Stalls

Stalls... Potentially one of the scariest parts of flying but also one of the most practiced maneuvers a pilot can perform. A stall is when a planes wings no longer produce lift and the plane begins falling towards the earth. This may seem like a bad situation, and it could be but it is also able to be prevented and recovered from. 

Today we practiced powered and no power stalls and it was a very enlightening experience. At first I was a little nervous but, after my instructor taught me how to recover from a stall I was ready to take it head on. I decided we would start with no power stalls first seeing that we already were practicing slow flight and had flaps extended. A no power stall recreates the motions of landing and during the decent pulling back on the yoke to much that the plane is not moving forward enough to continue flying. I slowly pulled back on the yoke and watched as my speed decreased rapidly. As we were nearing the stall mark a horn sounded which tells the pilot that we were about to stall. In real world situations this is where you would take the hint and lower the nose enough that you would continue flying but, I was trying to break that barrier and purposefully stall the plane. I continued to pull back and finally we felt a shutter of the plane which is called a "buffet" and the plane started dropping. To recover I gave it full power and lowered the nose to the horizon. As the plane started to gain altitude and speed I raised the flaps one by one until we were smooth sailing... or flying rather.

After practicing this maneuver multiple times I was able to recover the plane with only losing 70-80 feet of altitude which is great for the first practice. 

Next we were going to practice Power on stalls which simulate a stall on takeoff. Similar to power off stalls but in a power on stall you already have full power which means you only have to lower the nose to the horizon to prevent the stall. I once again with full power pulled back on the yoke and watched as my airspeed dropped until once again I heard the horn. My instructor made sure to tell me that " in real world situations the horn is your symbol to lower the nose and prevent the stall" but, I again kept holding back until we felt a buffet and the plane stalled. I lowered the nose to the horizon keeping full power until I was no longer in a stall and began to gain altitude "normally" again.

One thing that surprised me in both stalls was the fact that the plane did not want to stall even though I was forcing it. By the end of stall practice my arms were tired from fighting the plane which is always a good thing. If the plane continues to want to fly then that's better for all of us. 

I was able to practice both stalls multiple times and by the end I felt very comfortable recovering from stalls in the case of an emergency. After practicing stalls we began steep turn which is whole new ball game. I will go over steep turns in my next post because I could talk about them all day.

Fly Safe

Chris E