Stalls seem less scary after doing lots of them (but not because I'm used to them)

Salty

Salty

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Ok, so I used to be very scared of stalls until I went out and did them over and over until I got over it. Then it suddenly got so "no big deal" that I honestly felt like I was "doing them wrong" because they just didn't seem to break like they used to, but everyone told me I just got used to them, they'd watch me and say, yep, you're stalling completely (I knew I was, but it just feels so different now)

Well, today I figured out what's really going on, and no, it's not that I "got used to it". Nor is it because I'm "doing them wrong" now. In fact, it's because I'm "doing them right" now. I was teaching someone how to do the stall, and I talked them through it first and said "don't push down to recover, just stop pulling back". Then I demonstrated those exact words. Wham! I got that nose drop that I remember from the old days. Turns out, the difference is that I've learned how to let the nose fall without just "letting go" of the stick and letting the nose drop straight down. Seems simple now it's so stupid. But now it finally makes sense to me why they seem so different and docile now. I'm actually flying the plane the whole time and not letting it do whatever it wants.
 
One of these days .... I will too (stop getting scared of stalls)
 
In the very light aircraft I learned to fly in and the light aircraft I have now when the airplane stalls I want to get that stick forward right now. When practicing stalls at 3K or better there's lots of time to release the back pressure and roll the power on but that reaction might not be proper at low altitude in the traffic pattern. Learn to get the stick forward immediately to get the airplane flying. Make yourself get light in the seat so that when the engine quits on take-off there is no hesitation about what to do. Get that stick forward!
 
Daleandee said:
In the very light aircraft I learned to fly in and the light aircraft I have now when the airplane stalls I want to get that stick forward right now. When practicing stalls at 3K or better there's lots of time to release the back pressure and roll the power on but that reaction might not be proper at low altitude in the traffic pattern. Learn to get the stick forward immediately to get the airplane flying. Make yourself get light in the seat so that when the engine quits on take-off there is no hesitation about what to do. Get that stick forward!
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Of course that’s the message of stall training. But that’s not what I, nor most students are doing. It’s closer to “letting go” than moving the stick forward. I feel less fear when I’m in control, I wasn’t before, I am now. That’s the point I’m making now.
 
Real world stalls that get people are usually long time events of getting slower and slower and controls getting mushier and mushier and then someone adds bank...

Completely different from how most instructors train them.

If introduced as the former type while just telling the prospective pilot to try to maintain altitude without enough power to do so, most people end up a lot less afraid of the behavior of the aircraft and more afraid of themselves getting complacent with the airspeed.

They learn they can keep the aircraft upright with rudder and no violent wing drop or spin entry, while it descends at 2000 ft/min.

They’ve done it and the fear is removed.

But if all you’re ever shown is the high power high deck angle stalls prevalent in training...

If we set up the wrong examples we get what we have today, people afraid of stalls. All you really ha ve to do is close the throttle to idle, set up best glide, and then tell the candidate to hold altitude and fight wing drop with rudder.

Instant transition to the “falling leaf”.

Later add a turn both left and right and do them from slow flight with and without flaps and power. See how it changes things in all common configurations.

With power it’ll almost always want to roll left. Get that right foot on the floor. That’s it...

If you get the proper intro and time to play with it so you can integrate what you know about the aerodynamics as you play... doing them the “checkride way” is easy. You already know what the airplane is going to behave like.

When an instructor takes the proper time to work those up that way the candidate also has time to calibrate their butt, they can feel the descent starting, the buffets if any, and they also calibrate their ears... you can hear yourself getting slow in trainers or pretty much anything unpressurized, even with a fancy ANR headset on. Not recommended but you can learn to see the signs without a stall warning device.

Don’t the road a bit, not required of a Private candidate, but the instructor needs to demo an accelerated stall eventually. There’s no reason to make that demo overly violent either. Just talk through the stuff the candidate already knows...

“This time the angle of attack will increased more rapidly as I add lots more back pressure than needed here, and I can tell because I need more force on the controls than I should for this turn... and I have power set too low so I can’t hold altitude. We’ll get a more pronounced break and when we do, I need to relax this extra back pressure...”

Too many intros to stalls are some sort of exercise in horsing the airplane around unnaturally and in a way the candidate won’t be doing someday necessarily when they’re PIC and low airspeed sneaks up on them.

Better to sneak up on low airspeed on purpose and see how to hang out in that low speed regime a bit and learn what it’s like. IMHO anyway. Terrifying students with stall fear is stupid. Most trainers can fly with solid control even when significantly stalled because of washout and such. They don’t have to be used as a roller coaster.

