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Spins, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

May 14th, 2013 No comments

 

February 20, 2013

 

Jim Nissen, Jim Riordan and a 1918 Curtiss Jenny

Jim Nissen, Jim Riordan and a 1918 Curtiss Jenny

Over 45 years and thousands of hours of flying I have been privileged to fly many different aircraft from Ultralights (in which I was a AFI or advanced flight instructor) to complex, turbocharged and high performance SELs, Gliders, and antiques including an OX5 powered 1918 Curtiss Jenny (shown here with Jim Nissen Standing in the plane and me climbing in in the red jacket.), an OX5 powered Thomas Morse scout, an OX5 powered American Eagle Bi Plane, and a Ryan PT22. During that time I have had many, many conversations with pilots from beginner students, to novice low time private pilots, Certified Flight instructors (CFIs) and airline transport pilots (ATPs). One subject which never fails to generate the most angst amongst the most pilots is the SPIN. Some would say the “Dreaded Spin.”

Frankly, I love them. I learned to fly when FAA spin recognition training actually included fully developed spins. Sadly, for many pilots today, the FAA no longer requires actual spin training, only “spin recognition”.  It is my opinion that spin recognition is not even close to the experience of actual spin training.

Many pilots seem to believe they don’t need spin training since they will simply practice “avoidance”. Problem is, though, sometimes, unintentional spins can sneak up on you and ruin your day if you are not properly prepared.

A fairly common sequence which can sneak up on a novice or low-time pilot, and can lead to an unexpected and certainly unintentional spin, can come from making an uncoordinated (too much rudder) turn towards a runway while approaching for a landing.

A pilot may sense he is overshooting his base leg and thus thinks he will miss final approach, so he adds more rudder instead of more rudder and aileron .thus increasing the bank angle while dropping the nose at the same time. The pilot then yanks back on the stick to get the nose back up and voila, the perfect setup for a stall followed by a spin at an unrecoverable altitude. This scenario is played out typically several times per year across the Country. This is why I recommend that every student pilot find a flight school that will safely teach you 1) Spin recognition and, 2) REAL, FULLY DEVELOPED spins early in your flight training.

My first recommendation would be to contact an old friend and now the best civilian airshow performer in the world, Sean Tucker He owns and runs the Tutima Academy of Aviation Safety http://www.tutimaacademy.com/  You could not learn from a better guy, better school or better pilots. Please tell him I sent ya! You can learn more about Sean at http://www.poweraerobatics.com/ .

Dave Gray, Jim Riordan and Lennert Von Clemm

Dave Gray, Jim Riordan and Lennert Von Clemm

My second choice would be Aerodynamic Aviation at Reid Hillview airport,(RHV) you can find them at: http://www.aerodynamicaviation.com/index.php in San Jose, CA. (ask for my dear friend Dave Gray and please tell him I sent you!)  In the photo on left Dave Gray is on the left, I am in the center and our dear friend, the late Lennert Von Clemm is on the right)  Aerodynamic Aviation used to be called Amelia Reid Aviation and several of my friends and I (including Sean Tucker), learned spins and beginning aerobatics there from Amelia herself.  She was so confident, she would show us maneuvers and then she would sometimes fall asleep in the back seat while we practiced them. Really! She would always wake up before landing!  Of course Sean Tucker has to be their most famous student  . . . but I digress.

 

SPINS: THE GOOD

Yes they can be good. First, in my opinion, they are an excellent maneuver to be used in a number of situations in which you may want to lose altitude quickly. I have done that many times in sailplanes thanks to my dear friend Bret Willat of Sky Sailing Glider port www.skysailing.com who taught me to fly gliders and sailplanes.

I have also spun down in my Champion Citabria 7ECA to get below the cloud cover going into Reid Hillview (RHV) Naturally this is done outside the controlled airspace of any airport to avoid traffic anywhere near the pattern. Another example would be in a situation where you unexpectedly face a forced landing in an area where your only option is an approach to a small landing area surrounded by tall hostile terrain or trees such that you can spin down within the surrounding terrain and then make a tight circular pattern to a short field landing. Been there, done that. REALLY glad I had the proper training in my “toolbox” for that. (Thanks Bret Willat, Len Von Clemm, and Dave Gray!)

Another reason they can be good is to keep your “stick and rudder” skills “on the bubble.” Len Von Clemm and I used to go out together in a Decathlon and have contests to see who could do the best precision recovery to a predetermined heading. We would usually start at 5 turn spins, and (sigh) he would most often win . . .but hey, I was flying with one of the best.  Sometimes I would end up with a slight “bobble” at the end to get precisely on target, Len would almost always be dead on. We have “wrung each other out” for over an hour at a time, loving every maneuver and every minute of it. [Sidenote: Len was the pilot who flew the Tri Motor in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”. Len taught me how to fly that same Tri motor along with other antique aircraft that belonged to our mutual dear friend, the late Irv Perch, who built the “Flying Lady” restaurant in Morgan hill, named after his wife Jan Perch.   Irv had a large collection of antique aircraft and I was one of a few pilots who had permission to land on his golf course right at the restaurant to go in and visit him. The Tri motor is now at Kermit Weeks “Fantasy of Flight” living history museum in Florida]

Then there is the pure fun factor. Yes, they are great fun, at least for those of us blessed with a stomach that can accept some “rockin’ and rollin”.  In aircraft equipped with inverted fuel systems you are able to transition from inside spins (where the pilot is on the inside), to outside and back and also transition from a standard spin to a “flat spin” and back which is a maneuver best left until you have mastered standard spin recovery.  Lastly, full spin entries are wonderful for teaching students to become comfortable with STALL recovery since an aircraft must be stalled in order to spin.

 

SPINS:  THE BAD

Just as they can be good, they can be bad.  Some pilots, especially in training stage, become easily disoriented when doing spins and can experience varying degrees of under reaction, over reaction, opposite reaction, NO reaction or simply “freezing up”. The last can be a little traumatic to the poor bastard in the other (or back) seat.

Years ago I had an experienced pilot to whom I was teaching spins in a Citabria 7KCAB “freeze solid” on me. I was sitting in the back seat, and I could not see his face. I had demonstrated spins right and left and recovery in 3 turns on the proper heading, following a long, straight dirt road in a field below. We climbed back up and started at about 5,000 feet.  At altitude, I asked him if he “was ok” and I got a definitive “yes”. I told him “your airplane” and he acknowledged “I have it” He seemed fine.

I reminded him this was to be “three turns ending with the nose on the road in the same direction as when we started”, he acknowledged. He pulled the power back, slowly brought the nose up, checked he was in alignment with road, and then pulled the stick back and applied full right rudder. I had asked him to “call the turns” as the nose aligned with the road. He counted, “One, Two, then nothing.  As the nose passed over the road, I said, “Ok, three turns, let’s recover”.  Nothing.  As we approached 4 turns I said, “4 turns and airspeed, time to recover”.  Nothing. At 41/2 turns I said, “RECOVER NOW, stick forward, left rudder, nose on the road.” Nothing.

I then tried to over-power him but he was “hanging on tight” to everything.  I could not budge the controls. He was taking us straight into the ground. I couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind or the look on his face. So I did what one of my first instructors and best friends taught me (Thanks Dave Gray) and I “Cuffed” him. This where you take both hands, and from behind, hit both sides of his headset at the same time and the pressure inside the “cuffs” of the headset sends an ear splitting pain instantly to the head and brain of the pilot, causing him to think only of that, and break his (Literal) deathgrip on the controls. I was then able to overpower him on the controls and “zoom” out the bottom, darn near redline and pulling 5Gs.

He then asked me, “what happened, why did you do that?” He actually did not recall freezing.  That is how mesmerizing spins and other aerobatic maneuvers can be to some people. This incident made me forever aware how totally “sensual overloading” and overpowering these maneuvers can be to those people.  I could not help but think about what would have happened to this guy if he had tried this maneuver for the first time with a poor unsuspecting passenger.

Since then I have found that this is no isolated incident. This why pilots die every year attempting maneuvers that are over their head or beyond their ability, or worse yet, beyond their fear factor, get disoriented and die. This was an eye opener for me since thank God, I have never been disoriented to the point of incapacitation. I did become somewhat disoriented one time doing vertical rolls into a cloud in a Pitts S1S but I simply powered back, tail-slid out and regained my orientation quickly.

