Stalls??

Because I was older than most of the instructors around Boeing Field (got my
CFI at age 40), the older pilots seemed to gravitate to me for recurrency
and BFR's. Pilots I taught, of whatever age, were no problem...it was
(usually) airplane owners, older almost by definition, who were skittish
about getting too slow and wouldn't even try. No signoffs for them, of
course, but there were lots of other CFIs on the field.

Bob

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrote in message
...
Bob Gardner wrote:

I have dropped long-time friends like the proverbial hot potato when they
refused to explore the low end of the envelope for fear of
stalling....and these were licensed pilots, not students. You can't teach
someone whose mind is made up.


Is this really the case? I'm 45 and got my PPL in '79. Most of the other
pilots I fly with today are either a little older than I am or in most
cases WAY older than I am. I just don't have a lot of experience flying
with pilots that were trained after I was. An even though I was trained in
'79 the training I received would have been right at home in the early to
mid 60's.

My one recent experience was with a young CFI when I was getting a BFR and
this kid was scared of stalls. Hell, he damn near made me scared of them.

"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in message
...
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



I love slow flight...and fast flight...and steep turns...and going around...

My feeling is that folks who are wary of flying slow never really practiced it early in their piloting careers. Flight
training really does instill a fear of the dreaded stall/spin accident, so folks don't want to even get close to it. I
think folks should go up and fly right right on the ragged edge, turning and playing power up and down, until they are
comfortable with the handling of the plane. Takes a lot of leg work (read rudder!) to do successfully, and many are too
lazy to really work at it...

On Feb 13, 2:53*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

For me I was only ever uncomfortable with power on because of the
sudden drop out. It was simply an uncomfortable sensation and then
when I learned about uncoordinated flight and the potential for spins
I got even more nervous about it.

I practiced it till I stopped being nervous -- and stopped over
controlling pitch down. It would have been better to have asked my
instructor to have me do some spin recoveries. Got to make up for that
this spring.

Come to think of it, I need to go practice stalls.

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?


Think about a stall in a typical light trainer. The controls get mushy, the
nose is usually unnaturally high and the stall horn typically rises in both
volume and pitch the closer you get. It's not by accident that horror film
soundtracks do essentially the same thing. Then there's the fear that the thing
will get away from you and snap into some sort of unrecoverable regime.

I think it's quite natural to be afraid of stalls. Now, how to change that?

Do them... lots of them. Remove the unusualness of the stall from your
experience bank. Make them commonplace. Then not only do you stop fearing
them, you come to easily recognize the way aircraft behave as they approach the
stall.

With this I think you have to include a bit of spin recovery training. If you
know that the worst the stall can do is put you into a ho-hum spin, easy to
recover, then what's left to worry about?

As an aside, I prefer the old stall warning light over the horn. I can
effectively ignore it so that I can more properly concentrate on how the
aircraft feels. YMMV.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

On Feb 13, 8:37*pm, "Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com
wrote:

With this I think you have to include a bit of spin recovery training. *If you
know that the worst the stall can do is put you into a ho-hum spin, easy to
recover, then what's left to worry about?

I've given up even thinking about spinning students anymore. There
just aren't that many of the ancient planes that are actually
certified for spins anymore. I can't think of the last time I flew a
plane where spins were legal. Even the new 182, that looks like it
would spin great, is prohibited.

-Robert

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:53:53 -0800 (PST), Ol Shy & Bashful wrote:

Why is it so many pilots are afraid of stalls?

Because stall sounds like death nell.

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?

I think you answered your own question.

I think.
--
Remove numbers for gmail and for God's sake it ain't "gee" either!

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?

For me, there's no question that it's related to my lingering fear of
heights... even after 21 years of flying. I'll do stalls with no
problems when I'm doing my BFR... I even did spin training when I was a
student, but I can't get passed the sensation that the aircraft is
hardly moving forward. It makes me accutely aware of how high in the
air I am. Having said that, it's never caused much of a problem. I'm
probably the best lander at our airport. I regularly slip all the way
to the ground. I think I'm a fairly precise flyer. I did well on my
Instrument rating. I did well when I did my taildragger transition (in
a Luscombe). I know how to fly the aircraft with precision in the
pattern and avoid a stall close to the ground. I don't think there has
to be a correlation between comfort doing stalls, and being a good pilot.

--- Jay

--

Jay Masino "Home is where My critters are"
http://www.JayMasino.com
http://www.OceanCityAirport.com
http://www.oc-Adolfos.com

(Jay Masino) wrote in
:

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?

For me, there's no question that it's related to my lingering fear of
heights... even after 21 years of flying. I'll do stalls with no
problems when I'm doing my BFR... I even did spin training when I was
a student, but I can't get passed the sensation that the aircraft is
hardly moving forward. It makes me accutely aware of how high in the
air I am. Having said that, it's never caused much of a problem.
I'm probably the best lander at our airport. I regularly slip all the
way to the ground. I think I'm a fairly precise flyer. I did well on
my Instrument rating. I did well when I did my taildragger
transition (in a Luscombe). I know how to fly the aircraft with
precision in the pattern and avoid a stall close to the ground. I
don't think there has to be a correlation between comfort doing
stalls, and being a good pilot.

If you're flying a Luscombe and afraid of stalls, please stop flying it.
Far too many have been wrecked already.


Bertie

Here again I am appalled at the comments. Disclosu Old, old ex-pilot -
learned to fly in the '40's.

Did no one ever hear of walking the rudders down? It's a coordination
exercise. Power on, you pull the nose up to about 60 degrees from horizontal
and walk the rudders all the way down, preventing the plane from falling off
to eithor side. After years of flying, I still did 'em just to test my own
reaction times. When learning, it was also great practice in spin recovery,
too.

Man, am I outdated! A 40 hour freshly licensed pilot with a fear of stalls
was unknown in my day.

"birdog" wrote in
:

Here again I am appalled at the comments. Disclosu Old, old
ex-pilot - learned to fly in the '40's.

Did no one ever hear of walking the rudders down? It's a coordination
exercise. Power on, you pull the nose up to about 60 degrees from
horizontal and walk the rudders all the way down, preventing the plane
from falling off to eithor side. After years of flying, I still did
'em just to test my own reaction times. When learning, it was also
great practice in spin recovery, too.

Man, am I outdated! A 40 hour freshly licensed pilot with a fear of
stalls was unknown in my day.


Yep. also called a falling leaf. I taugth them as did the guys I learned
from .


Bertie