Practicing stalls in a twin at night...

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psalm91

New Member
Hey guys,

I'm trying to finish up one of my ratings, and my syllabus has me doing three night flights (according to part 141) but intertwined with the required touch and go's are steep turns and stalls. I don't have a problem with steeps turns, even at night, but I'm worried about the stalls. Our practice areas are out over the water (about 1 mile off shore), and stalls in a twin are dangerous enough without having the additional issues of reduced spatial orientation introduced into the mix - if you accidentally get into a spin, you're pretty much limited to your T&B coordinator to recover (since you'd be pointing down at the water), which is the eqivalent of trying to recover from a spin in a cloud...not good. Am I wrong to think that this is a dangerous practice, or am I just making too much of it?

Any suggestions on how to ease my apprehension about this?
 
you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. after doing hundreds of stalls in twins (seminole, seneca, and baron) not once did I ever feel like a spin was even close to happening.

just don't slam the rudder when you stall, and you'll be OK :)
 
Yeah, not a big deal, maybe just don't go to that practice area if you feel like the water will screw you up. Stay over land or right along the shore so you have city lights to use as a reference.

Oh yeah, and if you are way out over water with no references at all, log it as actual!
 
Usually when practicing stalls in a twin (particularly a Seminole), I don't go to a full stall, but recover at first indication of an impending stall.

Neil
 
How else are you supposed to learn how to recover from a stall at night? There's no way to train for it other than going out and doing it.

As far as the safety of it, I don't think it's a big deal. The plane will fly the same in the dark as it will in the light. It's safe to stall a twin during the day and I don't see how it would be any different at night.
 
Ok, so I've never flown a twin before, but when I did my night work I was freaked out that I was supposed do be doing stall at night when I hadn't done a stall during the daytime in months!

Turns out it was no big deal at all. Same as usual, and actually a lot better than the ones I remember doing before.













However, I did have an instructor with me, which may have made me feel less nervous, but it's not like he was going to touch the controls or anything.
 
jrh said:
It's safe to stall a twin during the day and I don't see how it would be any different at night.
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Did you read his post? . He's saying that the stalls will be practiced over water, and perhaps with no outside visual references, THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE!!
 
WestIndian425 said:
Usually when practicing stalls in a twin (particularly a Seminole), I don't go to a full stall, but recover at first indication of an impending stall.

Neil
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That depends on the rating you are practicing for. Private Multi and you need to take it to the break, commercial and I believe only the buffet is required and then the ATP rating just wants you to take it to the horn I believe.
 
My private we just took it to the buffet (not the all you can eat kind) it was still a few degrees of pitch and about 5 knots from actually stallling when i got the "recover"

what does that have to do with doing a stall at night over water? I guess nothing, sorry.
 
I have never stalled a twin yet, but wouldn't this be similar to doing stalls under the hood? Use the instruments as yor guide. I think that would be fine. I could be wrong though.
 
Timbuff10 said:
That depends on the rating you are practicing for. Private Multi and you need to take it to the break, commercial and I believe only the buffet is required and then the ATP rating just wants you to take it to the horn I believe.
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I don't know about the private or ATP PTS, but the commercial PTS states "recognizes and recovers promptly as the stall occurs..."

I suppose this is left open to interpretation, but during my training (private and commercial), I remember being taught to recover at the first indication of a stall while flying a twin.
 
Do not spin a twin if you do you'll probably be killed. Twins are not approved for spins. Do not assume you can recover from one. Practicing stalls at night in VFR conditions with visual references would be safe. But without visual references over water at night would be risky in my opinion.
 
Keep it with visual references, and you should be alright. Like everyone else has said, it depends on the rating you're going for. PPL to the break, Comm to the buffet and ATP to the horn. Although I know an examiner that has you recover twins at the horn even for the commercial. I think he had a bad experience or three. If you're not comfortable, just recover at the horn at night. You probably won't be taking your checkride at night anyway. :)

On a side note, I did teach a PPL student stalls at night per the King 141 syllabus. Give ya two guesses what happened..... Needless to say, I don't so night stalls in singles anymore.
 
kellwolf said:
......
On a side note, I did teach a PPL student stalls at night per the King 141 syllabus. Give ya two guesses what happened..... Needless to say, I don't so night stalls in singles anymore.
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Spin to the left????

Spin to the right????
 
WAFlyBoy said:
I don't know about the private or ATP PTS, but the commercial PTS states "recognizes and recovers promptly as the stall occurs..."

I suppose this is left open to interpretation, but during my training (private and commercial), I remember being taught to recover at the first indication of a stall while flying a twin.
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Ok, just looked it up because I wasn't sure. The key is the part where it says "recognizes and recovers promptly AFTER the stall occurs..." This is in the PTS for single and multi private rides. On the commercial they replace the word "after" with "as".

Like you said, it can be open to interpretation but the way I see it, and the way the DE I used saw it, was to just take it to the buffet since aerodynamically speaking that is the beggining of the stall as the eddys start building up.

I was also told by another DE that since I was the one on the controls I would be the first one to know if the stall is approaching and I should recover when I feel the stall, not when he starts to notice it.

I like doing stalls, they always get the heart rate up a bit more than other maneuvers... No matter how many times you do it, it just doesn't feel natural.

Anyone ever had a student freeze up or pull the wrong way on the yoke during the recovery... Had that happen the other day, sucked for me!
 
Timbuff10 said:
Anyone ever had a student freeze up or pull the wrong way on the yoke during the recovery... Had that happen the other day, sucked for me!
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Yep. Started spinning to the left during a power on stall. The student applied full right aileron, started screaming "AHHHHH!!!!" and practically tried to climb into my lap--which meant he was stepping on full left rudder. Oh, and he left it at full power, too.

I yelled at him enough that he pulled the power to idle by about the second or third turn. Then he actually let off the rudder and neutralized the yoke after about the sixth turn. Good times!
 
I guess I didn't instruct long enough.

Everyone else seems to have a cool death defying inverted flat spin story that their student put them into, except me. The only spins I got into as a CFI were intentional.
 
EatSleepFly said:
The only spins I got into as a CFI were intentional.
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Same here so far. Only spin I have seen was the ones during CFI training.

My student was coordinated when he froze up. We just did a little more falling than flying for a few seconds was all.

"That's not flying, that's falling with style"
 
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