Stall talk

We know that conventional stall recovery requires lowering the nose, and we do this handily during practice. Such stalls, however, are performed at altitude where stall recovery is merely an academic exercise. We obviously do not practice them at low altitude, so it is difficult to appreciate what it would be like to sense the terrain rushing up to meet us. When a pilot experiences an inadvertent low-altitude stall, he tends to ignore his training and revert to a fatal instinct. Instead of releasing back-pressure on the control wheel, he worsens the situation by pulling back in a counterproductive effort to arrest the descent.

Each of us can accurately describe how to recover from a stall, but can we execute that recovery with equal aplomb when near the ground? A most challenging demand is exercising the will needed to lower the nose at a time when a further loss of altitude can barely be tolerated. Such a recovery requires extraordinary discipline and is why an inadvertent, low-altitude stall often results in bent metal and a cloud of dust.

One misconception contributing to this problem is the way we regard elevator usage. A student is instructed from lesson one to use the control wheel to raise the nose or lower it. He is told to pull the nose up and push it down. Such terminology instills and reinforces the belief that elevators are always used in this manner to make an airplane go up and down. Although this is an accurate perception during normal flight, it obviously is inapplicable during stall recovery. This may be why a pilot might revert to pulling on the control wheel during a stall near the ground. He tries to do what he has been taught: Pull the control wheel aft to make the airplane climb.

There are other times when pulling the control wheel aft does not raise the nose. Hauling back during a steep turn mostly increases turn rate. Doing the same during inverted flight pulls the nose down.

Perhaps we should discontinue referring to the control wheel as a nose-up, nose-down control. Perhaps we should heed the advice of Wolfgang Langewiesche, author of the classic book, Stick and Rudder. He wrote in 1944 that the elevators should be regarded as an angle-of-attack control. A pilot so taught might be less inclined to pull back on the control wheel at a time when he should do otherwise.

It is natural for instructors to use expressions such as “pull the nose up” and “push the nose down,” but these instill reactions that are counterproductive during stall recovery, especially at low altitude.

There is another misuse of terminology that possibly contributes to mismanaging stall recovery. These are the terms “high” and “low” angles of attack. Many instructors, flight manuals, and training videos say that stalls occur at high angles of attack.

Before learning to fly, I had never heard of angles described as being high or low. I was aware only of large angles and small. To me, the notion of high and low angles of attack is illogical and dangerous. It reinforces the misconception that a stall occurs only as the result of a nose-high attitude, and this misleading reference is supported by the unusual nose-high attitudes commonly used to teach and practice stalls.

Pilots should be trained to understand—and believe—that stalls can be induced with the aircraft in any attitude, especially when the nose is at or below the horizon. This requires being taught how to enter and recover from stalls that occur at relatively nose-low attitudes. As a matter of fact, there might be no need whatsoever to practice stalls resulting from genuinely nose-high attitudes, which can be alarming to some pilots. We rarely enter such stalls inadvertently. Exaggerated nose-high attitudes are such effective visual warnings of an impending stall that they almost preclude the possibility of an inadvertent stall.

The inadvertent stall responsible for so many accidents each year is typically entered with the nose relatively low and at an altitude from which the further loss of altitude would be apparent and frightening.

An effective way to practice stalls might be in a visual simulator that enables a student to perceive the ground rushing up toward the aircraft (complete with realistic sound effects in case of failure to recover). This can develop the discipline needed to resist pulling back on the wheel, particularly when “the ground arises to smite thee.”

BarrySchiff.com