Flight Training - March/April 2020 - 36

ave you ever met a student pilot who
loved stalls? Me neither.
Love stalls or hate them-and many students do
hate them-stall recovery is a critical part of flight
training. Pilots must learn to maneuver an airplane
safely at low airspeeds and at high angles of attack.
It's what we do whenever we take off and land. We
need to be able to recognize the onset of a stall and
learn how to prevent a loss of control close to the
ground.
Stalls and stall recovery take up a lot of real
estate in student pilots' minds. First, there's the
word itself: stall. Most of us learn to drive a car
before we learn to fly an airplane. When learning to
drive, a stall refers to an engine stoppage.
Pilots quickly learn that in flying, a stall isn't
related to the engine at all. It refers to the separation of air over the wing, which causes the wing to
stop flying. That doesn't sound so scary. Has the
wing stopped flying? Do what you must to get it
flying again.
But remember, the law of primacy suggests that
the side of an issue presented first will have greater
effectiveness in persuasion than the side presented
subsequently. So, your rational brain may be saying
"no big deal," but your insides may clench as you
lapse into car-driver mode and associate "stall" with
"engine stoppage"-which, in an airplane, can be a
very big deal.
Some students come into flight training tense
about stalls simply from having read about them,
learning that an aerodynamic stall can develop into
a spin. And for others, it happens when they start
learning the process of stall recovery in the airplane.
"Maybe it's because it's one of the first maneuvers
we teach and students are barely comfortable with
straight and level flight, let alone unusual attitudes,"
said Sarina Larson, a Boise, Idaho-based flight
instructor and airline pilot. That's plausible, particularly when learning how to recover from a power-on
stall: At full power, the aircraft seems to hang in the

Normally in flight, air flows smoothly over most of the top surface
of the wing. As the angle of attack increases, however, the separation of airflow moves toward the leading edge. Once an airfoil
surpasses its critical angle of attack-which is constant regardless of airspeed, attitude, or aircraft weight (see "Nothing But a
Number," p. 56)-the wing does not produce enough lift to fly,
and stalls. Keep in mind that angle of attack is the airfoil's angle
in relation to the relative wind, not necessarily with the horizon.
Level, 1-G stalls will familiarize you with how the wings behave at
high angles of attack and how to respond, but unintentional stalls
are rare in level flight. Think "angle of attack" and not "airspeed"
and you'll be better prepared to guard against unintentional stalls
in maneuvering flight.

36 FLIGHT TRAINING MARCH/APRIL 2020

You want to replace an instinctive
reaction-oh, no, the nose is
falling, I must pull back on the
yoke-with the correct, trained
response-I must push forward to
lower the angle of attack.

Flight Training - March/April 2020

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