I would say initiating a spin at "around" 2,500ft is risky to say the least.

Though it depends on the a/c. In my early training years we had to do spins and recover with not more than a 10deg deviation from the original heading.

From 5,000ft three rotations recovery at 500ft!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now it's all about incipient spins and not actual recovery.

Don't know about New Zealand but China looked pretty good! :lol: Actually I think we were a couple of hundred higher - we started out at around 2,300 feet but when I asked if we could some more spins we climbed slightly higher. So perhaps around 2,700 AGL I kicked in the rudder and off we went.

I would climb to 7,000 feet and initiate a spin. 5,000ft would be the lowest, never at 2,300ft (that's airshow altitude).

For FS9, there is a  freeware RealAir Cessna 172SP http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?FileName=ras172_fs9.zip

 

Their payware lancair legacy for FSX is a state of art, you can practice spins, sideslip, crab etc

As I said, I had never done it before so I had no idea what to expect regarding altitude and sensation. The pilot in the left seat certainly gave a very knowledgeable and trustworthy impression so I went with my gut feeling. Doing one spin at around 2,000 feet didn't feel like any fuzz - the airplane was very easy to control all the way and I felt I basically nailed it at my very first attempt. He also actually said "you are a natural" so filled with that confidence I said something like "If I want to do some more rotations in the spin, what altitude do we need to climb to - 3,000 feet?" He said Ok and around 2,700 feet it was deemed enough - I don't recall if I just levelled off there or if he told me to.

 

Having done the five or six rotations (by his calculation) I definitely thought we where waaaaay too close to the ground when I initiated the climb. The G-force was more powerful that anything I have ever felt before and I actually lost my headset. I wasn't frightened afterwards but I did realize that just a few seconds more in the dive and we wouldn't have come out of it. The marginal definitely wasn't there. He did help me with recovering from the dive by pulling the stick but he never said anything - just looked kinda amused.

 

Afterwards I just thought it had been FUN but I now believe it was unresponsible of him allowing me to do it from that low altitude. Would I do it again? Absolutely! But as you said, from much more generous height....

As I said, I had never done it before so I had no idea what to expect regarding altitude and sensation. The pilot in the left seat certainly gave a very knowledgeable and trustworthy impression so I went with my gut feeling. Doing one spin at around 2,000 feet didn't feel like any fuzz - the airplane was very easy to control all the way and I felt I basically nailed it at my very first attempt. He also actually said "you are a natural" so filled with that confidence I said something like "If I want to do some more rotations in the spin, what altitude do we need to climb to - 3,000 feet?" He said Ok and around 2,700 feet it was deemed enough - I don't recall if I just levelled off there or if he told me to.

 

Having done the five or six rotations (by his calculation) I definitely thought we where waaaaay too close to the ground when I initiated the climb. The G-force was more powerful that anything I have ever felt before and I actually lost my headset. I wasn't frightened afterwards but I did realize that just a few seconds more in the dive and we wouldn't have come out of it. The marginal definitely wasn't there. He did help me with recovering from the dive by pulling the stick but he never said anything - just looked kinda amused.

 

Afterwards I just thought it had been FUN but I now believe it was unresponsible of him allowing me to do it from that low altitude. Would I do it again? Absolutely! But as you said, from much more generous height....

 

What aircraft were you flying? I can't see doing spins at such a low altitude...

A Bulldog which was the main training airplane in Sweden during the sixties.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Aviation_Bulldog

I believe the ReaAir and A2A aircraft all spin acceptably, within the limitations of MSFS's FDE - bare in mind that A2A and RealAir use the core FDM in MSFS, although exploring it to the limits!

 

But, that video also shows a very week flight dynamics modeling aspect of MSFS - roll and yaw effects at high AoA.

 

When the Spit recovers from the spin, soon after the "pilot" starts a high power steep climb begining at a relatively low airspeed - observe that there is no hint of roll due to torque and yaw due to this and other prop effects. Since the author also shows another plan of the aircraft where the controls are visible, you can easily check that no rudder or aileron input was required when it was throttled up, and the turn coordinator/inclinometer agrees...

 

Pick this aircraft, or even A2A's p51d, approach for landing properly configured, and as you are about to touchdown, push the throttle briskly, in such a way that in RL their real counterparts, at least the P51d, would certainly spin head down due to torque at such high AoA/low speed... There is yaw and roll, but guys... nothing that come even close to what we should expect...

 

Try it in DCS's P51d, as well as those spins, stalls, etc...  Whow...

 

Honestly - forget about MSFS ( the same applying BTW to X-Plane, when you take your aircraft to extreme / post-stall situations... and even, sometimes, well behind stall... )

Downloading DCS right now!

A Bulldog which was the main training airplane in Sweden during the sixties.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Aviation_Bulldog

O.K. that explains a little of it but I still wouldn't spin at anything under 5,000ft.

Downloading DCS right now!

 

But the default free module is not the P51d :-/

 

You have to buy that one. For me, who really don't like military simulation, you can't imagine what use I end doing of this excellent air combat sim :-)

 

Most of the time I start it, do a few circuits / aerobatics, in the P51d, or helicopter flight in the UH-1H, and don't even know how to fire a weapon....