(And yes, once people get over their concerns and timidity then they often DO try to turn them into roller coasters which is a different problem for the instructors... haha...)

Caveat: Don’t ignore stall warnings. If the howl of a horn is ignored and not acknowledged that’s a bad thing. It should be acknowledged and said out loud that intent is to CONTINUE into the slow realm.

Not just left to honk without anybody saying anything. Ever.

(Same thing with gear horns.)

Ease into the hot tub. :) Cannonballs can be saved for the aerobatic airplane. LOL.
 
In the small GA aircraft, like the Cherokee’s I used to show my students “the falling leaf” we would call it, who were afraid of stalls. Essentially, a power off stall while holding the yoke back continuous. I liked doing this because the airplane would buffet then recover on its own, all while holding back on the yoke.

It got the students to get over their fears because the airplane was stalling over and over again, it also taught them proper rudder control in the stall, and showed them the great Positive Dynamic Stability these airplanes have.
 
Salty said:
It’s closer to “letting go” than moving the stick forward. I feel less fear when I’m in control, I wasn’t before, I am now. That’s the point I’m making now.
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I totally understand what you are saying and I agree that stalls at altitude can certainly be done that way. It's fun to wing rock a Cherokee down a few thousand feet while picking up the wing with the rudder.

I was mainly referring to a light sport airplane (700 pounds gross) and a stall close to the ground. There isn't the luxury of time to ease off the stick and allow the airplane to gain enough momentum to fly. Some of these draggy ultralight type sport planes slow down real fast when the fan stops turning. If that happens on takeoff, when the startle effect engulfs you as your mouth fills up with cotton you had better be trained to not hesitate to get light in the seat and get the stick forward right now.
 
I am not a fan of the power on stall. The deck angle with my Bo is pretty extreme at full rental power. Usually the instructor will have me set the power lower first.
 
I was taught that the plane wants to fly, just get out of the way. Power off stall, plane nose drops, just release the yoke, power on, right rudder. I once pushed the yoke all the way down. Never do that again.
 
I hate doing stalls, mostly because if done wrong they can lead to spins. I've read tails of spins in my aircraft. They were somewhat harrowing.
 
I haven't been flying much lately but started getting out again. Yesterday i went up for some scenery and did some power on and off stalls, steep turns, etc. All non-events. After doing a few simulated engine outs, on takeoff climb I thought about how hard it seemed it would be to stall on takeoff flying straight. Then reading this reminded me when i was getting my complex endorsement, I was turning base to final with power at idle and my CFI said "how's that airspeed looking?". My response was "so that's how stalls in the pattern happen". I remembering him saying something like good job on connecting the dots but walk me through what happened so I can make sure you connected all of the dots correctly. the short version i became fixated on gear and prop which I had already taken care of and forgot some important stuff. I think he may have been purposely trying to distract me but, it was a while ago.
 
steingar said:
I hate doing stalls, mostly because if done wrong they can lead to spins. I've read tails of spins in my aircraft. They were somewhat harrowing.
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Doing some actual spins would take most of that fear away. It shows just how hard you have to work to get most things we fly to spin.

“Done wrong” makes it sound like it’s a simple mistake without much effort. In reality you have to push a foot all the way to the floor and hold it there in most typical singles that aren’t aerobatic or designed to be generally more unstable.

Not really a passive thing and you would have to be nearly clueless about airspeed and clues that it’s getting way too slow, or so distracted and unable to notice, to really get down where a solid rudder kick would start it AND miss the incipient portion where you can STILL stop it by simply letting go of all controls including not standing on one foot.

Generalized. But it’s just not that quick in most airplanes we all fly.

Mooney might be a touch quicker due to design to go fast economically. But it ain’t a Pitts or an Extra. :)

Someone missing the incipient roll is likely half asleep and wore a work boot on one foot and a tennis shoe on the other today. Haha.
 
Salty said:
Ok, so I used to be very scared of stalls until I went out and did them over and over until I got over it. Then it suddenly got so "no big deal" that I honestly felt like I was "doing them wrong" because they just didn't seem to break like they used to, but everyone told me I just got used to them, they'd watch me and say, yep, you're stalling completely (I knew I was, but it just feels so different now)

Well, today I figured out what's really going on, and no, it's not that I "got used to it". Nor is it because I'm "doing them wrong" now. In fact, it's because I'm "doing them right" now. I was teaching someone how to do the stall, and I talked them through it first and said "don't push down to recover, just stop pulling back". Then I demonstrated those exact words. Wham! I got that nose drop that I remember from the old days. Turns out, the difference is that I've learned how to let the nose fall without just "letting go" of the stick and letting the nose drop straight down. Seems simple now it's so stupid. But now it finally makes sense to me why they seem so different and docile now. I'm actually flying the plane the whole time and not letting it do whatever it wants.
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I started a thread a while back on this. As a student (have been grounded for a while now) when I first did power on and off was doing ok. Then later was doing power on and after the break was really low nose. I didn’t think I was letting go or pushing the yoke in, but I’m not sure. Tried a few times and every time the same.

