C-172's Spin just fine, Just not the way we tend to teach or Practice them. Where we tend to teach when Not fully Loaded and often without flaps. IF you want to make the stall more aggressive, add lots Flaps, Add Lots of Power, and move the CG Aft. The below example is 2 of the 3.

This is more typical of how I think Stall Spin accidents Occur.... I.e. so low that Spin Recovery procedures are NOT even part of the equation.
https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/ne...of-departure-stall-accident-is-hard-to-watch/ Occurs about the 1minute mark. May be some replays, I only watched to there to make sure it was the video I was thinking about.
This one is nice in that it occurred low enough to be survivable and another 100 feet and it probably would not have been.

Stall Recognition and recovery could have prevented that accident pretty late in the sequence, up to maybe just after the wing dropped left. Spin recovery techniques would have never come into play since the plane was still in the incipient Spin Phase.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
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Pinecone said:
They had a fuselage tank behind the cockpit that created a very aft CG condition.

IIRC, the burned the fuselage tank first, so if they had to combat maneuver, they would not being doing so with an aft CG.
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Back to that difference between Intentional Spins and Inadvertent Spins. I don't recall the manual saying anything about Intentional Spins. I had read the manual cover to cover quite a few times when I worked for Papa51 on the Thunder Mustang, But unfortunately I didn't get to keep the manual.
I was told/read that the reason they burned the aft tank first was that the plane was so tail heavy with it full that it was negatively pitch stable for the 1st part of the flight until they burned it off and made holding altitude very challenging i.e. high workload.
Another Trivia information while the top speed of the P-51D was something like 440mph. The best Range speed was more like 160mph, which on those long Pacific Missions meant many hours of droning along at about 160mph.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
brcase said:
Stall Recognition and recovery could have prevented that accident pretty late in the sequence,
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Problem is, even though one may know the proper course of action, it’s pretty tough to do he right thing when the right thing makes the view out the windshield scary.
 
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