new instructors and the jitters especially spin training?

chipmunk · Post by **chipmunk** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:47 pm

Cat, I think that's a great idea. I only hope that enough young instructors can realize the value of flying with an industry "veteran."

I have been lucky enough to have a retired Air Force General with thousands of fixed and fling-wing hours as a mentor from the time I received my commercial license. He taught me how to fly a tailwheel aircraft, and those skills, plus hearing his stories and experiences have helped, and continue to help me in my career - not to mention the industry connections I've made through him. Invaluable.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:51 pm

Thanks, Chipmunk.

Maybe mcrit will be my first student if I decide to go ahead with that idea.

mcrit · Post by **mcrit** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:07 pm

Maybe mcrit will be my first student if I decide to go ahead with that idea

Wow, I must really be under your skin.

PTP · Post by **PTP** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 2:42 am

Ok, I didn't bother reading all the fun arguing above my post so maybe someone said this.

Talk to someone who has been doing this longer than yourself at your school.

I try and make a game of "spinning to a heading" to make spins fun for people who have jitters. You can also "spin to a heading and altitude".

Basically line up with a road when you start and use it for your orientation, time the initiation of the recovery about a 1/4 turn before the reference you want to come out on.

Buschpielot · Post by **Buschpielot** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 7:40 am

I'd be in for some training from you Cat. Getting my instructor rating this spring so I'll get some experience and come visit. The bonus is that my wife and I had our honeymoon on the island last year so I'll have no trouble convincing her to spring the money for the trip - God knows I can't afford it!

Pilot_adam · Post by **Pilot_adam** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 9:36 am

If you are an instructor just do what my very first instructor did on our first 2 spins..(He had me sit on my hands to insure that I am not going to try to take control of the airplane).

It worked out well,I had an idea of what it is going to look like and got it over with within an hour.

I can't say that I enjoy spins, but it is something every pilot should know how to recover from.

Spins and spiral dives are the reason why I would not consider instructing in my career.

cheers
Adam

Hedley · Post by **Hedley** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 10:00 am

Spins and spiral dives are the reason why I would not consider instructing in my career.

That's kind of sad ...

Here's an offer. For anyone (esp instructors) near Eastern Ontario, if you have a problem with spins, etc, and it's getting in your way, stop by CYSH, which is 25nm southwest of Ottawa.

We have an FTU with two 172's, and there are also 4 2-seat Pitts S-2B's on the field, all with composite 3-bladed props, which spin wonderfully, both upright and inverted, accelerated and flat.

I hold an ATPL with a class 1 instructor rating, class 1 aerobatic instructor rating, ICAS card (valid for solo and formation airshow acro), individual SFOC in respect of CAR 602.27(d), etc. I suspect I am probably one of the few people here who frequently enter and exit inverted spins below 1,000 AGL.

If I'm busy, you can fly with the Lt General (retd) who used to be head of RCAF fighter command.

I can't promise that you will like spins, spiral dives and unusual attitudes at the end of your training, but I can promise that you will have a considerably improved knowledge of the theory, and will be able to enter and exit them in a controlled fashion with minimal loss of altitude.

Pilot_adam · Post by **Pilot_adam** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:35 am

It is not my skill that scares me Hedley,but it is the airplanes used for basic flight training.

I don't feel comfortable spinning in a 40 years old air frame,the idea of the airframe collapsing midair terrifies me!!! perhaps I read too many accident reports on the internet and became obsessed with them!!!

I would love to take the unusual attitudes course with you whenever i get a chance to fly CYSH .

Cheers
Adam

3juggs · Post by **3juggs** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:22 pm

Its normal for any new instructor to have the jitters about teaching spins or any other new exercise they first taught but there is a difference between jitters and fear. Being fearful of teaching spins comes from lack of confidence in their own ability which was present from their own personal training. If an instructor isn't confident with their instructional abilities then believe me students will definitely won't. That instructor eventually will be weeded out because students talk about who is and isn't a good instructor. Its not an ab-inito Instructors primary job to make spins fun, its their job to teach recognition and recovery. If a student has fun then bonus but for me a healthy respect and a good understanding of the complete exercise is more important.

bluenote · Post by **bluenote** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:51 pm

counte me in Hedley,

when would be the best time to do some spin training with you?

