Thermal right, land left

In article ,
John wrote:
If we assume we all fly well (either direction), and we all understand
the importance of controlling airspeed during landing, why is the
number one pilot error that is causing injury the stall/spin while
turning to land?

A) Because stall/spins at altitude aren't as often fatal

B) Because a huge portion of the time flying, pulling back on
the stick gives an instantaneous zoom up. This is even true
of airline pilots. Because the aircraft is flown so often on the
front side of the curve, despite knowing and training that
pulling back on the stick doesn't always make the aircraft go
up, seeing it happen that way the last bijillion times
you did it is sometimes psychologically compelling.

I'd be willing to bet that the ratio of stall/spin fatalities to
other causes is very different depending on the recency and
number of stalls the pilot has performed. I'd bet CFIs
who regularly instruct these things have a much lower
ratio while acting as PIC in normal solo flight than other
pilots.

The airlines seem to know this and that's why they love
those simulators. On the bad side, some of the airlines
sim check pilots don't force the plane into a stall that the pilot must
recover from, and I suspect that some pilots who avoid stalls in
the sim may not see them for a long time, and may not
recover correctly when they unexpectedly occur.

I think some recency in stall practice is really important.
Of course I also stopped my prop and dove for air-restart
yesterday to stay current in that too...

Nothing like recent practice to remind one of the hazards...




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Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA