IT'S NOT WHAT YOU PAY FOR INSURANCE, IT'S WHAT YOU GET

Early in the spring of 1976, I had thirty-some total flight hours when the proud owner of a spanking new Blanik chose me as the second person to fly it. After learning in older ones the previous summer, the difference was impressive. It even had that mysterious ambrosia, ‘new car smell’. The flight didn’t last long because I concentrated more on all that spiffiness than flying well, and besides, I wasn't any good. To confirm it, in the landing pattern I slowed up unintentionally and then added rudder to force the plane around a turn. This accelerated the outboard wing, causing it to rise, and slowed the inboard wing, causing it to drop. Any pilot should know this is how to precipitate a spin. After one full rotation I finally woke up and remembered what to do, but by then a spontaneous recovery had begun due to factors beyond my control. My landing safely rather than screwing that virginal bird into the earth is a credit to its mindless behavior, not mine.

On the ground moments later the owner demanded, with no hint of humor, “What'n Hell were you doing?”

Relief at escaping a deadly error sizzled away, leaving shame, and I had to tell the truth: “Don’t know. Guess she spun…”

Uh huh! The ship did exactly what her ‘captain’ unconsciously commanded. The only thing she performed by herself was the life-saving recovery. Pure undeserved luck!

Such an episode is easy to shrug off if you're young or stupid (I was both), because dwelling on it makes one feel so foolish. Yet to not think about it would be insane. It took this potentially fatal error for me to learn what was supposedly taught the year before. My aerial blunders since then must number in the tens of thousands, but I've never again failed to deal with any spin in timely fashion!

Proper spin training was once required for private pilots but, wierdly, no more. Nevertheless, it remains essential. Whether you're a student pilot or a seasoned vet, if you have not yet experienced spins – and executed spin recoveries – the time to fill that need is NOW. If your instructor says spins are unnecessary, find another instructor. This might save your life one day soon, or more importantly the life of somebody trusting you to get them back safely on the ground. It's like learning CPR or knowing there's air in your spare tire. You never need it until the time comes, but when it does, nothing else will do.

Note too that one spin demonstration a year earlier neither prevented my getting into that predicament nor prepared me to respond. Like too many others, I'd been impatient to ditch my instructor and prove I already knew enough for the bigtime heroics. That's bull. Seeking more than minimum training is a sign of good pilot judgement, and willfully spurning knowledge you can afford is strictly bush. Also vital is periodic retraining, to maintain skills and continue getting better at this art, not worse.

For each of us at every level of skill or experience, additional instruction is always a wise investment. It's cheap insurance, fun and educational, that can preclude future mistakes instead of indemnifying them. And realistically, lacking this cheap insurance could leave you unable to collect on the expensive kind anyway...