Not only was I doing a maneuver that I've never experienced before,  I was in a type of plane that I haven't flown in about a year and a half  to two years, a Cessna 150.  Due to the limited weight requirements of the 150, I was also flying with an instructor that I've never flown with before.  Just getting in to the 150 is a trick for me.  The seat isn't very far above the floor, so your legs are fairly flat when you are in it.  The front of the door frame is pretty close to the front of the seat, even though it was as far back as possible.  I had to make a couple of tries before I figured out how to get in, that little plane just wasn't intended for people like me. 

  My takeoff was alright, but the ol' 150 with its 100hp engine just doesn't have much climb performance, especially when at max gross weight like it was with me and Roy in it.  Durant has an elevation of 698', and Roy said to climb to 6,000' for the spins.  It took a while to get there, as the rate of climb wasn't much over 200 feet per minute, occasionally it reached 400 feet per minute when we went through an updraft.  I'll let you do the math on how long it took to climb to 6,000' at that rate.  I was wishing I've had some glider training, as I could have found some lift to help out that meager climb, but no luck on that.

  When we finally got close to 6,000' Roy started looking around the cockpit to make sure there were no loose items in there to cause problems for us.  Getting hit in the head with the towbar or wheel chocks probably wouldn't be a whole lot of fun.  At this point, I was getting fairly nervous with anticipation.  Roy went over the maneuver with me one more time before demonstrating one.  "This spin will be power-off (engine is at idle) and to the left.  So I'll start by doing a normal power-off stall, and just before the stall breaks (the nose drops)  with full back-elevator pressure and neutral ailerons,  I'll apply full left rudder.  Since the airplane will try to recover on its own if I let go of the controls, I'll maintain their position until I'm ready to recover.  Recovery will occur by making sure the throttle is at idle, neutral ailerons, full opposite rudder, and apply forward elevator pressure to break the stall.  When it stops spinning, I'll gradually apply back elevator pressure to return to level flight.  You have to do that gently, as the airspeed is increasing rapidly, and you can overstress the airframe or enter a secondary stall if you pull up to fast." 

  So then he does all of that.  The power off stall is entered by reducing the throttle to idle and gradually raising the nose to trade off airspeed to maintain altitude.  I grabbed on to the seat, I didn't know what this was going to feel like.  Just before the stall breaks, Roy pushed the left rudder pedal all the way forward.  This made the plane yaw (turn) and roll left.  It started kind of slow, but the rate increases rapidly.  You go from looking at nothing but sky to looking at nothing but ground extremely quickly.  As soon as you see the ground, it looks like you are pointed straight down (not far from that though) and it is a blur because the spin is pretty fast.  I think my mouth was wide open with my eyes about as big as pie plates at this point.  Even though we were pointed down and going down, I noticed that I was getting pushed into the seat pretty good.  The reason for that is that you basically follow a corkscrew path, with the top side of the airplane always pointing towards the center of the corkscrew.  After making about two turns, Roy recovered.  It stops spinning pretty fast, then airspeed starts increasing rapidly.  Due to the high airspeed, the engine RPM gets up to about 2,000 even though the throttle is at idle, max RPM is 2,700.  It was probably a good thing that the intercom wasn't picking up everything I said, because Roy would have heard me mutter a few choice words after that.  Oops.  I remeber feeling my heart beating pretty fast at this point also.  I think we recovered at around 5,000' so we lost about 1,000' in what felt like 10 seconds at the most during that two turn spin.

  After climbing back to 6,000,  Roy demonstrated a power-on stall to the right.  The only difference was that we were spinning the opposite direction, and the spin started off faster than power-off, and you have to make sure to pull the throttle to idle when the spin starts.  I was able to comprehend what I was seeing and feeling a litte better this time.

  He then had me climb back to 6,000 and do a power-off spin to the left.  I wasn't bothered by the maneuver as much since I was in control, instead of just along for the ride.  I couldn't tell how many turns I made, so I recovered when Roy said to.  The 150's controls are a lot lighter than a 172's, so I inadvertantly pulled up too fast during the dive recovery.  I climbed back to 6,000' and I performed a power-off spin to the right.  I didn't pull back too much on the dive recovery that time.  After climbind back to 6,000' yet again, I performed a power-on spin to the left.  By this time I started thinking spins aren't too bad after all.  Actually, I'm kind of interested in trying them again sometime. 

  For the landing, I reduced power a little too much, so I ended up getting a little low and slow on final.  I also let the airplane ballon back up a little bit before touchdown, so I'm thinking "this isn't going to be my best landing".  To my suprise, I touched down without even feeling it.  A fun flight followed by a smooth touchdown, it was a good flight!