Need some advice for new pilot in training

A cautionary note...don't fall into the trap of thinking that stalls have to
be done "right." After all, we never want to stall in real life. What you
are being exposed to is stall recognition, so you will know what to do if
you enter a stall inadvertently. Concentrate on how the controls feel, how
effective they are, and any buffeting of the elevator...that knowledge is
more important than doing the stall "right."

Bob Gardner

"Christopher Parker" wrote in message
...
I am having a similar issue with the stall training and I have seen my
instructor perform the same technique you mentioned with the power on
stall,
but he has not explained how he achieves it. Now I know how he does it,
but
I still have a question. How do you prevent excessive gain in altitude if
you do not pitch high?



"cjcampbell" wrote in message
oups.com...

Bubba wrote:
Hello everyone,

I'm sure you probably read at least 50 "newbie" messages a week and I
apologize in advance for this one. But as the subject reads, I'm a new
pilot in training. I've only been flying for about a month now, but I
only fly once a week, so really, I've only been up four times now. I
feel comfortable with my instructor and confident in his knowledge and
experience, but I have to admit, learning to fly is much more difficult
than it sounds/looks.

So far, I feel confident in my ability to pre-flight the aircraft, taxi
on the taxi-ways, and take offs. I feel pretty good about those three
things. In other words, I can get myself in the air and establish a
steady altitude and fly (which I really enjoy). However, my instructor
is now showing me "stalls." These scare the living hell out of me!!
We've done power-off stalls for two sessions now and I know what they
feel like and can recover from them ok, but I really, really don't like
these.

Also, last session, my instructor introduced me to landings. Now, my
log book only has about four hours of flight time in it, so you can
only
imagine how this went. I'm really surprised the Skyhawks landing gear
held up to my abuse. Plus, for my first attempt, I was trying to land
with an unbelievable cross-wind. The wind was blowing from right to
left and from what I can tell, my instructor had the right rudder pedal
pressed all the way down. Again, this was scary as hell. I'm still
amazed we didn't crash.

So I guess my question would be this: Can any of you guys offer some
advice on how to get through stall training and landings because right
now my confidence is shot.

Thanks in advance,
Terry

Stalls: do them until they are fun. :-) Actually, you are not the first
student who did not like stalls. Check over on rec.aviation.student and
you will find that out real quick. In fact, you will want to sign up
over there because this is just the beginning of questions that you
will have that the folks over there will help with.

Okay, you are uncomfortable with stalls at first. I didn't like them,
either. Most people don't. One way I help my students to become more
comfortable with them is I make the students hold on the yoke by the
center stem only. This keeps the student from turning the yoke and
banking the plane. Then, instead of recovering immediately, I have the
student just hold the airplane in a stall and keep the nose straight
and the wings level using rudder only. Do this with power off stalls
only, of course. I make a game out of it: how long can you keep the
wing from dipping? Pretty soon the student realizes that the airplane
is not going to do anything that he doesn't allow it to do.

Power on stalls are pretty easy to recover from. Most students pitch
too high and get too abrupt a recovery. As long as your airspeed keeps
coming back you will eventually stall. Once you do stall, just relax
the back pressure a little; too many people think they have to push the
yoke forward. You don't, just relax a little and the nose will come
down enough to break the stall. You will find that you can move in and
out of a power on stall just bobbing the nose up and down a little. Try
to see how little movement you can do it with.

Now, you might think that messing around like this you might get into a
spin. Well, what of it? You have your instructor along and he is
supposed to know how to recover from mistakes like that. Even so, it is
unlikely because what I have you doing is just hovering on the edge of
a stall. Hanging on to the center of the yoke is also going to keep you
from making inappropriate aileron inputs.

Usually when a student is having trouble with landing he has not
prepared well enough with slow flight and ground reference maneuvers.
Granted, the student begins landing almost from the first lesson, but
serious study of landings should begin only after the basic work has
been mastered. I usually hold off on landing practice until just before
solo, but that is still about half the pre-solo work you have to do --
crosswind landings, recovering from landing errors, no-flap landings,
etc.

Look for these common errors: not looking far enough down the runway,
pulling up the nose too soon ("fear of runway"), and poor airspeed
control. Never practice more than three landings in a row before having
your instructor demonstrate another one. It helps to keep from
developing bad landing habits.

Don't worry about the Skyhawk's landing gear. For certification they
drop the plane from something like 20 feet and if the gear doesn't
break, it passes. I can almost guarantee that you will hurt yourself
before you hurt the gear, with the exception of the nose gear. If you
must make a bad landing, at least don't drop it on the nose gear. It
just is not built to take it. Neither is the propeller, engine, or
firewall, all of which can be easily damaged by landing on the nose
gear. So don't do it.

"Christopher Parker" wrote in message
...
I am having a similar issue with the stall training and I have seen my
instructor perform the same technique you mentioned with the power on
stall,
but he has not explained how he achieves it. Now I know how he does it,
but
I still have a question. How do you prevent excessive gain in altitude if
you do not pitch high?

Unusually high nose attitudes in power on stalls are almost always the
result of an improper set up for doing the stall. This involves excessive
energy (airspeed) that has to be bled off, especially in airplanes with
fairly powerful engines.
There's no need for an excessively high nose attitude when doing a power on
stall.
Try slowing the airplane first by throttling on back while rotating in
pitch, right on down to normal climb speed, then continue to rotate in pitch
while applying climb power to a normal climb attitude . From there simply
continue to increase pitch smoothly on into critical angle of attack where
the stall will occur.
Dudley Henriques

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
k.net...