So I’m interested in what you wrote here, but am unsure what that means. So, don’t “just stop pulling back” and don’t let loose, but... slightly in from where you stalled? Of course with feeling, but what does that equate to as far as the stick?
 
LongRoadBob said:
I started a thread a while back on this. As a student (have been grounded for a while now) when I first did power on and off was doing ok. Then later was doing power on and after the break was really low nose. I didn’t think I was letting go or pushing the yoke in, but I’m not sure. Tried a few times and every time the same.

So I’m interested in what you wrote here, but am unsure what that means. So, don’t “just stop pulling back” and don’t let loose, but... slightly in from where you stalled? Of course with feeling, but what does that equate to as far as the stick?
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I think you have to do enough to figure it out for yourself. You need to get the nose down, and NOW, but just as you can feel the buffet of a stall coming on, you can feel when you move back out of it as well. You learn to tell how the air is flowing by the sound and feel of the plane. So you let the nose down, but your not letting go, or slamming it forward, you move it forward smoothly Until the stall stops and you are picking up speed. You have to pull back pretty hard to stall most planes, you just stop pulling back so hard. You don’t want to create a secondary stall, but it’s more about lowering the nose “enough”, than where the stick is. You’re VFR, look outside and listen to the air.
 
I remember my first, and so far, only spin. I was taking a lesson in a Citabria, 7ECA, and my instructor had me hold the stick all the way back, and step on left rudder. We stalled and spun (the ground looked just like Kirschner's picture of it during a stall), and as I remember recovery was a non-event. Just relax the stick and take my foot off the rudder.

I remember being very uncomfortable with high deck angles before stalling in both the Citabria, and the C-172. And, I had a lot of problems getting the departure stall correct. Mostly taking to much time feeding in opposite rudder.
 
steingar said:
I hate doing stalls, mostly because if done wrong they can lead to spins. I've read tails of spins in my aircraft. They were somewhat harrowing.
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How long have you been flying, and do you feel no motivation to gain more confidence here?
 
I scared the crap out of my instructor the first time I did a stall. A bit of background, in a hang glider, you can get close to a stall when thermalling. In the worst case, you fly out of the thermal and for a time, your nose is in sink, tail in lift. That's called "going over the falls". When that happens, you need to stuff the control bar to your waist. That's the same as full forward stick/yoke. Fast forward to first stall in the 172, get the stall horn, buffet and finally the nose drops. I push full forward on the yoke fast and hard. Nose is pointed straight down. Pull out and notice my instructor is white as a sheet. On the other hand, I'm kind of "this was fun, can we do another?"
 
^ not gonna lie, I’ve done that before.
 
Hang 4 said:
I push full forward on the yoke fast and hard. Nose is pointed straight down. Pull out and notice my instructor is white as a sheet. On the other hand, I'm kind of "this was fun, can we do another?"
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CFIs like that are the reason licensed pilots are scared of stalls.
 
RoscoeT said:
CFIs like that are the reason licensed pilots are scared of stalls.
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Actually, he was a good instructor - and I might have exaggerated his reaction a bit.. He did have a student get close to a spin the same day, so he was a bit on edge..
 
Hang 4 said:
He did have a student get close to a spin the same day, so he was a bit on edge..
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That shouldn't make any CFI edgy either, unless it happened on base to final!
 
It's unfortunate people, even CFIs, are so uncomfortable with stalls. It' just another flight regime. I like to take a plane up high and explore how it behaves in all situations... deliberately sloppy wingovers, uncoordinated stalls, falling leaf stalls, and yes! spins if the airplane is approved for it. Pilots should know what those situations feel and look like so they aren't freaked out when it happens, but more importantly, recognize what is happening so they can respond appropriately and instinctively.
 
RoscoeT said:
How long have you been flying, and do you feel no motivation to gain more confidence here?
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I've been flying long enough to know better, possibly longer than you. Actually, I should amend that. I don't mind doing normal stalls in my aircraft at all. I don't routinely practice them because I keep my speeds up in the pattern. The idea isn't to practice recovery, but awareness. The problem is the most likely place to get into a stall is in the landing pattern. If you do odds are you won't recover before you hit the deck. I get really paranoid when I'm at low altitude and low energy.