Some pilots new to spins can actually perceive they are spinning in one direction, when in fact they are spinning the other direction. When this happens, applying what the pilot thinks is the correct control input can quickly make the spin “go flat” and cause further disorientation such that unlucky pilots think they are spinning to the left when they are actually spinning to the right. This can easily cause a novice to “hang on too tight”, apply the wrong control inputs and spin right into the ground, trying to regain control all the way down while wondering why the aircraft is unresponsive to his control inputs. This disorientation can happen easily to some folks and not so easily to others . . . yet another reason to do all your training with an experienced instructor in the other seat, behind you or next to you.

To me, the most important thing I have learned about spin recovery in a disoriented situation is, “If pushing the rudder pedal in one direction does not work immediately, DON’T PUSH HARDER on the same rudder pedal, PUSH THE OPPOSITE RUDDER.

 

SPINS: THE UGLY

Yes, just as they can be good or bad, they can be ugly, unrecoverable and deadly. That is why we are: 1.) Supposed to be wearing parachutes when we perform aerobatics, and intentional, fully-developed spins are definitely aerobatics. [Aerobatics are technically defined as bank angles exceeding 60 degrees or nose up or down angles exceeding 30 degrees].2.) We are supposed to be performing them ONLY in aircraft that have been approved for all maneuvers you expect to perform especially including spins. Many aircraft are specifically “placarded” against intentional spins with language such as: “Intentional spins prohibited”. If someone wants to teach you spins in an aircraft with such a placard, decline the invitation!

Performing spins in aircraft that are not approved for spins can have deadly consequences. In years of test flying different types of aircraft, or first flights in experimental aircraft, and doing spins as part of the testing, I can tell you there have been times I nearly had to exit the plane because of poor spin recovery performance, spin induced “flutter” and other anomalies that made recovery nearly impossible. That is why we test them before releasing them for “general aviation” usage. Just as importantly, we should be doing them only in airspace designated for/and/or safe for aerobatic practice.

 

SO HOW DO WE RECOVER?

The first thing you need to learn

Memorize the “mnemonic”  P-A-R-E   for Power OFF/ idle, Ailerons neutral, Rudder opposite the spin, and Elevator to/through neutral.   It is my understanding that the mnemonic “PARE” actually evolved from a ten year spin testing program completed at NASA, and based on intensive and sometimes fatal spin testing involving both NACA and NASA test pilots. Some of this testing dated as far back as 1936. This testing turned into proven procedures which used to be taught in an aircraft, by approved FAA instructors and was used in certifying aircraft for safe flight.

“Real” as in fully involved or “wound up” spins are no longer taught because too many instructors are afraid to do them, soooo the FAA simply turned real “spin training” into “spin recognition” which to me is joke.  It is my belief that no one should be given a ticket to fly passengers until they can prove they can recover from, at a minimum, a simple, fully stalled, two rotation turn to a specific heading, in a Cub or C-150. Until then, as far as I am concerned, there is no proof that they can take others’ lives into their hands and bring’em back alive..

Further, different aircraft each have a different, and sometimes VERY different “feel” which you can only learn from FEELING in my opinion.  Some planes may take only a little stick forward for recovery, while in others you may have to give a pretty darn good push . . . sometimes a LOT before you get recovery .Plus it is my experience that the length of time you must hold a control before full recovery can vary quite a bit. My little CHAOS S9 I have now, (shown below in front of a friend’s house), requires literally just fingertip “nudging” rather than pushing and tugging.  It is light as a feather on the controls and it responds instantly, right side up or upside down.  . . . . But then go hop into a C-206 at gross and full fuel and you will redefine “heavy” controls.

Jim Riordan's RANS S9 Chaos

Jim Riordan’s RANS S9 Chaos

In some aircraft that spin readily upright and inverted—such as Pitts, Christen Eagle-and my RANS S9 Chaos (shown in the above picture) you can also use a different technique . . Pull power to idle, let go of the stick, and put in full rudder opposite to the rotation of the spin.  I prefer to never let go of the stick and have never had the need to, but it is a proven recovery method in some aircraft.

One must always be aware that: 1) In some aircraft, too great or too rapid an application of control inputs can result in a “crossover” spin from a positive to a negative spin (inside to outside) and also that 2) Too fast a movement of the elevator can “black-out the affectivity of the tail and can even make the rotation faster than it was.

I once sold a 1946 C-140 ragwing I had, that spun great, to an airline Driver  . . .  when I asked “Wanna see her spin?” I was told “No” in no uncertain terms. I told him, “She will spin nice and easy” . .  and he said, “No I am afraid of spins”  . . . .and this guy was flying around with lots of peoples’ lives in his hands!

