All You Wanted To Know About Spins

Aero-News has learned Master Instructor Rich Stowell, who was also named the FAA's 2006 National Flight Instructor of the Year, recently released a new book entitled, "The Light Airplane Pilot's Guide to STALL/SPIN AWARENESS." The book draws on 100 years of stall/spin research as well as Stowell's two decades and nearly 30,000 spins of teaching experience.

"We've been losing pilots needlessly to the stall/spin for far too long," says airshow pilot and spin training advocate Patty Wagstaff. "It's time we did something about it!"

To that end, the 520-page book exposes 12 common stall/spin myths. Stowell then devotes four chapters to an historical look at the stall/spin; three more chapters make sense of accident statistics; four chapters explore the spin environment from airplane design and human factors standpoints; eight chapters form the basis for a comprehensive ground school in stall/spin awareness; and the final four chapters tackle the spin training debate.

Appendixes offer a compilation of spin recovery information for more than 100 single- and twin-engine airplanes, as well as a separate, in-depth analysis of the Piper Tomahawk's controversial stall/spin behavior.

Additionally, Jim Patton, retired Chief of Flight Operations at NASA Langley, guest-authors an interesting chapter about his extraordinary career as a spin test pilot. List price for the book is $34.95.

FMI: www.richstowell.com