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Old April 30th 05, 01:44 PM
Jon Kraus
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I'll play along even though my most harrowing aviation faux paux is
nothing compared to that of others.

I was a brand new solo pilot in the practice area trying to run through
all the maneuvers. My least favorite being the dreaded departure stall.
"Oh well" I thought let's get this over with. I set up full throttle,
point the nose up and started losing airspeed. As I got the stall speed
I remember thinking "If I don't keep the ball centered I will have
problems" and as soon as that thought was complete in my head it
happened. The wing snapped over and my windscreen was full of the ground
below. I remember thinking "so this is how I am going to die huh.." I
was strangely calm and thinking clearly. I saw the airspeed in the
yellow and heading up. I grabbed the throttle and pulled it to idle. The
nose immediately "popped" up, I leveled the wings, gently brought the
nose to the horizon and flew away.

I told myself "well Jon that is enough practicing for one day" :-) and
I went back to my home airport. The thing that was interesting was that
there was no panic at all. If anything I was angry that I let myself get
into this situation.

I realize now that I was in a spiral dive and not a spin. To this day I
still don't care for departure stalls.

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201

Matt Barrow wrote:

snip

Along those line, anoyone got any good ghost stories? :~)



Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO



Matt Barrow wrote:


"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...


Sounds like the grace of God to me... Well placed bit of turbulence my
ass.... Somone was looking out for you...



Maybe...but I was over the eastern slope of the Rockies, so turbulence


is

rather common that time of day. Even at 10,500 I was only about 2000


feet

AGL when roused from my slumber.