Another time, I needed to go, on business, from our Gold Country office to San Jose, CA. so I went to the local FBO at Cameron Park airpark and said I wanted to rent one of his 150s for a few hours. The owner handed me off to one of his younger CFIs and I figured “three times around the pea patch” and I’d be on my way.  . . Wrong!! . .  He quickly glanced at my logbook, missed the fact I had owned two C-150s long ago and said, “Naw I think we’ll go over Folsom Lake and do some unusual attitudes”  . . .  So, since Folsom Lake is just down the hill, we were over the lake at 3,500 AGL in minutes. He has me put on the “Foggles” and look down and he starts the same ole BFR routine, he does a couple of turns in each direction and then a climbing right turn followed by a climbing left turn and gets the bank angle steep, nose high and says “your airplane” . . . After many years of aerobatics, I instinctively knew and could “feel in my butt” exactly where I was and what he had done. . . as he hands it to me, I notice we are free of traffic ahead, at a perfect speed for a gentle snap roll to the left, and a pullout into level flight, so I go to full power, full left rudder and full back stick and in an instant we were in level flight . .  with him still screaming “Wha—Whaa– wha what was ttthat?”  I said, “You set me up for a perfect ¾ left snap roll, it was the quickest way to get level and there was no traffic, so I took it”  . I said, “A snap roll is simply a spin maneuver” and he stammered back, “I’ve never done spins”.  I replied, “You should have had to do a full spin recovery to get your Commercial/instructor rating!”  He said, “I never did them because my original CFI would not do them and the examiner pilot who gave me my CFI said he “hated spins” so I never had to do a single one” . . .I thought to myself that this guy was teaching people every day and yet he had never experienced a REAL spin entry.  . .  So, I could not resist . .  I looked at him and said, “Well . . .then THIS is your lucky day” as I pulled the throttle back, yanked the stick back and put the right rudder to the stop. After one turn I told him , “you got it” and then walked him through a couple of recoveries.  He was a new man!  He absolutely loved it so we did spins left and right most of the way back. By the time we landed I could see a new confidence in him. He thanked me profusely as we stepped out of the plane and I asked, “Well, did I pass?” . .  and he replied, “Did I??”  and we had a few laughs . . As I walked away I wondered how many other young CFIs were out there teaching others to fly without ever having learned how to save themselves and without teaching their students how to recover from their most likely enemy in the air.  I sure am thankful I learned it the right way. Thanks Dave, Len, Bret, and Amelia, you taught me to REALLY fly.

Jim Riordan and Brett Riordan after Brett Received his Student Pilot License

Jim Riordan and Brett Riordan after Brett Received his Student Pilot License

As a footnote, my son Brett got his student solo license at 16 years old, but not before he could do a full sportsman aerobatic routine, including full five-turn spins in each direction in our Citabria. (Brett is shown in the photo on the left just after he received his student pilot license)  .

My hope is that after reading this, you will make sure that REAL spin training is part of your flight instruction. You owe it to yourself and your family.

You may even like it  . . or . . LOVE IT.  Do remember that all aircraft react differently, at different rates, or to amounts of control input, so it is a good idea to get some spin training in each type of aerobatic plane you intend to fly. Using the same amount of control input on a Pitts as you might on a Cub can put you in a very disorienting “crossover spin” maneuver REALLY quick.  . . .  So hey, learn them all and fly ‘em to the max!

Jim Riordan completed spins - 1977

Jim Riordan completed spins – 1977

Some aircraft that I have intentionally spun are Pitts S1S, S2A, Cessna 140, clip wing Taylorcraft, Cessna 150, 150 Aerobat, Starduster Too, Cessna 152 Aerobat, Champion Citabria 7ECA, Citabria 7KCAB Decathlon and 8KCAB Super Decathlon 150hp, Schweitzer 126 glider (Shown at right after I finished a flight in 1977) and Schweitzer 232 gliders, Flightstar ultralights, Avid mark IVs, Kitfoxes, Piper Cub and of course my Rans S9 Chaos.

Remember, no two different types of aircraft will recover in exactly the same manner. This may be due to different rigging, changes to the CG position/mass Distribution etc.