I live in the hamilton area

bluenote

West Coast Swell · Post by **West Coast Swell** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:33 am

Let’s expand on this spin topic for a bit. I’d like to talk about spin risks outside of the training phase. There are some planes out there in the Commercial arena that are very twitchy when they are flown near the edge of the envelope. When I say the edge, I do not mean aggressively either. Everything is all good one day but then everything is different the next. Take the Grumman Goose for instance. This plane has a major personality. On a daily basis I could be in anyone of 5 different Gooses. Each plane has a different personality; one plane likes to dig on the water, another likes to fall out of the sky and another has a nasty tendency to jump out of the water on landing or takeoff.

Now let’s talk about aircraft loading for a multiple stop sched for a sec. If you pre-load wrong you will have to unload your plane multiple times throughout the sched because your freight and personal luggage will be on the bottom of the pile when it should be on the top. Expanding on that lets say your tired or your in a hurry…. Just go … you can do it. So after multiple stops rather than reload your plane you improperly C.G. the aircraft by just throwing the stuff in the back of the aircraft and you just go. Immediately air borne you run out of forward trim and your control yoke is pushed all the way forward into the control panel. If you’re lucky you might have one inch of forward bounce left in the stick to keep the plane from going skyward until the yoke hits the dash. This is one poorly loaded aircraft. Better fix that right away. Totally out side of the box. O.k. .... sooooo.... using this as a measurement of what “not to do” and using the center of the load envelop as the legal thing to do. Which however, is not the best point to load the aircraft, but at this stage of the lesson it does not really matter. Somewhere in between these two points is where the aircraft should be loaded. Let’s imaginarily climb up to 4500 feet now, put ourselves into a mountain range and imagine flying direct as possible to our destination through a pass. En-route you’re encountering wind, weather and poor visibilities. You contemplate turning around but you don’t. You get to the back end of the valley. The weather looks marginal now. Yikes ... weather does not look to good. Your intuition ... and yes guy have it too, says turn around. Any point beyond this point is called closing your door. So into the turn you go. Swing wide, powers coming back, speed slowing down.... into the white arc ... flaps are coming down ... powers coming back up as you begin turning the other way to a 180 degree heading to get your ass outta there. 10-25-30 degrees bank.... wind is drifting you a little too close to the other side so you turn a little steeper and then you feel a little stick shake ... your brain consciously goes W.T.F. this isn't supposed to be happening and then snap the aircraft rolls right over onto its back and you’re staring straight at the ground.

You have 9 passengers on board and they were all just moments ago reading the local paper talking about what they are going to do on their days off.

Now what are you going to do?

Failure is not an option!

If you’re going to drive the bus.... you better drive it very well right now!

You might have been able to get away with a steep bank maintaining altitude atitude heavy one day but not on another because you changed your C of G.

Reality hurts!

Do yourself a favour and keep the spin training going until you got it down pat. Don’t be a statistic.

YACdirect · Post by **YACdirect** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:09 am

No Brakes wrote:Actually they didn't recover. They spun right into lake St-Francois near Montreal. The instructor died and the student got out of the airplane and survived. It was C-GZLZ from Laurentide Aviation, the fist airplane I did spins in. It happened a couple years later. Gave me a bit of a chill when I learned about in the newspaper.

Actually, and unfortunately you are right - I recall now they didn't recover from that one. Sounds like the one I was thinking of too as I knew it happened in Quebec somewhere. Does anyone know if that problem has been addressed in 150/152 aircraft?

bluenote · Post by **bluenote** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:33 am

In the private pilot training and recreatonal permit does the student have to perform a spin on their own or does the instructor just have to show them the procedure?

any info would be great

bluenote

tiny · Post by **tiny** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 9:55 am

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the stuck rudder problem on the 150 was addressed in Cessna service letter SL150-21, which mandates a maintenance inspection of the rudder stop to insure it lines up squarely with the contacting surface on the rudder horn. If they don't line up the horn can move past the bolt head and get stuck. This is a repetative inspection and so should not be a problem. No need to be nervous about it

fly safe

Tiny