Unusually high nose attitudes in power on stalls are almost always the
result of an improper set up for doing the stall. This involves excessive
energy (airspeed) that has to be bled off, especially in airplanes with
fairly powerful engines.
There's no need for an excessively high nose attitude when doing a power
on stall.
Try slowing the airplane first by throttling on back while rotating in
pitch, right on down to normal climb speed, then continue to rotate in
pitch while applying climb power to a normal climb attitude . From there
simply continue to increase pitch smoothly on into critical angle of
attack where the stall will occur.
Dudley Henriques


How true...

After my first couple of attempts, my instructor (semi jokingly) admonished
me for attempting to perform a loop.

Jay B

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:9Ajlf.20$6N2.14@fed1read06...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
k.net...

Unusually high nose attitudes in power on stalls are almost always the
result of an improper set up for doing the stall. This involves excessive
energy (airspeed) that has to be bled off, especially in airplanes with
fairly powerful engines.
There's no need for an excessively high nose attitude when doing a power
on stall.
Try slowing the airplane first by throttling on back while rotating in
pitch, right on down to normal climb speed, then continue to rotate in
pitch while applying climb power to a normal climb attitude . From there
simply continue to increase pitch smoothly on into critical angle of
attack where the stall will occur.
Dudley Henriques


How true...

After my first couple of attempts, my instructor (semi jokingly)
admonished me for attempting to perform a loop.

I saw Richard Petty try this at Telladega once, but the fence got in the
way and spoiled it for him.
:-)
D

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
.net...

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:9Ajlf.20$6N2.14@fed1read06...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
k.net...

Unusually high nose attitudes in power on stalls are almost always the
result of an improper set up for doing the stall. This involves
excessive energy (airspeed) that has to be bled off, especially in
airplanes with fairly powerful engines.
There's no need for an excessively high nose attitude when doing a power
on stall.
Try slowing the airplane first by throttling on back while rotating in
pitch, right on down to normal climb speed, then continue to rotate in
pitch while applying climb power to a normal climb attitude . From there
simply continue to increase pitch smoothly on into critical angle of
attack where the stall will occur.
Dudley Henriques


How true...

After my first couple of attempts, my instructor (semi jokingly)
admonished me for attempting to perform a loop.

I saw Richard Petty try this at Telladega once, but the fence got in the
way and spoiled it for him.
:-)
D

LOL. I'd have to declare most of NASCAR's car-obatics closer to "Lomcvaks"
(Sp?) than anything else...

Couple of guys have done some pretty good axial rolls and the occassional
'Very Low Inverted Pass."

Jay B

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:Kfqlf.78$6N2.66@fed1read06...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
.net...

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:9Ajlf.20$6N2.14@fed1read06...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
k.net...

Unusually high nose attitudes in power on stalls are almost always the
result of an improper set up for doing the stall. This involves
excessive energy (airspeed) that has to be bled off, especially in
airplanes with fairly powerful engines.
There's no need for an excessively high nose attitude when doing a
power on stall.
Try slowing the airplane first by throttling on back while rotating in
pitch, right on down to normal climb speed, then continue to rotate in
pitch while applying climb power to a normal climb attitude . From
there simply continue to increase pitch smoothly on into critical angle
of attack where the stall will occur.
Dudley Henriques


How true...

After my first couple of attempts, my instructor (semi jokingly)
admonished me for attempting to perform a loop.

I saw Richard Petty try this at Telladega once, but the fence got in the
way and spoiled it for him.
:-)
D

LOL. I'd have to declare most of NASCAR's car-obatics closer to
"Lomcvaks" (Sp?) than anything else...

Couple of guys have done some pretty good axial rolls and the occassional
'Very Low Inverted Pass."

Jay B

:-)
I had a sort of comedy routine I'd go through in the S2 Pitts while taxiing
out to enter a lesson with a student who was going to be doing his first
Lommy.
I'd describe it to him something like this on the intercom.
"Just give me a 45 degree up line with full power and let the airspeed drain
back to 80. Then give me full right rudder, full left aileron, and full
forward stick simultaneously. Shut your eyes cause it's gonna scare the
living s**t out of you, count 3 seconds and open 'um again. You'll have done
your first Lomcevak!!!
But don't go to sleep yet!!!!!!!
At second 4 we'll be learning all about inverted spin recovery".
:-)))
Dudley

"Jay Beckman" wrote

LOL. I'd have to declare most of NASCAR's car-obatics closer to
"Lomcvaks"
(Sp?) than anything else...

Couple of guys have done some pretty good axial rolls and the occassional
'Very Low Inverted Pass."

Yea, but they all bounced their landings! g
--
Jim in NC

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
.net...
I had a sort of comedy routine I'd go through in the S2 Pitts while
taxiing out to enter a lesson with a student who was going to be doing his
first Lommy.
I'd describe it to him something like this on the intercom.
"Just give me a 45 degree up line with full power and let the airspeed
drain back to 80. Then give me full right rudder, full left aileron, and
full forward stick simultaneously. Shut your eyes cause it's gonna scare
the living s**t out of you, count 3 seconds and open 'um again. You'll
have done your first Lomcevak!!!
But don't go to sleep yet!!!!!!!
At second 4 we'll be learning all about inverted spin recovery".
:-)))
Dudley

Ah, "Bonus Maneuver" !! Nice!

Jay B

"Morgans" wrote in message
news

"Jay Beckman" wrote

LOL. I'd have to declare most of NASCAR's car-obatics closer to
"Lomcvaks"
(Sp?) than anything else...

Couple of guys have done some pretty good axial rolls and the occassional
'Very Low Inverted Pass."

Yea, but they all bounced their landings! g
--
Jim in NC

Gives new meaning to the old saw about "Any landing you can walk away
from..."

Jay B

"Jay Beckman" wrote

Gives new meaning to the old saw about "Any landing you can walk away
from..."

Yeaah, but they were definitely not great landings, cause that equipment
will *never* be able to be used again! g
--
Jim in NC