Lastly, ALWAYS wear a parachute. My Rans has a BRS Ballistic parachute as did my Flightstar and my Avid and I am a firm believer in them, especially after one saved my life already.  I am “BRS Save 141” on the BRS (Ballistic Recovery Systems) website, which you can read about at:  http://www.brsparachutes.com/files/brsparachutes/files/141.pdf

 

About Jim Riordan

Age 66, married 44 years to wife Lynn.  Residence is in Cameron Park, CA.  He is the CEO of his own consulting company that provides new product evaluation, alternative design consulting and strategic marketing advice for companies as large as 3M to small businesses and individuals as well.  He is a successful inventor and has written books and courses on product evaluation and marketing. His son Brett, 34 is also a pilot and soloed at age 16, Riordan was a several term member of the Placerville Airport Advisory Commission.  He grew up in a flying family and has flown since he could sit on his dad’s knee and hold a control yoke.  His uncles both flew bombers in WWII. He holds a private pilot’s license SELwith high performance and high altitude endorsements, a glider rating, tailwheel rating and a low altitude aerobatic competency certificate for doing air shows.  He has logged over two thousand hours, with over 1,000 hrs. in aerobatic tail wheel aircraft. He teaches aerobatics and is an Ultralight Flight Instructor and Ultralight Flight Instructor Examiner (UFIE) for the EAA.  He has made 11 intentional parachute jumps including freefalls and one unintentional ballistic parachute descent.

 

 



 
 
 
 

JFK Jr.’s Crash: Inexperience or Lack of Proper Tools?

December 12th, 2012 No comments

 

JFK Jr.’s Crash: Inexperience or Lack of Proper Tools?

By James F. Riordan
© 1997, 2012

We may never know for sure what caused John F. Kennedy Jr’s plane to plummet off the radar scope and into the ocean at a descent rate of, according to investigators, 4700 feet per minute.  http://www.aopa.org/asf/asfarticles/sp0009.html We do however, have the tools to prevent the majority of similar accidents in the future, if only we would put them to use.

Imagine for a moment that each new pilot, during training, is given a toolbox containing “flight tools” which will be used to fix in-flight emergencies.  The problem is that our presently mandated FAA training programs are failing to provide two critically important flight tools for the new pilot’s toolbox.  We are simply leaving them out.  The new “inexperienced” pilot now crashes due to the lack of one or the other of these flight tools. What is the true cause of the accident?  Is it “inexperience” on the part of the pilot?  Or is it the present training programs which failed to provide these critical flight tools to student pilots?  I believe it is the latter.  Vertigo training and actual spin training are presently being left out of the student pilot’s toolbox.  The absence of these two critical flight tools virtually assures that we will continue to see a high rate of stall/spin accidents every year.  Not all of them will attract the notoriety of JFK Jr.’s crash, but each of them will leave the public wondering whether small planes can be flown safely.  The truth is, they can be flown safely and many lives could be saved if only we would give pilots the tools to save themselves.

Spatial disorientation comes on quite suddenly.  One second you are in control.  The very next second you are out of control and horrifyingly “behind” the aircraft. By “behind,” I mean the aircraft is changing direction and velocity faster than you are reacting to its changes.

You looked down for only a split second, and when you looked up, you suddenly felt as though your aircraft has entered a steep left banking turn.  “Why?”, your brain is screaming?  What caused this?   Perhaps it was wind shear!  Your peripheral vision searches for the horizon that was visible only moments ago.  Your eyes desperately search for the visual cues which will tell you the position of your wings relative to the horizon.  The horizon is now nowhere to be found in the haze and the darkness.  Without the outside visual cues, your inner sense of balance or the “gyro” in your head is taking instructions from only your inner ear, which is sending it false signals.  Your internal balance “gyro” has effectively “crashed” and is no longer sending correct horizontal situation information to your brain.

Just as you have been trained to do, you react to what you think must be a strong gust of wind blowing your plane to the left.  You quickly turn the yoke to the right, and push right rudder.  You still feel like you are banking to the left. Everything begins to seem as though it is in slow motion.  You feel somehow out of control yet you can’t understand why. Your brain is still screaming, “you’re in a left turn, do something about it”, yet a quick glance at your instrument panel indicates you are entering a right turn. You vaguely remember your instructor telling you to, “believe your instruments,” but right now you do not believe them.  Your brain and body are telling you that your instruments are wrong.  Within a couple of seconds, the right turn you have unwittingly entered has quickly degraded into either a “spin” or a high speed “graveyard spiral”, from which you will not recover. You become, like JFK Jr., another small plane/private pilot statistic, chalked up to “inexperience.”

