> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Wilson
> I have been watching this thread with interest and simply
> must speak before
> another pair die.
>
> My thoughts on spin training were printed in AG in about
> 1988. We spend our
> lives trying to gain height, not do risky manoeuvres.
> Spinning has almost
> been designed out of gliders, the stall is now a mush and can
> easily be
> avoided. Spinning is a throwback to Farmer and WW1 where
> pilots either froze
> on controls, or tried to lift the nose by back stick as they
> had been rote
> taught.
>
> Aviation has moved on, lets go with it.
While what Alan says about more modern aircraft being reluctant to spin is true, the notion that "aviation" in Australia has moved on is certainly not true for the majority of gliding (nor for GA). Most clubs are operating gliders 20+ years old, ie more than _80%_ of the Australian fleet!
http://www.aus-soaring.on.net/pix/fl2004a.gif
The question about requirement for spin training and modern aircraft is recognised by GFA. At the South Australian level 3 meeting earlier this year some time was spent discussing it and all the old reasons for and against were bought up. Everyone seems to agree that a minimum training level should be spin recognition, but how far do we go after that?
The question "to do full spins or not" can be notionally easily answered. Will we kill more people doing the training or not doing the training? (because as long as people fly they will kill themselves in many and various ways*). Now Alan and Mike will point to a particular incident and say "they were killed as a result of GFAs training requirement". And they would be right, to an extent. However, if we stop this training, who will be blamed when the first person without the current training dies in a spin related accident? In that case the person who says "they died because of lack of GFA training" will also be right.
*having made that parenthetical comment I must add that we all should strive to reduce this number of deaths to _zero_ and I believe that is an achievable target, we actually manage it some years.
The real question: Would we kill more people doing the training or not doing the training?
Different people will offer their opinions and give anecdotal evidence, but there really is no clear answer. I have tried to work out the answer, but I can't. Often it is stated that GA, with lesser requirements for spin training have an acceptable record. I went to the ATSB web site and had a look at the 120 or so reports on fatal accident which are available.
Taking out gliders(1), helicopters(22) and any collisions(8) left 93 fatal fixed wing accidents involving one aircraft only.
Of these 93 fatal accidents, _31_ involved spins or stalls. (loss of control = ATSB weasel words).
Of these 31 accidents, 15 occurred due to simple mishandling, 4 after engine failure due to mechanical reasons, 4 engine failures due to fuel exhaustion/starvation and 1 to purposeful engine shut down (in training). None of these accidents should have resulted in a spin (My opinion).
For completeness, the other spin accidents were related to aerobatics(3), aircraft loading(2), night flight disorientation(1) and visibility problems(1).
The data is there for all to see on the ATSB web site, but you have to dig through the info. You may disagree with my interpretation of some of these reports, which will change my stats slightly. But the general thrust remains: a large proportion of GA fatal accidents, directly or subsequently, are the result of spins/stalls. Roughly 5-6 per year. But we don't use the words "stall" or "spin" so we assume there is no problem with spins in GA. Remember this when we talk about reducing training levels in gliders.
In the end, where do we go?
I have some views on changing the training system to allow the more benign aircraft to be flown with less training than we do now, but I do not advocate reducing the training level where older aircraft are concerned and the older aircraft are by far the more common.
Regards
SWK
PS here's the incident report numbers:
199700047
199903333
200100591
200005572
200102289
200105618
200102253
199403314
199702601
199901340
200105446
199200014
200300929
199802458
199900220
200001153
200204663
199703038
199800640
199903463
199905698
200101082
200206005
199600094
199805365
199904898
200100346
200304091
199800604
199800740
199802830
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