Principles of Flight Practice Test

A spin describes a situation where the airplane stalls and begins rotating about its center of gravity, resulting in a descent that follows a corkscrew or spiral path while the aircraft yawes and rolls. The key is the combination of stall-induced rotation and gravity pulling the aircraft downward, which creates the spiraling descent around the CG as the airplane continues to rotate.

A spiral dive isn't the same because it focuses on a steep dive in a spiraling path with high airspeed, usually without the ongoing wing stall and autorotation that define a spin. A glide is simply a controlled descent with lift balancing weight and no sustained rotation about the vertical axis. Parabolic descent isn’t a standard aerodynamic term for this behavior. So the best fit for the described condition is a spin.