Very good question. Very little is discussed in the R/C literature about spins, and I find most of my R/C friends know little about spins. I'm no expert of spins, but I did some spin training in full scale through an Emergency Maneuvers Training. There we learned spins mainly to get out of them or better yet avoid them. I'm sure there are lots of guy out there (mainly the fighter pilots and acrobatic pilots) who know a lot more than I do.

A good source for reading about it is in full scale training manuals. That's where I learned my stuff, but it can get quite technical. To get into a spin, as Lou W says, you must stall the plane, so you need to know what a stall is and how to avoid or recover from a stall. When rudder is applied during a stall, the plane yaws and thus one wing stalls before the other and the plane flips over and begins to descend spinning. If the stall is maintained with back elevator, the air speed remains low and the stall continues and the spinning continues.

To get out of a spin remember PARE - P= power- off A= ailerons - neutral R= rudder opposite the direction of the spin (abruptly deflect it opposite the spin to stop the rotation) and E= elevator - foreward elevator to break the stall Once the stall is broken, the plane will be pointed in a steep dive so all you have to do is allow the airspeed to increase a moment and then pull out of the dive. This is what I leaned with full scale and I practice it with my models to keep me current (I don't have a full scale acrobatic plane). What I find with models that they usually are difficult to stall with power on (they are so overpowered) and that it takes very little rudder to stop the rotation. That's why some modelers say neutralizing the controls stops the spin process.

I hope this is of help to you.

Roodester