Power off stalls

Lead Sled

New Member
In the case of practicing power off stalls to simulate what you’d do if you stalled while flaring. I can’t completely get a grip on what this would be like in a “real” situation. I guess if you pulled back way too early and stalled there’d be room to recover, but what if the stall happened at the last instant? I’m very inexperienced but I would think that at that point you’d be so low that a stall would smack you nose hard on the runway, no time or altitude to recover.

If anyone’s bored out there I’d love to hear additional opinions to what I’ve already gathered. Thanks.
 
In the case of practicing power off stalls to simulate what you’d do if you stalled while flaring.

Not really intended to simulate a stall while flaring, but while approaching to land, maybe with someone trying to extend the glide with elevator, rather than using power.

A stall while flaring would be at a very low altitude and probably wouldn't be recoverable. I know that sounds bad, but not necessarily. Most of the time, that just means a firm landing. If you're too high off the ground, there could be some landing gear damage and maybe a tail strike.
 
I know a DPE who has flown every single production GA single engine aircraft ever made (back to the sixties) One comment he made to me was that the first thing he would do when flying a plane for the first time was to go up and stall it. It is smart to know what the stall characteristics are for the airplane you are flying!

SO why learn how to do a power off stall? Its about stall recognition, If you become familiar with how the airplane feels, sounds, and handles when approaching a stall, maybe you will recognize that when you are in the pattern getting slow and close to a stall and will recover from that situation BEFORE you actually stall! A stall in the pattern is a very bad thing.

Have your Instructor talk to you about stall/spin awareness, I’m sure you will see why it is important to learn! If your flight school does not do spin training, find someone in your area who does and go take a course on spin training!

As tgrayson said it is most often simulated as extending a glide with the elevator. Which is NOT how you do that, Right? Power is the answer there.
However, there have been many many people who have tried to extend a glide by pulling up! Especially in an engine out emergency. If you try to pull up with out power, the end result is you will go down...faster!
 
Its also good to simulate the infamous base to final stall, too.

The base to final (or the cross controlled stall) is something I NEVER performed until my CFI-A Training! It should be taught at private pilot level, but In many cases it's not. Because power on and power off are all that are needed!
I think primary instructors should teach all of the stalls, and the PPL applicant should be encouraged to get spin training!
 
I would think that at that point you’d be so low that a stall would smack you nose hard on the runway, no time or altitude to recover.
Initially, stall practice is mainly to get the feel of all flight controls during the landing flare. As you slow, the controls become less responsive and you ahve to input more movement, etc., so it's really about feeling the flare.

About the recovery: If you have the idea that you would smack your nose into the runway, you may be pushing your nose over too far for recovery.

I have noticed that some pilots are not trained to recover with a "Minimum loss of altitude". That's what it says in the PTS for stall recovery.

And, as you point out, you don't want to point your nose down into the runway if you do happen to have a high flare accompanied by a sudden wind gust that puts you at 30-50 feet in the air stalling.

You should be powering up as you lower the nose to about level - just enough down to 'break' the stall; recover with minimum nose down, and if you see it will still sink, you can still pull up at the last instant for a belly smack down, not a nose punch into the ground. Really, that's how you should do it. It takes a 'feel' for the elevator; to know when it is recoverd from the stall, but not accelerating more than 3-5 knots above stall. In other words, slow flight. Do slow flight, real slow flight, about 3-5 knots above stall. Ease it into and out of the stall. Get the feel of the flight controls, so that you can recover from the stall with little or no altitude loss.
 
The base to final (or the cross controlled stall) is something I NEVER performed until my CFI-A Training! It should be taught at private pilot level, but In many cases it's not. Because power on and power off are all that are needed!
I think primary instructors should teach all of the stalls, and the PPL applicant should be encouraged to get spin training!

haha. Cross controlled stall spin entry (while doing spin 'training') was how I was introduced to spin training. I have never been as scared in my life. Mannnnn......when you hit the jackpot with a perfect cross controlled stall, that is one of the most wicked things I believe you can experience in an aircraft. :)
 
haha. Cross controlled stall spin entry (while doing spin 'training') was how I was introduced to spin training. I have never been as scared in my life. Mannnnn......when you hit the jackpot with a perfect cross controlled stall, that is one of the most wicked things I believe you can experience in an aircraft. :)


