We’re taught to avoid spins, and that’s good, but lack of knowledge can be dangerous. Some things you may not know might save your life someday.

By Frank Bowlin

The FAA doesn’t talk much about spins. Mostly, they want us to learn to avoid them. Clearly, avoiding an inadvertent spin is good, but it might help to know a bit more about them. Plus, the whole specter of Air France 447 crashing into the Atlantic at what French authorities indicate was a very high vertical speed and a nearly level attitude suggests that it might be nice to know a bit about flat spins in particular.

Most of us have heard it before: Spin training used to be mandatory, but sometime after WWII it was decided most inadvertent stall/spin accidents occurred at an altitude low enough to make recovery unlikely…