“Experience” in aviation comes less from accumulated total hours than from what a pilot experiences during those hours.  It is easy to log a great number of hours without ever logging the real experience which will be needed to save your life in a vertigo or spin situation.

In October of 1987, I had the opportunity to “test fly” a simulator called the Vertigon which the FAA aeromedical team developed to induce vertigo. Please see: http://www.aopa.org/asf/asfarticles/sp0009.html  The Vertigon is used by the FAA as a training tool, usually at airshows.  As an aerobatic pilot, I had already experienced momentary vertigo doing vertical, straight up rolling aerobatics on a cloudy day, and I knew full well how deadly it could be.  At first, I was skeptical that this “Vertigon” machine would be able to duplicate the vertigo experience. Boy was I in for a surprise.

The Vertigon had a redundant set of flight instruments. One set on the inside of the “pod” in front of the pilot and the other set on the outside of the simulator control panel where (certificated) pilots, waiting in line to try their hand, could watch the instrument panel and see how well or how poorly the pilot inside the Vertigon’s pod was reacting to the onset of vertigo.  While I waited, several pilots “spun in”, and others, some nauseous, wobbly, incredulous or all three at the same time, said they would, “never forget the experience.”  Neither will I.  Expecting full well to easily master this beast I confidently climbed in and started the simulator.  Sure enough, it induced the worst vertigo I had ever felt.  When I stepped out, I had managed to lose only three hundred feet with a course deviation of 30 degrees before I recovered enough to get immediately back on course and altitude.  I had achieved the best score of the day.  The FAA official running the Vertigon commended me on my quick recovery, but I couldn’t help but think what would have happened to me had I been at 299 feet on a dark final approach.

The Vertigon was totally enclosed and revolved very slowly to the left about three turns and then to the right about three turns and effectively disoriented one’s inner ear.  Inside I could sense no turning movement whatsoever even though I knew I was turning since I had been watching all the guys before me. After turning both ways, the recorded “air traffic controller” in the simulator asked the pilot to, “descend to and maintain a heading for approach to, a local airport”. I did.  After a few more seconds went by, “air traffic control” radioed:  “Change transponder frequency and squawk 1200.”  I looked at the instrument panel and there was no transponder . .  then I looked down and there it was on the right side of the cockpit floor (where it would never actually be located in a real aircraft) This action required the pilot to look down, which completed the inducement of vertigo. Remember, a pilot could drop a pencil on the cockpit floor or reach for a map, the point being, the Pilot looks down.  When the pilot looks back up, the “gyro” in his head crashes and he honestly believes his aircraft is entering a steep turn to the left or right.

The Vertigon was one of the finest and most amazing training tools I have personally experienced. The moment I looked up, I felt as though I had been violently lifted up and thrown HARD to the left. I looked at my instruments and they were telling me I was straight and level but my mind simply could not believe them.  I started to turn in the direction my head was telling me I should turn KNOWING that my instruments were telling me differently. My aerobatic background kicked in and I simply let go of the controls, let the aircraft fly itself for a moment, took a couple of deep breaths and said out loud ”believe your instruments!!”I regained my ability to follow my instruments, got back on course and altitude  . .yet with a whole lot more respect for killer disorientation.  It is my opinion as an experienced aerobatic pilot, that every private pilot should be required to log time in this device.

Pilots who have actually experienced this feeling can predictably overcome their natural reactions and instead, believe in, and rely totally upon, their flight instruments.  Pilots who have never experienced vertigo may not be so fortunate.  If, instead of believing the flight instruments, a pilot listens to the nearly overpowering and sensory-overloading urge in his head to bank the plane in the opposite direction, to “get level again,” the plane can easily “get ahead of” an inexperienced pilot so quickly that he never regains control and either spins or high speed spirals right into the ground or water.

Alas, according to the FAA, the Vertigon, along with actual spin training, is no longer a part of private pilot training. Nancy, a Sacramento, CA FAA Flight Standards District Office employee at that time, who was reluctant to share her last name, said she was hired in 1989 and had, “heard about the Vertigon” but said it “was not in use anymore.”   Nancy said, “Now, all they have is spin awareness training which can be done orally.  They do not have to actually do spins in order to get a private pilot’s certificate.”

