A REALLY Stupid Thing Done While Doing a Stupid Thing

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

When I was taking flying lessons 20 years ago the FAA had dropped spin training from the private pilot requirement. We were required to recognize the conditions that generate a spin and what to do to avoid them. I did not think that was sufficient so I asked my instructor for spin training.

The reason that spin training was dropped for PPLs was that more people were killed in spin training accidents than were killed in accidental spins. The risk factor in the training was too high.

In gliders we train extensively for spins including performing actual spins. The different flight characteristics of gliders from powered aircraft makes the spin training a lot safer for the glider.

[Captain Bill]

Hellosailor, Perhaps we have a bit of a semantic difference here, understand that you say "the instructors hazed the students for the purpose of inducing panic". I never knew an instructor that wanted a student to panic or to weed out the students prone to panic. The purpose was to make the student familiar with unexected emergencies and to become so comfortable with the proper recover proceedure that they never panicked. Granted some people became more distressed at the beginning of these training session but gradually came around. By the end of the class virtually no one panicked when their equipment failed. Some took more time than others, but I don't remember anyone who failed to get certified. One young lady was not ready by the end of her standard class, but passed her written test. The instructor suggested that she come back to the pool session of his next class. She was ready by the time she went through that course. I'm sure this was just a difference in the instructor's personal interpretation of the purpose. At no time were we ever told that the purpose was to weed out the panic prone students.

As a safety diver I had a number of students attempt to "get even" with me. I simply handled what ever issue they induced on me, the way they were supposed to handle what I did to them. It was never much of an issue to me.