Capt Carl,

I agree with the others that your question is fairly open ended.

That said, if you are flying a fighter and it departs you initially try to recover from the departure. There are procedures you follow and put the flight contols where they should be to(hopefully) recover.

Departures vary greatly in severity and the ability to recover. Some are fairly slight and easily recoverable. Sometimes you enter post stall gyrations which are recoverable but increase recovery time (and altitude). Sometimes the departure is violent and yaw increases and then you enter a spin condition. Sometimes you can recover from the spin, sometimes you can't. Again, many, many variables go into it (altitude, entry speed, AOA, aircraft configuration, etc, etc).

You continue your recovery process and continue with your procedures until you a) recover or b) hit your minimum altitude and need to eject.

I flew tomcats (nutorious for spins and departures). In a fully developed flat spin the F-14 was not recoverable and our procedures stated to eject ("If in a fully developed flat spin with flat attitude, increasing yaw, increasing eyeball out g, and lack of pitch and roll rates -- eject"). A fully developed flat spin would subject the crew to lateral/negative g-forces from the "centrifuge effect" which would incapacitate the crew.

I also had plenty of departures in the Tomcat and recovered without it going into a spin.

The big thing to remember in the Tomcat was to "listen" to what the jet was telling you. When you were under high AOA conditions and you moved the stick or rudders somewhere to change direction, if the jet didn't respond it was "telling you" it didn't like where it was. Move the stick or rudders back to where they were or you'd be off on Mr Toad's wild ride in a heartbeat.

So, to answer your question: Both (as others have said)

Cheers,
ImTumbleweed

"Afterburner is a great substitute for poor headwork"