As a private pilot, aerobatic pilot, glider pilot and ultralight flight instructor, with tailwheel and complex endorsements, over forty years and thousands of hours of aviation experience, including flying the Piper Saratoga, JFK jr’s plane, I find the concept of “oral spin awareness training” to be absurd.  There is no way to adequately orally describe the sensory overload an inexperienced pilot will feel the first time he experiences a plane “breaking” over into a fully developed spin.  After years of teaching students to recover from spins, and in fact having to “whack” an experienced pilot on both earpieces of his headset to break his death grip on the stick in a 3 turn spin that turned into a six turn spin after he “froze”, when I was in the rear seat of a Citabria,  I still really love spins and snap rolls etc. However, the sheer terror of my first one remains well etched in my memory.  Thankfully, my instructors, who taught WWII airmen, believed in actual, not “oral” spin training.  They gave me the tools to save my life and the lives of my passengers.

I believe we need to revise the private pilot training process to give all new pilots these tools.  Tools which might have saved JFK Jr. from the murky waters.  I believe he lost the horizon, became disoriented and “death spiraled” the Saratoga into the ocean.  Stall/spin accidents are among the most common killers of “inexperienced” pilots. I believe that every applicant for a private pilot’s license should be trained to recover from fully developed spins, rather than being given an oral description of what it will feel like.  An oral description does not even begin to qualify as a “flight tool.”  The real experience does.

So why did they quit teaching spins?  Perhaps it is because many FAA approved flight instructors are scared to death of doing spins.  I have personally flown with ones who were, and who had “signed off” commercial students without ever giving them full-on spin training!  I have flown with Airline captains who had never experienced spins or vertigo. That is scary! If an instructor is too scared to teach spins to students, then that instructor is “holding on too tight” and flying “too scared” for his students’ good and that instructor should take up another sport, say boating, for his students’ sake.  At the very least, the instructor should send the student off for a couple of hours of spin training with another instructor who is comfortable teaching them.  Students who are not taught how to manage and recover from spins and are instead given “oral spin awareness training” are being cheated out of learning the very maneuvers that are most likely to help them save themselves.  I have personally taught several FAA certified flight instructors, during check rides and flight reviews, to do spins to the right and left.  To a man, they had not done even one full turn spin, even to get their commercial and CFI ratings!  They told me that their instructors had simply signed them off as having completed the spin portion of the training!  These instructors were amazed at how fast the aircraft began rotating once a spin was fully established at 3 to 5 turns.  Thanks to the excellent “old school” spin training I received from my instructors, (Thanks Dave Gray,

Dave Gray, CFI, Aerobatics At Aerodynamic Aviation

Dave Gray, CFI, Aerobatics At Aerodynamic Aviation

Dave Gray, CFI, Aerobatics  At Aerodynamic Aviation
Dave Gray has been an instructor so long none of us can remember when he started or how many hours he has. Let us just say that he has plenty, in many different airplanes. He is just as happy giving flight training to a new student how to fly as he is teaching advanced aerobatics. Dave’s philosophy is that flying should above all be fun for both the student and the instructor.

 

Bret Willat at www.skysailing.com Amelia Reid and Lennert Von Klemm http://www.aerodynamicaviation.com/index.php) I am perfectly comfortable doing upright, inverted and flat spins in aerobatic airplanes and I taught my son at thirteen years old to be competent and proficient at spins before he soloed at age 16. In fact he could do a full Sportsman aerobatic routine before I set him free to Solo.  I wanted him to start his flying experience with a full set of tools.  Any pilot CAN learn these skills. Every pilot SHOULD learn them.  Without them, they do not have a “Full toolbox”

JFK Jr, his wife and his sister-in-law, might be alive today had John been given a full toolbox.  Had he been proficient at spin recovery and had he been introduced to vertigo in the Vertigon, before he learned about it the hard way on a gray afternoon in a dark cockpit above a darker ocean, he might still be with us.

Rather than placing unduly weighted blame on “pilot inexperience,” perhaps the FAA needs to revive the Vertigon and include vertigo and actual spin training in every new pilot’s toolbox, before they receive their Private Pilot’s Certificate which is really a “license to learn”.