What really gives me the willies is cross control stalls. Like I said, spin recovery in my aircraft can get more than a little hairy. Blowing a cross control stall recovery is a good way to get into a spin. I'll do them, but I want some serious altitude beneath me should I blow it.
 
steingar said:
What really gives me the willies is cross control stalls. Like I said, spin recovery in my aircraft can get more than a little hairy. Blowing a cross control stall recovery is a good way to get into a spin. I'll do them, but I want some serious altitude beneath me should I blow it.
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OK, but if you had decent spin experience you'd know that you don't just go instantly from a cross-controlled stall to a developed spin. Developed spin recoveries are different from incipient spins in lots of airplanes. You have to sit there like a frozen log in most airplanes holding the inputs through the incipient phase in order to get to the fully developed phase. I still maintain the fear of stall/spinning causes apprehension among pilots which causes them to fly worse and with less confidence and knowledge than those who have been trained to get comfortable with the full envelope including spins. There's no excuse for licensed pilots to be uncomfortable practicing power on or off stalls.
 
RoscoeT said:
OK, but if you had decent spin experience you'd know that you don't just go instantly from a cross-controlled stall to a developed spin. Developed spin recoveries are different from incipient spins in lots of airplanes. You have to sit there like a frozen log in most airplanes holding the inputs through the incipient phase in order to get to the fully developed phase. I still maintain the fear of stall/spinning causes apprehension among pilots which causes them to fly worse and with less confidence and knowledge than those who have been trained to get comfortable with the full envelope including spins. There's no excuse for licensed pilots to be uncomfortable practicing power on or off stalls.
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Roscoe, I am afraid we have a difference of opinion. I don't think practicing stalls is in any way important. I think staying out of them is, which is an entirely different issue.
 
steingar said:
Roscoe, I am afraid we have a difference of opinion. I don't think practicing stalls is in any way important. I think staying out of them is, which is an entirely different issue.
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Yes we differ. It's not about "practicing" stalls and spins, it's about being confident and skillful and in full control and knowing your airplane when it really matters. Never understood why pilots would want to limit their skill and comfort level.
 
RoscoeT said:
Yes we differ. It's not about "practicing" stalls and spins, it's about being confident and skillful and in full control and knowing your airplane when it really matters. Never understood why pilots would want to limit their skill and comfort level.
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I think one can be very confident and skillful in energy management and aerodynamic control of one's aircraft without rote practice of stall behavior. But that's just me.
 
steingar said:
I think one can be very confident and skillful in energy management and aerodynamic control of one's aircraft without rote practice of stall behavior. But that's just me.
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You still miss the point. It's not "rote practice". You admitted you don't like stalls because if screwed up they can enter a spin. Well maybe that's true if you're unskilled, hamfisted, and white knuckled. That's not something a pilot in full command of their aircraft would say, but I'll never be a passenger of yours, so I'm not personally affected.
 
The fact of the matter is when stall spin kills you is close to ground, I am not sure any amount of stall recovery practice is going to save your bacon at that close to the ground. Stall prevention and awareness of impending stall is much more important than the recovery itself, at least the way people are taught / normally practice. For example, power off stall, well when I am base to final, in most cases I am not power off, I am at 1700 RPM in a bank. That’s not how I was initially taught to stall. Since then I have done them in that flight regime, but that’s not the point.

I kind of agree with recent FAA decision to stall recognition vs rote recovery method. I do support doing full stalls to get to know how the aircraft would behave and even spin training, but the typical was that at least I was taught to stall didn’t make whole lot sense to me, it still doesn’t.
 
It’s really about stall recognition. And you should be able to do it without an ASI or a stall warning device. Airplane gives PLENTY of warning.
 
And here is our monthly edition of spin training vs stall awareness where those with high spin experience and proficiency feel it makes one a better pilot, and those without argue that stall recognition training alone makes one a complete pilot.
 
RoscoeT said:
And here is our monthly edition of spin training vs stall awareness where those with high spin experience and proficiency feel it makes one a better pilot, and those without argue that stall recognition training alone makes one a complete pilot.
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44752956.jpg
 
My current plan is to show students the falling leaf early on and to also get them into the habit of if something is going wrong in non-aerobatic situations it is usually a good idea to get the nose down and level the wings. Make it a habit.

Also works well in gliders when the tow line or winch cable breaks.
 
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