Let's hope I never know what you're talking about:nana2:
 
haha. Cross controlled stall spin entry (while doing spin 'training') was how I was introduced to spin training. I have never been as scared in my life. Mannnnn......when you hit the jackpot with a perfect cross controlled stall, that is one of the most wicked things I believe you can experience in an aircraft. :)

I remember you were pretty scared on your first stalls when you were working on your private! :laff:
 
I remember you were pretty scared on your first stalls when you were working on your private! :laff:

I was scared doing stalls the first few times, I bet everyone was at least a little bit nervous for the first time. :)
 
Yeah, but in some cases, not any more nervous than for any other maneuver done the first time.

Well...mojo is right on about this. He did my first few lessons for PPL and I was quite nervous doing slow flight for the first few times. Then he demonstrated slow flight right into the first power-off stall that I ever did. Scared me so bad that I pretty much refused to do or let him do the maneuver for the next couple of lessons.

Trust me, that fear goes away when you learn that there is really nothing that you can get yourself into that your skill can't get you out of when doing maneuvers. I would say that about the 25 hour mark I was feeling quite confident that I could fly the plane and get it to do whatever I wanted it to do. So, then I decided that I would put the spin bug into my instructor's ear a couple of times and to be ready....because I just couldn't keep that ball centered on one particular day - (read...I wanted to get into a spin). So, I power-on stalled with the rudder kicked full to the left. We recovered from the spin and I knew that there was really nothing that I could do that I couldn't recover from. And, that was the breakthrough that opened up the learning flood gates for me.

What is being discussed here is overcoming fear. Once you can get yourself over that, then you I believe that you will be amazed at how easy all of the other stuff will come. That is, until you get into a multi and your engine keeps getting killed on you.

Mojo loves the left-handed hand shake, and drinking out of the water bottle hanging out by the side of the commode. Hell, I think he is in the conversion process of becoming a hindu. I need to come down and see you guys soon.
 
In the case of practicing power off stalls to simulate what you’d do if you stalled while flaring. I can’t completely get a grip on what this would be like in a “real” situation. I guess if you pulled back way too early and stalled there’d be room to recover, but what if the stall happened at the last instant? I’m very inexperienced but I would think that at that point you’d be so low that a stall would smack you nose hard on the runway, no time or altitude to recover.

If anyone’s bored out there I’d love to hear additional opinions to what I’ve already gathered. Thanks.

mojo's indian students do this all of the time. They will flare like 20 feet too high, stall it, and.....SMACK. :laff: Just watching the facial expressions of people pre-flighting a plane when this happens is priceless. Fortunately, other than popping a tire or two, I haven't observed 'visible' damage to the landing gear.

However, if you have been flying a 172 and then you switch to a Cherokee or something different, your site picture will look totally different and can really throw off your visual queues when you decide to flare. This adjustment is overcome by flying a few different types of airplanes.

Power-off stalls most notably will come into play by some dummy chopping power way to early and trying to extend a glide that way, simulated engine failures with the goal of turning quickly for the runway, or during the commercial maneuver of extending a glide to hit that perfect spot for a power-off 180. There is one simple trick to all of these. Keep a very close eye on your airspeed indicator. If start getting close to stall speed in clean or landing configuration and you know you are short, go full power and go around...try again.

If in real life you ever lose your engine and find yourself in similar circumstances to what is listed above, that is where the training simulations come into play. I think the moral of the story for teaching you a power-off stall and how to recover from it is to demonstrate exactly the feeling and events that occur leading up to the stall and how to recognize it....so that you DON'T stall the airplane. The real goal isn't to teach you that if you ever get into a stall like that, being that close to the ground, how to really recover. But then again, that is just my personal opinion and something that you will probably never find in any publication.
 
I appreciate all of that. I'm really starting to realize that the main thing I benefit from when doing a power off stall is to understand how the plane works in the landing configuration. I can have more confidence in slow flight and setting up for landings because I know what I have to do to keep everything safe and on track.

Would be pretty wild to yank back real hard after a long hold in ground effect right as the stall horn started to sound. But I'll just have to take your word for it. Ain't trying that one on purpose!
 
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