On Feb 13, 12:53*pm, "Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote:
Why is it so many pilots are afraid of stalls? I see it over an over
when doing flight reviews and checks. Why are pilots so afraid of
flying in the low end of the speed envelope? Isn't that where the
nasty things can happen? Isn't that where a pilot should be
comfortable and competent?
What do you think?
Its a loaded? question and comes from a 24,000+ hour pilot and active
instructor. I'd really like to see some active discussion on this
subject. I'm tired of seeing aircraft damaged by sloppy flying, and
even more tired of seeing people injured by same.
Got any comments?
Ol S&B

As an instructor I approach the first stall with a student with some
caution just because I don't know the plane. I've had a few planes end
up with the blue side down (a Bonanza and a Mooney) in the stall.
These owners had not stalled their planes before. When i was a student
pilot in the Cessna 140 I also thought it odd that some people didn't
like stalls. That was because the C-140 doesn't really stall, it just
buffets along. However, you jump into something with a more
interesting stall characteristic and you can see why some students
don't like stalls.
I'm actually becoming a bit of an odd ball in the Mooney community
because I still do full stalls in the plane. Most of the other CFIs
only go to the first nose drop, not a full stall and when teaching at
the Mooney Pilot Prof. courses you are prohibited from doing full
stalls with students. There are a lot of 10,000+ hour Mooney
instructors that say you simply shouldn't be doing full stalls in
these types of planes.

-Robert, CFII