Where Stalls Occur

It seems weird, but is actually intuitive. Takeoff is the most vulnerable phase of flight. You are just barely flying. Slow, high AoA, high workload, close to obstacles, changing conditions. Entirely logical.
 
The closest I have come to an unplanned stall was during a go around as a student pilot. I botched a landing attempt and powered up to go around. Upset with myself about the botched landing attempt I retracted flaps; I hadn't yet understood the consequences of doing that. The plane lost lift. Instinctively I pulled back on the yoke when I saw the ground coming at me. My instructor was in the plane and saved us from a certain stall. I learned the drive to pull on the yoke is strong when the ground is coming towards the plane.
 
Dana said:
I'll disagree with you on that. During a touch and go, you should be retracting flaps and adjusting trim while you're rolling, before you go to full power. During a go-around, you typically apply full power first and then adjust trim and (slowly) retract the flaps.

When I learned to fly it was touch and goes from day one, and I see no problem with them, as long as the runway is long enough. That said, nowadays I almost never do one, because in a tailwheel airplane you have to be slowed way down to make the landing "complete". And in a tailwheel airplane, a landing has to be to a full stop to count for currency.
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Depends on what kind of landings you are doing. If you treat your normal landing as an aborted go around then you should already be configured for the Go Around. If you doing your normal landings as committed to land, like Short Field or modified Short Field then yes a go touch and go has more risk, but so does a go around, maybe even more because you likely rarely practice it..

My normal landings in a 172 are usually 10 degrees flaps and mostly power off. I will use more flaps if needed, they are a tool to be used as needed. A go around with 10 degree flaps is just full power and pitch for at least Vx speed. Carb Heat off if equipped, maybe a bit of trim, but likely not needed.
The 172 Manual (depending on model) show sthe difference between a 10 degree flap and 40 degree flap stall speed (touch down speed?) a 3 kts difference.
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Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
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brcase said:
If you treat your normal landing as an aborted go around then you should already be configured for the Go Around.
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brcase said:
My normal landings in a 172 are usually 10 degrees flaps and mostly power off.
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Not everyone flies a 172. Normal landings in Musketeers are at full flaps. Many planes require a configuration change during a go-around.
 
Half Fast said:
Not everyone flies a 172. Normal landings in Musketeers are at full flaps. Many planes require a configuration change during a go-around.
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Do I remember correctly that the Musketeer short field TO configuration is also full flaps?

But I agree each airplane is different and the procedures are different. But airplanes can configured to make touch and goes and go arounds easier and perhaps safer.

Brian
 
brcase said:
Do I remember correctly that the Musketeer short field TO configuration is also full flaps?
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No, 25 degrees according to my owner's manual. Full flaps are 35 degrees. When I've done go-arounds, I've found it's quite difficult to get the plane to climb with flaps full. Full throttle will arrest the descent, but to climb out it's necessary to reduce the flap setting. With the Johnson bar control, it takes a little care to take off one notch or two, feeling for the catch in the bar.
 
wanttaja said:
I ran this analysis several years back based on my homebuilt accident database. Been looking at writing a follow-up to my article on common myths regarding General Aviation accidents, so I ran the same analysis on a 5,700-accident database I have of accidents involving Standard category airplanes.
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First, I gotta say how helpful your analysis is. Thanks for doing this kind of stuff.

Base to final spins may be the founding myth of aviation. TBH it never made much sense to me. When the nose is pointed downhill, the airplane wants to fly.

I would tense up when I turned, concerned I was going to fall victim to this monster. But when I play around at altitude, you really have to grossly over control the aircraft. In my aircraft it takes full and abrupt inputs, like flying a snap roll. I could never figure out how so many pilots were making that mistake. Turns out they weren't.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
First, I gotta say how helpful your analysis is. Thanks for doing this kind of stuff.

Base to final spins may be the founding myth of aviation. TBH it never made much sense to me. When the nose is pointed downhill, the airplane wants to fly.

I would tense up when I turned, concerned I was going to fall victim to this monster. But when I play around at altitude, you really have to grossly over control the aircraft. In my aircraft it takes full and abrupt inputs, like flying a snap roll. I could never figure out how so many pilots were making that mistake. Turns out they weren't.
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During CFI trainig, I had to do a few cross-controlled stalls in the Arrow (Arrow III with the tapered wing). I was really surprised at how much rudder it took - practically full travel.
 
Great data Ron, I'm wondering the correlation between high powered airplanes and low powered aircraft against maybe a mid range power aircraft on the go around incidents. I suspect the Cirrus's, Bo's and other higher powered aircraft might have a higher incident rate than maybe a 180 Cherokee or a 172, just because the higher power is less forgiving of weak or non-existent control inputs on power application, where it is critical to be on top of it. A low power airplane may not fair well if the pilot forgets things like flaps and falling behind the power curve. It would be interesting to see.
 
PaulS said:
Great data Ron, I'm wondering the correlation between high powered airplanes and low powered aircraft against maybe a mid range power aircraft on the go around incidents. I suspect the Cirrus's, Bo's and other higher powered aircraft might have a higher incident rate than maybe a 180 Cherokee or a 172, just because the higher power is less forgiving of weak or non-existent control inputs on power application, where it is critical to be on top of it. A low power airplane may not fair well if the pilot forgets things like flaps and falling behind the power curve. It would be interesting to see.
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I don't have a very wide range of aircraft types in my production-aircraft accident database...just added them in the past when I needed numbers to compare the results of the homebuilt analyses. Looking at EAB statistics is my primary interest; just found that I had enough "Production" aircraft accidents (~5,800) to make a crack at it.

Here's what I do have:
Cessna 172Piper PA-28CirrusBeech 35Cessna 150
Total Accidents in Ron's Database3195556231305505
Stall*-Related Accidents160262321
Takeoff20.0%31%4.3%28.6%15.2%
Initial Climb22.5%19%13.0%14.3%33.3%
Away from Airport9.4%8%17.4%9.5%12.1%
Pattern Entry0.0%0%0.0%0.0%0.0%
Downwind0.0%0%0.0%0.0%3.0%
Base0.0%0%17.4%9.5%0.0%
Final5.0%4%8.7%0.0%6.1%
Go-Around27.5%23%34.8%28.6%24.2%
Landing15.6%15%4.3%9.5%6.1%
Stalls* as Percentage of total Accidents5.01%4.68%9.96%6.89%6.53%
* Not including post-engine-failure stalls

"Cirrus" is all Cirrus recips, "PA-28" runs through the PA-28-181.

Ron Wanttaja
 
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