Pilot_DAR wrote:
Responsible pilots will seek it out for themselves, for its own merit, regarless of the regulatory requirements. Basic aerobatic skills are VITAL to make a pilot of well rounded skills.
So I guess there are not too many responsible pilots with well rounded skills around. Including those flying for the airlines.
LeSving wrote:
In gliders, spin training is required, and always has been as far as I know. I haven’t heard of anyone being killed in glider spin training.
It was not in Sweden when I got an SPL in 1983. Of course, that was both pre-JAR and pre-EASA.
Including those flying for the airlines.
Actually, once you a have a little insight into the business, you can hear amazing stuff. Like the indian crew picking up an ATR72 at Toulouse, and when the company became aware that those pilots lacked very basic stuff, and they had to train them before they could hand over the airplane. Or ask my friend who is an A340-600/A330 captain of a major airline about the basic flying skills of some of his first officers. I cannot disclose what he told me, but I was surprised!
I
Airborne_Again wrote:
It was not in Sweden when I got an SPL in 1983. Of course, that was both pre-JAR and pre-EASA.
I did my first gliding lessons in Belgium in 1982. Spins were mandatory there. In Norway today it is still mandatory. The gliding association here runs everything including licenses on their own, and always have. The CAA is not involved, but they are still under EASA.
Flyer59 wrote:
Actually, once you a have a little insight into the business, you can hear amazing stuff
You can actually feel the difference. We have two major airlines here, SAS and Norwegian. SAS has typically recruited pilots from the military (fighter pilots mostly) and had their own academy for some time, where aerobatics where part of the training. I don’t know what they do today to get pilots. Norwegian hires anyone that will fly for the lowest possible pay and with “enough” ratings. The difference is felt at every landing. Flying with Norwegian, they come in too fast, slam the plane into the runway and full power brake. SAS is smooth as silk, you hardly feel the landing at all, and they stop using 2/3 the runway length.
LeSving wrote:
Flying with Norwegian, they come in too fast, slam the plane into the runway and full power brake. SAS is smooth as silk, you hardly feel the landing at all, and they stop using 2/3 the runway length.
Then I’d say Norwegian is the safer operator. In addition, if you need 2/3 of the runway each time to stop that is dangerous.
We as pilots should know better than to judge the safety of an airline by the perceived quality of landings.
Personally, I think that to say PPLs need to have experienced aerobatics or developed spinning to be safe is completely unwarranted. Properly taught stall spin awareness and avoidance is perfectly adequate for the flight envelope that a basic PPL will operate in, and progressing beyond into aeros and further should be for those that want it and those people progressing to professional and instructor levels. The gliding community needs to teach spinning because a lot of flight regime of gliding is in tight, slow speed turns, at microlight and light aircraft level we need to teach people how to avoid the stall spin scenario, not some academic training exercise where they deliberately enter the spin and recover at 000s of feet altitude.
Rwy20 wrote:
In addition, if you need 2/3 of the runway
2/3 of what Norwegian use.
Rwy20 wrote:
We as pilots should know better than to judge the safety of an airline by the perceived quality of landings.
Who is judging the safety? When riding in an airline I want a smooth ride, as do most passengers. The quality of the ride does count. I haven’t mentioned safety at all. You however did, based on what? 
Two times in a Norwegian 737 I have been carried on a go around because – the first officer came in too fast (the words of the captain). One time in a KLM, the first officer didn’t manage to land because of turbulence, after a go around the captain took over and landed. This was at ENVA (09) with rather severe turbulence at times when wind from SE, that time was hardly windy at all. In very turbulent conditions, SAS usually comes in visually (if weather allows), then they extend across the extended coming in from NW. That is indeed much safer because the worst turbulent areas are avoided altogether, and attacking the wind more head on, and it’s 10 times smoother. Doing things like that is way beyond the imagination of the average (but by no means all) Norwegian or KLM pilot, but normal practice for all others flying around here.
Balliol wrote:
Personally, I think that to say PPLs need to have experienced aerobatics or developed spinning to be safe is completely unwarranted. Properly taught stall spin awareness and avoidance is perfectly adequate for the flight envelope that a basic PPL will operate in, and progressing beyond into aeros and further should be for those that want it and those people progressing to professional and instructor levels. The gliding community needs to teach spinning because a lot of flight regime of gliding is in tight, slow speed turns, at microlight and light aircraft level we need to teach people how to avoid the stall spin scenario, not some academic training exercise where they deliberately enter the spin and recover at 000s of feet altitude.
I understand the logic, and I’m not in favor of increasing the PPL with more hours and theory, but I think it misses a very important point that a pilot should control the aircraft, not the other way around. You can use the same logic about IFR and VFR flight into IMC. Follow the rules for VFR and things will be OK. Still, it requires only one single stupid mistake, and you are dead. The same situation for someone with some experience with IFR in IMC would be unproblematic. All training we do that is beyond the usual PPL “syllabus” will indeed make us better and safer pilots. That is a basic truth, and a fact. I mean, all statistics show that it is all these stupid mistakes that we do only once that kills us.
LeSving wrote:
Who is judging the safety? When riding in an airline I want a smooth ride, as do most passengers. The quality of the ride does count. I haven’t mentioned safety at all. You however did, based on what?
Based on this whole discussion, which went from loss of control in GA to airline pilots, which are actually the reason why EASA wants to introduce spin training into the PPL/LAPL. So I naturally assumed this discussion was about improving safety and not the smoothness of landings for the passengers.
My point was simply that some professionals are more professional regarding basic handling of the aircraft than other professionals, and this can be felt quite liyerally and physically in the smoothness of the ride.
For GA this matters, because almost all accidents are due to lack of control of the aircraft in some way or the other.
almost all accidents are due to lack of control of the aircraft in some way or the other.
If you call a CFIT as a “lack of control”, in that flying on a different 3D vector would have avoided the terrain, then you are right 
Otherwise, “almost all” cannot be right. There are many other factors leading up to accidents e.g.
I am sure there are statistics for this, but they don’t mean much (in terms of learning from it) unless separated by pilot experience / mission profile, etc. For example you won’t see many PPL training C152s plummetting due to structural icing.
It may be that inadequate handling of slow flight is a major killer on the PPL training scene and then one needs to do more training in that department.
